https://www.whitehouse.gov/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

C’est magnifique, and as world leaders gather in Paris today we say merci mon Dieu for Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames.

Notre-Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) is the very spiritual soul of the French capital and said to house Christ’s crown of thorns.

As well as Quasimodo!

Of course, it is always a cause for celebration when God’s children raise themselves up.

After fire has razed their churches.

And so we will be rejoicing in Notre Dame’s grand reopening, nearly six years after an electrical fault caused it to burn.

And giving a thought to other great buildings that have been rebuilt from embers to stand ever taller than before.

The buildings that wouldn’t die

Put on a pedestal: Bandanaman, Martin Luther and the Frauenkirche

The Frauenkirche, Dresden, Germany: Now while Notre Dame and our other prized buildings were gutted by fate.

The pride of Dresden was flattened in war.

Before the good people of the Saxon city, the Florence of the Elbe, rebuilt their Renaissance city.\

Brick for brick, mural for mural as it was before it was firebombed.

Bosnia’s National Library, Sarajevo: The 19th-century National Library sits proudly on the Milijacka river.

And unbeknown to visitors its current iteration is less than 30 years old.

It had housed some two million books, old scripts, photos and transcripts before the Serbs bombed the heck out of it.

The 47th President of America: In Washington DC

The White House, Washington DC: And isn’t it apt that it was an Irish-American, James Hoban, who rebuilt the US presidential residence.

After their previous overlords had burned it down in the Second War of Independence in 1812.

In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars.

St Paul’s Cathedral, London: The highest-profile casualty of the Great Fire in London.

St Paul’s has in fact been in the wars itself over its 1,300-year history.

Burned four times before that 1666 tragedy, hit by lightning and the Blitzkrieg .

It has survived all of that to be the church of choice for British Royal family weddings.

Il Teatro La Fenice, Venice: And we’ll finish on a centrepiece of the city on the lagoon which literally means The Phoenix.

The opera house has been destroyed by fire three times, the last arson, before reopening in 2003.

Our prayers answered

So give up a prayer for all these and other great buildings.

As we mark Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames this weekend.

America, Caribbean, Countries, Europe, UK

I’m a copy Kate too around the world

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Everyone has their own altered reality of who they are so I admit it, I’m a copy Kate too around the world.

And aren’t we all, airbrushing here and pretending we’re somebody we’re not?

And so for this Irish-Scot, schooled in Classical Greece and Rome, with a tranche of Irish-American rellies I’ve channelled all their icons.

Now, far from wanting to come in and do a fixer’s job for the Windsors.

But I’ve always found that the best way of redressing a pile on is to send yourself up.

Altered images

And so if Kate Middleton put out a Picasso-type photo of herself and her sprogs then she could show that she can laugh at herself.

Now four score months and seven days ago (or thereabouts) I brought forth my Presidency.

See, there I am, writing an order in the White House in DC.

And, I was entitled to do so, having been given the authority by no less a figure than George Washington himself.

The new President of America: In Washington DC

Now, I’ve been photographed with many an American icon over the years.

Martin Luther King, Elvis Presley, Annie Oakley and more recently Donald Trump, although he probably met them all too.

Of course, I fought too in the American Civil War.

In fact much like the Universal Soldier of Donovan’s song or the Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil I was there for the major events in history.

My place in history and culture

With the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Archduchess Sophia in Sarajevo at the time of their assassination which triggered the First World War.

And spooky this, she too like Kate was of ‘common stock’

Then modern rock royalty in Cliff Richard in Portugal and R&B (that’ll be Rihanna and Bandanaman) in her native Barbados.

While I’ve skied with Olympic champions in Gelsenkirchen, won the Open Golf Championship in Portrush in the north of Ireland, run with the Pamplona bulls.

And danced with Judy Murray and sung with Natasha Bedingfield… you can make up your mind on those last two name drops.

Fake it till you make it

Now, there’s the old saying about fake it till you make it.

Now admitting it is the first step which is why I acknowledge I’m a copy Kate around the world.

Kate though has it the other way round down Kensington Palace way as she prefers to make it till she fakes it.

Countries, Ireland

The EPIC Irish

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We’ve all suffered the stereotypes, ‘the mean Scottish Jock’, the ‘mining Taff’ and well, the less said about Irish tropes… let’s hear it for the Epic Irish.

The award-winning EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin are fighting the good fight in redressing those prejudices.

And they’re starting with the myth of the ‘fighting Irish’.

Like this guy who jumped out at me from the side of a bus.

No, This Is Not Us, the slogan for their redress of the Irish stereotype.

Paddywhackery

You’ll have noticed too that this caricature professes his love for potatoes and looks a little worse for wear for the drink.

Now in truth I have met the CGI Paddy McFlaherty but more in the past.

Today’s Irishman, and woman, is as likely to be black, Asian or Eastern European than the farmer or Ginger Comely Maiden of De Valera’s day.

Just as your country is populated now and over the centuries by those who have the Celtic gene.

And although you’d expect me to say it you’re better for it.

But don’t just take my word for it (well, do).

But EPIC have given us a pantheon of great emigrees who have enriched foreign shores..

Pantheon of Irish

Plastic Paddys: EPIC redresses the balance

Patrick Greene, CEO and Museum Director of EPIC said of the campaign, ‘This is not us’ is a challenge for the world to assess their assumptions about the Irish.

‘And to evolve their perceptions beyond stereotypes.’

Voted Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction for the past three years, EPIC offers a fully interactive experience.

It brings Irish history to life and allows visitors to discover what it really means to be Irish.

‘This is not us’ is not the first time that EPIC has campaigned against stereotypical and clichéd depictions of the Irish.

In 2019, the museum offered free tickets to visitors who handed in their plastic St Patrick’s Day merchandise at the door.

Aileesh Carew, Director of Sales and Marketing, said: ‘We would like to invite people to come to EPIC for themselves and help us to set the record straight.

‘Come and learn more about Ireland’s history, the Irish people who left this island and the true impact that they had, and continue to have, on the world.’

The architects of Ireland

Long before ‘King’ Henry Shefflin the hurler, James Hoban was, or should have been, King of Kilkenny.

As the architect for the White House in Washington DC.

Ireland is well-known as the land of saints and scholars and poets and pip stars, artists and architects.

Like Peter Rice, of Dublin and Dundalk, who helped design and build Sydney Opera House and the Pompidou in Paris.

And who was known in the trade as ‘The James Joyce of structural engineering.’

Or Dame Katherine Lonsdale, of Newbridge, Co. Kildare who elucidated the structure of the diamond and after whom the lonsdaleite is named.

All deserve their place in the roll of honour of the Irish and global hall of fame.

When still some associate Ireland with Paddy McFlaherty.

The best way is to visit the Irish Emigration Museum and learn more about the EPIC Irish.