Today I launched a sale of my new Irish paintings. It includes some that were exhibited in the Europa Hotel in Belfast earlier in the year.

In this group of paintings you’ll see scenes of Dublin, Kerry, Mayo, Donegal, and Cork, and some birds on wires.

They launch at prices up to 50% less than normal, and will revert to normal prices at the end of the sale.

There’s 21 paintings in total, all of which are Irish scenes, and many more paintings are planned to be added into the sale.

At the time of writing this post 11 paintings have sold. If you’d like to be among the first people notified the next time there’s a big sale - add your email address to my mailing list in the sidebar when you go look at my Irish paintings sale

Once upon a time Halloween in Ireland was a bit like this.

We did, and still do, what you call ‘trick-or-treating’ but we called ‘trick-or-treating’ something else (Though, with the increasing Americanisation of the holiday, we’re increasingly dropping our terms for yours).

Take my Halloween in Ireland Quiz for a flavour of a certain time.

And this is how you pronounce Samhain

Other articles on my recent 12 week, 2,000 mile, cycling tour of Ireland in Irish and international media can be found on my Painting Tour site.

Dozens of paintings were completed on site during the tour. Others were started and are currently being completed, and will be posted online with all the Painting Tour paintings when ready.

Approximately 3,000 photos were taken, about 1 for every kilometer cycled, and to date over 250 have been posted online. More are being posted daily and added to the main collection of Ireland Painting Tour photos.

Over the next 3 months, once several commissions are finished, concentration will be on new paintings of Ireland coming out of the tour, and made available in a large December sale.

New commissions are being taken for starting in January and February - with January being close to booked up already with commissions received. The best place to stay up on news of new paintings and sales is to join my mailing list (simply enter your email address in the sidebar box on my personal Bicyclistic blog), or follow me eolai on twitter

With painting at the forefront IrishKC will continue to occupy a low priority with just sporadic postings, especially as it needs some backend updating before it’s in a position again for regular posting of Irish events in Kansas City.

For the most part the stronger regular events are already more than adequately catered for on FaceBook or elsewhere online though it’s still somewhat of a surprise to me that there is no site that attempts to pull together and aggregate content relating to all Irish news in the city rather than what is simply in its own interest.

Gavin O’Sullivan, customer service team leader for the project responsible for the certificate, on behalf of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, asked me if I would share the Certificate of Irish Heritage website with you.

The certificate is available only to those who have an Irish ancestor and can provide required information about their ancestor and their Irish line of descent.

You may already have this information, or you may need to do some work in advance - for which help and guidance (online and by email or phone) is available from the project team.

The information and documents you submit will be checked and validated before your application is approved and your certificate shipped.

While a selection of design backgrounds are available - Emigrant Ship, West of Ireland, Celtic Knot - each Certificate shares the same fundamental design, which includes the Harp (the State emblem of Ireland), and a quote from Article 2 of the Constitution of Ireland.

The Certificates are signed on behalf of the Government of Ireland by the Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade.

The Certificate will be unique to you, showing your name and the names of up to 2 of your Ancestors who were born in Ireland. If you know their year and county of birth, this will be printed also on the Certificate.

The price of a standard Certificate is €40.00, plus delivery costs which are specific to each country - €15.00 to the US for an unframed certificate, and €22.50 for a framed certificate. The cost of a frame is an additional €60.00 plus delivery.

Visit the Certificate of Irish Heritage” website for full details on how to apply and information packs. It’s a very detailed website with genealogy resources and features.

People all over the 32 historic counties are volunteering to provide me with lodging in return for me doing a painting for them when they host me.

And people who aren’t in a position to host are commissioning me to cycle to a place of their choosing anywhere in Ireland in order to paint a scene for them - a limited service I’m offering for just €75. Already people from America, Australia, and England have commissioned paintings. There are only a few commission spots left.

The plan, the questions & answers, and the blog of the trip will all appear on my Painting Tour site.

When I lived in America I got very tired explaining to people who wanted literal translations that languages don’t work that way, to which the response was yeah, yeah, yeah, before embarrassingly inaccurate Irish would appear on websites, posters, t-shirts and signs. So I gave up.

click to enlarge

This t-shirt says:

Sea, Is Féidir and it means to be a translation of the Obama campaign slogan “Yes, We Can”.

And above that is an attempt to make Obama’s name seem Irish by, and I like this bit on an Irish language t-shirt, anglicizing it. If it was being Gaelicized it would be Ó Bama meaning literally ‘grandson/descendant of the non-existent Bama’. The O’Bama is what the English visitors did to Irish names because it they didn’t do those funny marks we put over vowels at certain times. I’ve seen genealogists write names beginning O’ on documents purporting to be in Irish (Gaelic) - you might want to question them when you see them do it.

