Spent much of Friday and some of Saturday at Dublin, Ohio's "Irishfest", a festival that lasts three days because Irish wakes and medieval feast "days” usually lasted that long. Who am I to dishonor the ancient wisdom that deems three days the right amount of time to celebrate? I'll head back today for more fiddle-playing.
We heard a wonderfully eclectic batch of bands Friday. Stark Raven began at the stroke of 5pm, while the sun still ruled the sky. By 7 we were listening to a band straight off the boat, five youngish players who looked so Irish you could put them in a movie. Their clothes and mannerisms and facial structures all gave them away long before their accents. The girl singer looked so pluperfectly Irish, at least Irish of a particular variety – mousy, nervous, famine-Irish sort with eyes that mourned even when she smiled. By eight we were listening to a wonderfully-voiced 70+ year old Irish singer who apparently was a hit on the Arthur Godfrey show back in the 50s. My grandmother listened to her records and so we went to listen out of nostalgia. She was a live wire, telling jokes, making audience members in back move forward and having people finish lines from big band music-era hits.
But the real show didn’t begin until 9pm with the Hooligans. Bone escaped from the noose long enough to join me. All before was loss, like earthly life before the New Jerusalem. They played their usual set of greatest hits, one song topping the other in an orgy of adrenalin-producing standards. By the end, their litany of “God Bless Ireland” and “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” was nearly unbearable for its intensity! I could not sing loud enough or disperse the adrenalin that coursed thru my veins. No wonder wars are fought on alcohol and battle hymns.
Two working-class elderly gents kept looking back at us and smiling at us. Hooligan enthusiasts, they seemed greatly cheered by the fact that we knew the words to obscure standards and that the "next generation" were as enthused as they were.* We had something to give him – the surety that the younger Hooligan fans would be as rabid as they were and they had something to give to us – the passing of the torch as it were, and the manly-man gift that white collar types hope blue collar types will give them – legitimacy.
(By the way, the picture you see is of the redoubtable Dominican father I've written about in the past).
* -It wasn't just us - many more Hooligan-heads backed us just behind us. I heard later we were so loud that at a nearby tent another entertainer pointed our way and said, "I guess we're going to get louder to overcome them."
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