Swigging a bottle of lager before launching into his song and banging it down at the end before gargling a word of acknowledgement to me as I kept them lined up.
The Pogues’ oul rogue
Party time: The Pogues
Shane MacGowan was for so many of us Fiftysomething the soundtrack of our youth, the go-to artist and band to pogo to on the Union dancefloor.
And, of course, like all of the most treasured of artists, he is transgenerational.
And many will see it as poignant that he should pass over to the other side as Christmas festivities get into full swing.
But it was as the lead singer of the band which fused the most unlikely bedfellows of Irish trad music and punk for which he will go down in music history as a pioneer.
Son of the oul’ sod
Energy drink: Shane MacGowan
Of course, Shane was like me and millions, and this is where the link ends part of the great Diaspora, a son of a son (or daughter) of the sod.
Of those who had, like my Dear Old Mum and my Dad, whose own mum and his ancestors had taken the boat across to Britain.
Few because of the poor state of the economy back in the homeland could make a permanent move back to Ireland.
But they held the Irish culture, the politics, their nationalism, the song, the dance and the craic close to their hearts.
And pass it on to the new land they found themselves in which is why The Pogues became celebrated in London and across Britain.
From New York to the world
Fiesta time: The fun boys
Of course, it is poignant that Fairytale of New York should be the ultimate Pogues standard as the bond formed between Ireland and America grows stronger year by year.
And underlined by American President Joe Biden who made an emotional return to the land of his fathers last year.
The unruffled ruffian with the broken glass teeth and the gravelly voice has gone and a million jukeboxes will blast out his hits across Irish bars around the world.
Farewell Shane MacGowan, the last of the Irish Rovers.
As he joins Jimmy from Sally Maclennane ‘who took the road for heaven in the morning.’
And as British leader Rishi Sunak has a huffy and snubs Kyriakos Mitsotakis why won’t Britain give Greece her Marbles back?
Probably because Britain likes to keep what it finds.
Even if that finding involves chiselling Classical friezes away from the original and shipping it away from its Athenian home.
Hills and thrills: The Acropolis
So that you can show it off in a museum along with all the other treasures you’ve purloined from around the world.
Of course Britain isn’t alone in this, it’s just that it’s done more of it than anybody else.
Mitsotakis’s moan
Mona Sassy: And the Greeks share the tude
Now Mitsotakis made a drama out of a crisis when he lyrically expressed what the separation of the Marbles, the other half is in Athens looks like to the world.
That it was akin to ‘cutting the Mona Lisa in two’ and giving one half to a foreign museum.
Now in what is tantamount to art treason and outing myself as a philistine I would tender that I’d rather have my own Tobago mill pic.
British Museum’s stance
One we stole earlier: The British Museum
The Marbles though are a different story in aesthetics, history and longevity.
Now if you always thought those who watched the tenors had pokers up their ariases stuffed shirt then you’ve never got to Czech Rieu out at the opera.
Because Praguers, unlike ourselves in Britain or Ireland, put the music before the formality.
Instead of penguins you’re more likely to find yourself drinking next to dressed-down monks in the bar at the interval.
Our friends at the Institute for Culture Travel in Ireland get that too that too which is why they’ve brought opera to the masses.
Rieu knew
Gimme five: Andre Rieu
The Institute are offering André Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra in Prague on June 5 from €1,179pps including:
Return flight from Dublin, (taxes and transfers)
Four-nights in the Boutique Jalta Hotel with breakfast
Guided tour of Prague Castle Complex
Visit Lobkowicz Palace; featuring world-famous paintings by Bruegel, Canaletto, Velázquez and more; ceramics spanning five centuries and hand-annotated manuscripts by many of the world’s greatest composers, including Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Walking tour of Prague’s Old Town
Excursion to medieval town of Kutna Hora
Pre-performance dinner in hotel, with tea/coffee and glass of wine
An evening with André Rieu in concert (tickets – stalls downstairs)
Private transfers and local guide according to the programme
A night at the opera: In Prague
Or if you want to branch further afield then the Institute will take you to Lisbon to see Andre on October 30 from €1.389pps, with excursions and a Fado dinner show which my old pal Jose insists originated in Coimbra.
While they will also offer you Andre in Budapest too on November 7 from €1,2899pps.
Now, it’s always the performers and performances you don’t take up that you live to regret and Andrea Bocelli, an MSC cruise launch and a very overentitled freelancer in my gift spring to mind here.
Sometimes it’s best just to be selfish and I’m loath here then to tell you what I know.
Brilliant Bocelli
Home Andre: Bocelli
That the Institute have Andrea Bocelli in Warsaw on August 22 from €1,389pps includes:
Return flight from Dublin, taxes and transfers
4 nights in the 4* Polonia Palace hotel in Warsaw with breakfast
Welcome lunch (flight time depending)
Full day tour of Warsaw, lunch included with:
Entrance to F. Chopin Museum in Ostrogski Castle
Chopin music piano recital
Half day excursion to Wilanow Palace and Park
Full day excursion following Chopin’s footsteps: visit Zelazowa Wola (Chopin’s birthplace) and
Sanniki Palace, an open-air museum in Lowicz with lunch en-route at a local restaurant
3-course pre-concert dinner at the hotel
Ticket (Lower Ring A) for Andrea Bocelli concert on 24 August 2024 at PGE National Stadium
Free time for independent sightseeing
Private transfers and local guide according to the programme
So Czech Rieu out at the opera or tell them what Warsaw in Poland when Andrea Bocelli was singing to us.