A couple of things about “Yes, We Can” in Irish.

“We can” typically would be Is Féidir Linn - the ‘Linn’ bit being the first person plural which is absent from the t-shirt. Is Féidir without the ‘Linn’ means “It’s Possible”. Or it could be “We can” - if the ‘we’ is implied. If someone asked “Can we?” (think of it as ‘Is it possible for us [to do it]?) then the answer is Is Féidir (”It’s possible”) would therefore imply it’s possible for us, indeed, yes, it’s possible for us. Which is the same as “(yes,) we can”.

There is no literal translation for the word “Yes” in Irish. “Yes” is expressed through saying the positive form of a verb e.g. I do, It is, She understands, etc. As written here Sea (pronounced ’shah’) and sometime ’sea is a contraction of Is ea and is one of the 2 forms of how you say the verb “to be” in Irish, the one that expresses identification or classification - as opposed to the one that expresses a state or condition.

So all in all that means, who knows, but we do know that they mean it to be the equivalent of “Yes, We can” - just don’t go telling your friends it literally means that, because the chances are they’re not your friends.

Here is President Obama himself, due in Ireland tomorrow, saying those very words in Irish. Well, saying Is Féidir Linn

Courtesy of Colm Tobin, the man behind Langerland - which long-time IrishKC readers might remember.

Starting in the Irish Examiner on Friday, May 6, 2011.

The Global Sounds Music Festival was on Saturday in Colombia, Missouri and among the music acts performing was Kansas City’s very own The Elders.

Some of the musicians who performed at the festival included The Elders from Ireland, Stef Lang from Canada and DJ Rekha from India. The focus of the event was sustainability, social justice and awareness.

The Elders is a group based out of Kansas City. The band’s lead singer Ian Byrne said he formed the group because of the need for Irish music in Midwestern culture

The Elders from where? Who formed the group? Because of what?

Noting the lack of quotation marks in parts of the article I suspect something got lost somewhere in the translation.

Anyway, the Missouri Students Association sponsored event focused on sustainability, social justice and awareness, which are all good things so I’m in favour of them. Especially awareness.

Read the article in The Maneater

There were over 2,000 peeps at the site yesterday, following on from 1,800 the day before. However much I have failed the rest of the year, covering all things claiming to be Irish or Irish-related in the St Patrick’s Day season is impossible - so I don’t even remotely try.

Which makes the large numbers all the more gratifying. Thank you. For yesterday, and for the million. Pure and simple. Thank you.

I’m off to Belfast in a few minutes to exhibit my paintings there tomorrow. As such I won’t be pointing you at photos of the parade (300,000? Wow! Really?) or Browne’s etc., but I’ve already seen a good few myself and looks like you had a great time. Go on FaceBook, you ‘ll see a million. (Ha! A Million!)

For what it’s worth people here reckon the parade was the best Dublin St Patrick’s Day parade ever. Sounds like the idea of commisioning Roddy Doyle to write a story which could then be used as the theme for the parade was a ‘brilliant’ one. Download it for free from Roddy Doyle’s site - you and your kids will love it.

A million is also kind of a nice round number to go out on, now that I think of it…?

There’s also more St Patrick’s related stuff from today going back several years, in the St Patrick’s Day posts category.

Enjoy yourself, be careful, and maybe take a moment to think about emigration by those who would rather not. It takes mass emigration to create such a holiday, and sadly Ireland is currently investing heavily again in this holiday.

In about 1 hour IrishKC will pass one million views. Thank you all, or nearly all, for your visits these 5 years. On with ya now, enjoy yourself. I’ve pictures of Ireland to paint.

NOTE: Dear America, if you care, and you may not, in Ireland it’s Patrick or Paddy, never Patty or Pat.

BACKGROUND & FACTS on St Patrick & Irish Customs:
  • Irish Things I Never Heard Until Moving to America
  • Corned Beef & Cabbage, is it Irish?
  • A Sausage in Ireland is NOT called a Banger
  • Is it “craic” or “crack”?
  • Is Ireland Really Green, Potato-Eating, and Red-Haired?
  • St Patrick Was Not From Ireland? Big Deal
  • What the Irish Eat at Christmas
  • Miss-spelled Irish
  • St Patrick’s Day in Ireland in 2008
  • 22 Infrequently Asked Irish KC Questions
  • 31 More Infrequently Asked Irish Qurstions
  • 25 Things from an Irish View, about Kansas City
  • Inflatable Shamrock
  • Black Puddings
  • The Irish Panda

PREVIOUS YEARS on Irish KC:
   • St Patrick’s Day in KC 2009
   • St Patrick’s Day in KC 2008
   • St Patrick’s Day in KC 2007
   • St Patrick’s Day in KC 2006

Anyway, one that tickles me is the Cajun Corned Beef Sandwich on offer by Fat Fish Blue a restaurant not known for its Irish food.

