Irish Folk: Exposure for the Uninitiated

Those who know me are probably aware of my long-running addiction to Irish Folk music. I really just can't get enough of it. I could listen to twenty different versions of the same song in a row and enjoy every second of it. There's something to be said of songs that can define and encourage a country through times of war and famine, and continue to impact listeners for many ages.

This post is meant to highlight, via YouTube, a nice - albeit small - sample of what I consider to be great Irish music. You may also be able to learn a bit, as I've included several links to information regarding the historical events and/or places some of these songs stemmed from.

The Foggy Dew

This version features Sinead O'Connor singing for The Chieftans on their 1995 album The Long Black Veil. The song itself is a chronicling of the Easter Uprise of 1916 and was intended to encourage the men of the time to fight for an Ireland free of English control. Though the attempts of this rebellion were unsuccessful at first, their efforts eventually led to the establishment of the Irish Republic in 1919.

Muirsheen Durkin

Luke Kelly and the Dubliners performed this traditional Irish folk tune on the Ed Sullivan show in 1968 (according to the video). From what I can tell, the actual meaning of the title "Muirsheen Durkin" is, for the most part, up in the air. However, what I've found most sites agree upon are the following points: 1) Pratie is just another word for potato. 2) Muirsheen is probably just another word for misses in some Celtic language.

The song itself is rather straight-forward as to its meaning. A fellow is fed up with the constant toiling in his life, so he heeds the grand news from America and plans to strike it rich.

Star of the County Down

Performed here by Orthodox Celts, an Irish/Celtic band from Belgrade, Serbia. This tune is the first person perspective of a man whose chance meeting with Rose McCann leaves him infatuated with her. The song continues on until at the end he basically says he'll do what it takes to make her his wife.

Rocky Road to Dublin

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem perform this tune, which is about a man's adventures from his home in Tuam to Liverpool in England. Judging from the lyrics, it seems he gets to Dublin but has his pack (bundle) stolen from him. From here, I'm not sure if he gets fed up with life in Dublin, if he's searching for the man who stole his pack, or just wishes to continue on his journey, but he jumps a ship to Liverpool. The song ends with the impression that the adventure is just beginning.

Black Velvet Band

Another performance by the Dubliners with Luke Kelly. This song is about a man who meets a woman, and as they're walking one night, the lady steals a gold watch from a man that passes by. She then places the watch in the author's hand. Obviously, the woman gets away with the crime, but the author gets tried and convicted. So he's sent off to Australia (more accurately Van Diemen's land, or Tasmania), which was the "penal colony" of Ireland and England in the 1800's.


So that's it for now. I hope these videos were enjoyable. If you're interested in more, there's a wealth of Irish Folk on YouTube. I'd suggest looking up some more Luke Kelly, as he's been proclaimed the greatest Irish Folk singer that has been or ever will be. He had a voice perfectly suited for the variety of themes that appeared in the music he sang.

Until next time, though, beware of them pretty colleens.

Three Months In

Many people know, but there are a lot more that don't. So, what better way to propagate great news than by posting it on the Internet, right?

Shana and I are having a baby!

As the title indicates, we're three months along. For those that wonder why the news has not been shared until now, well, we just wanted to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. We've been excited and hopeful the whole time, but things - though unfortunate - do happen. The "crucial" period has passed and we heard the baby's heartbeat (I recall 166 bpm, but Shana says it was in the 130's.) for the first time on Wednesday, June 20th. So, here I am bearing news of the greatest nature.

I was excited when we first decided to try, but since that first positive test I've grown more and more ecstatic with each passing day. At this rate, I'll have a perpetual smile on my face in a few weeks.

Undoubtedly, I'll be posting updates as noteworthy events arise. It feels good; being able to finally tell people.

Stomach Hurts

Can't sleep. Shana's asleep behind me, though. Tonight was good and relaxing, aside from the massive headache which was shortly followed by a massive pain in my stomach caused by excessive acetaminophen. I was able to alleviate that by cooking a nice dinner of steak, corn on the cob, and baked potato. I don't think I'll ever figure out just how long to leave the potato in the oven. Every time I've tried to make them, I think they're just right, and I end up having to put them in the microwave for about 2 minutes to soften them up. I can't figure out if I'm using the wrong temperature or not enough time. I've even looked this up at several sites online, and most agree that it's one hour at 350 degrees. I've varied both time and temperature and I get the same results every time. I have no idea. Input is welcome by anyone who may stumble upon this.
__________

Since I got my Nikon D50, I've been using the Nikon Picture Project software, and have been weary of changing to something else for fear of esoteric interfaces scaring me off. Also, a concern about lack of sufficient features comes into play as I depend on the program to organize, showcase, and mildly edit the photographs I've worked so hard to capture. After talking with Mr. Marlow about how I would transfer some of my wedding photos to him, he suggested I get Picasa to email them with ease. We ended up transferring via AOL IM, but by that point I had already downloaded and installed Picasa. After importing and reorganizing my library of photographs, I was able to toy around with the program's various features. As esoteric goes, Picasa is as intuitive as a program of this type can come. A far cry from what I was expecting. It features a simple, yet powerful, editing engine capable of everything my old Nikon program could do (minus the sharpening feature, but I prefer to do that in Photoshop anyway) and more. I played with some of the editing options on the same picture.
Now, I realize the picture and the edits aren't much, but I just threw it all together in less than 2 minutes, and the majority of that time was picking a picture to edit. Basically, I'm just amazed at how simple it is to perform great edits such as all the ones I threw at this one picture. First, I applied a graduated tint to even out the exposure between sky and ground. Then I added focal black and white to bring out color in only the shell and ground. Last, I threw in soft focus to blur the fore and background even more than they already were. Sure, it may be overkill on a decent image, but, like I said, it's just an example. Now that I look at it, I probably should've darkened the sky a bit more. Oh well.
__________

I'm still doing research on weather patterns and what-not. This is kind of a fun hobby. I'm starting slow. Everytime I go outside, I quiz myself on what kind of clouds I see. I name them to myself and try to figure out what the wind is doing by looking at the cloud shapes. Figuring out the wind is the hardest part so far, but it's fun to me. Hell, at this point, it's all just a big guessing game for me. I'd like to get to the point where I could do my own forecasting, though. It's amazingly simple to get yourself in a position to something like that. You just need to keep consistent notes about your observations, use data provided by the NWS (not THEIR forecasts, though. lawlcakes.) and any other data you might have at your disposal. Then, one day, it'll be possible for you to do your own forecasts based on experience and atmospheric data. I mean, I've kinda simplified what it takes, but that's the basic gist.
__________

Well, look what an upset stomach can do. It gave me a blog post, and magically cured itself.

Meandering

Started the night researching different aspects of weather formations, and forecasting. Ended up reading a lot about Esperanto and it's vocabulary.