Oscar, as we know don’t we, had rooms at the hotel around the corner from his marital home…
And his next abode would be less fancy, a cell in Reading Gaol.
It was all there in glorious colour as I descended the stairs for my breakfast.
And I flirted with being arrested too after arguing about the price of the food with the staff worried I’d do a runner.
Leading the way
Dali delights: Salvador
Now not all hotels have such history but clearly the more prestigious have and our friends at the The Leading Hotels of The Word’s have compiled the hotels with the best artwork ahead of art week next week.
The collection offers a variety of hotels which house numerous contemporary and traditional pieces including one with similar lineage, we assume. L’oscar in London.
While the Dolder Grand in Zurich is home to around 100 works of art by 90 renowned artists.
And Le Negresco in Nice has a collection of artwork spanning over five centuries.
Hôtel Swexan takes influences from Texas and Switzerland, whereas The Saxon stays true to its South African roots.
Dodder around the Dolder
Wall of fame: The Dolder Grand
Dolder Grand, Zurich: Around one hundred works of art by ninety celebrated artists are on display throughout the hotel with most accessible to all guests.
With others reserved for hotel guests on particular floors.
The diverse mix of artists includes Ferdinand Hodler, Urs Fischer and Max Bill.
While at the entrance to the ‘The Restaurant’ lies “Femmes métamorphosées – Les sept arts” by Salvador Dalí.
And “Le Monde” by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely, can be seen en route to the hotel spa.
L’Oscar goes to…
Wilde nights: At L’oscar London
L’Oscar, London: And that’s not the only connection with the effervescent spirit of Oscar Wilde vividly captured in the portraits that adorn the walls in this central London hotel.
While there is a prized picture here of Frank Cadogan Cowper and his “Venetian Ladies Listening to the Serenade”.
Equally enchanting is the original 1861 painting by Jules Joseph Lefebvre, “Diva Vittoria Colonna”, a work of art that radiates grace and timeless elegance.
Oil paintings of Virginia Woolf further enrich the ambiance with a sense of literary history.
It’s the story of Ireland, their story, written by those who were there and left it here for us in books, plays, films and the land.
With Paul Lynch and Paul Murray upholding the tradition of Irish storytelling with Booker prize nods, Fáilte Ireland have mapped out the nation’s literary landmarks.
And it is by visiting those places beloved and referenced in the literary giants’ works that we get inside their minds and see their souls.
Some that no matter how much inspection still take some untangling, but it’s still fun to try.
The Joyce of Dublin
Home James: The James Joyce Centre
James Joyce remains the most universally-acclaimed Irish writer and proudest promoter of Dublin of any of them.
Joyce sets the first chapter of Ulysses around the old Martello tower of Sandycove, half an hour from the city, where Joyce once lived.
Joyceans can climb the winding stairs of the James Joyce Tower and Museum and read letters, photographs, rare editions and personal possessions.
Before, of course, you head into Dublin and relive Leopold Bloom’s day.
And then check out the original manuscript of Ulysses and much more such as Samuel Beckett artefacts at the Museum of Literature Ireland.
Super Yeats
Poet WB Yeats, shares with Joyce and Beckett the accolade of a Nobel Prize for Literature and he has left his mark.
From Sandymount in leafy South Dublin to his beloved west coast.
The building named for him in Sligo where you can take in a permanent gallery.’
And the ‘Stand where he stood’ tours which combine poetry, drama, history and the landscape of Sligo.
The Tree of Life
Now our antecedent authors were so aware of their own genius that they literally carved their names into the country’s furniture.
And so the greats of the Irish Literary Revival at the start of the last century, Shaw, Synge, John, Hyde, Russell, Yeats, O’Casey and Lady Gregory.
Ulster says yes
Seamus Heaney too reached the pinnacle of the literary world as a Nobel Prize winner and the best place to feel his spirit is in his beloved Ulster.
Donegal is the same landscape that inspired Seamus Heaney.
And a stay in The Song House, previously The Poet’s House Teach na nAmhrán, will likely release the poetry in you.
Heaney’s fellow Ulsterman Patrick Kavanagh is hailed the island over and his statue on a bench by the Grand Canal in Dublin is a personal favourite spot.
But for Kavanagh fans there is more, much more than Raglan Road which you can discover.
The Kavanagh Trail follows Paddy’s footsteps down winding lanes and through his beloved back fields.
While a guided tour is available, booked in advance.
Peig it
Of course, for all the charms of Nobel Prize winners and the masters of the Irish Revival the one author every Irish schoolboy and schoolgirl knows is Peig Sayers.
Peig’s story of her life is a staple of the Irish school curricular and shorthand for everyone who has been through the system (take a bow my two) when they meet anywhere in the world.
Writers Wall in Dingle Town, Co. Kerry, pays tribute to authors from the Chorcha Dhuibhne Gaeltacht and Blasket Islands.
It features quotes from the famous Irish language writers of that region
While you can also take a detour to Listowel, ‘the Literary Capital of Ireland’ to visit Kerry Writers’ Museum.
So wherever you go in the island you can see the story of Ireland in its landmarks… and that’s what they wanted.