It’s not all the restaurant are doing on their cultural mashup menu of course. And they have entertainment for you Patrick Lentz & Josh Greaves, an acoustic duo. Oh, and $3 Guinness which sounds rather appealing were I not in Dublin the home of Guinness right now.

Whenever we talk about corned beef and cabbage not being the celebrated meal in Ireland that it is in would-be Irish America (Bacon & cabbage is the nearest we typically have to a celebrated meal) somebody goes and digs up an article to show that corned beef is indeed Irish. Em, yes. We know. Corned beef is indeed Irish. It’s the significance and the meal with cabbage that we’re talking about. Or they tell us who cares - way! - as it’s all good fun, whilst lecturing us that clover is not shamrock and they’d never drink green beer.

If what makes up your culture isn’t important, then you don’t have a culture - you have a fiction, like science fiction. A make believe world bearing little relevance to anything other than, well you. But hey, knock yourself out.

Please don’t give us your two cents’ worth on the corned beef thing as we’ve covered this to death for so many years now - see this extensive post on corned beef and Irishness for example.

Anyway, I for one would really like to taste a cajun corned beef sandwich. I can’t, because I’m in Ireland - but you can if you go to Fat Fish Blue up there at Zona Rosa at 7260 NW 87th Street, Kansas City, Missouri. Their phone is (816) 759-3474

Celtic rock pioneer Tom Lenahan is debuting a new act on St. Patrick’s Day at O’Dowd’s Little Dublin in Kansas City’s Zona Rosa. If you’re worried about hearing the music on a day which is rather noisy inside the pubs, well, Tom plays the bagpipes.

One of America’s first and foremost Celtic rock artists, Lenahan has teamed up with prominent local musician Christa Kelly Scott to form Lenahan & Scott, a duo that combines impressive instrumental versatility with exceptional vocal talent to create a unique and exciting musical experience.

Performing on a small roomful of instruments, the pair play and sing their way through fiery instrumental sets, rollicking songs and beautiful ballads with equal ease and enthusiasm. The show includes traditional and contemporary music from all the Celtic nations as well as original tunes and songs by Christa and Tom.

Born in Chicago, Tom Lenahan founded The Clan, one of America’s first Celtic rock bands, in New York City in 1986. Eight years later, he started Lenahan, and proceeded to tour extensively in the U.S. and in Europe, releasing 5 albums along the way.

Tom is the winner of 6 ASCAP songwriter awards and performs on guitar, bagpipes, tin whistle, harmonica and various percussion instruments. (Find out more about Lenahan at www.celticrock.com - see, he got that domain name because he was playing Celtic rock before you heard of it.)

Originally from Texas, Christa Kelly Scott is a well-known Kansas City Irish vocalist, musician and composer who plays fiddle, mandolin, keyboards and guitar. She sang with the St. Louis Symphony for 4 years and toured the U.S. with The Spirit of St. Louis.

Christa formed and fronted her own Kansas City Irish band, Kelawen, in 2008, and has composed and published two books of Celtic music. She also teaches master fiddle workshops at Kansas City’s Irish Center in Union Station (formerly referred to as the Irish Museum & Cultural Center - IMCC) and at the KC Irish Festival in the fall.

Lenahan & Scott will be performing two shows at O’Dowd’s Little Dublin in Zona Rosa, from 2-4 pm and from 5-7 pm on Thursday, March 17, 2011 - St Patrick’s Day.

O’Dowd’s North
O’Dowd’s Little Dublin is located at 8600 NW Prairie View Road. You can find them online at www.odowdslittledublin.com, or phone 816-268-6333.

St Patrick’s Day 2011
There are more Irish and Celtic related events for St Patricks Day 2011 to be seen if you click that link.

You are in fact invited to drop by the Teahouse and Coffeepot anytime for a cup of Irish Breakfast tea and a scone.

Some of the items they’re featuring throughout March are:

   • Irish Soda Bread
   • Irish Cream Latte
   • Guinness Cake
   • Corned Beef & Cabbage Reuben Sandwich
   • Green Tea Cake

and, as you may have guessed…

   •Irish Breakfast Tea

Their Irish-themed Afternoon Tea includes finger sandwiches, cakes & pastries, scones with cream & jam, and a bottomless pot of tea (choose from our 100+ tea list). Three-course for $19, four-course for $25. Saturday & Sunday afternoons, 2-5 pm. Reservations are required at least a day in advance, please call 816-756-2868.

And that appetizing information comes to you courtesy of Keith & the Crew at the Teahouse & Coffeepot.

Hours: 8 am - 6 pm, seven-days-a-week.

Location
   4309 Jefferson St.
   KCMO 64111

Phone: 816-756-2868

Online: www.TeahouseKC.com