Hot Whiskey and Irish Pipes

Chris is busy every minute and I’m free all of them so our paths are different this week, although yesterday I did meet up with him midday for a free concert sponsored by Blas—which means “flavor” in Irish and is the name of the program in which he is currently enrolled. While I was unfamiliar with the headliner, Martin Hayes, he was one of the guest lecturers who impressed Chris, and we were told time and again by people who are more invested in traditional Irish music than we that he is among the best in his field. And it would seem so from sitting in his audience.  He plays the fiddle and he was accompanied by a guitar, a drum and an Irish flute. His fingers move fast and it’s amazing to watch others keep up with him. There were singers, as well, and I find the vocals haunting. These young women started singing out in the foyer and moved into the auditorium in line and the notes wafted in with them. Each day, there is a short concert like this at noontime  and today there was another in which two Irish banjoes were accompanied by a drummer, who was also a piper, and a pianist. Today, some of the dancing students jumped up, as well, and it’s hard to know whether to look at the instrumentalists’ fingers or the dancers’ feet; there’s a lot going on and all of it is wonderful. 

After the concert, Chris went back to class and I did some wandering around, but most of that wandering was to find someplace I could buy the little things we didn’t have but needed, like aspirin. I’m unaccustomed to aspirin that is simply called aspirin. The last several years, we’ve traded mostly in aspirina—as the people who work in the English Office at my school can attest to, when months later someone asks if anyone has a painkiller and I pipe up that I have some Mexican aspirina in my desk. 

We went to The Pavilion for dinner, a university restaurant that looks out over the playing fields on which students play Irish football, which is not to be confused with soccer or apparently American football, soccer and curling. It’s beautiful and Chris found a way to use our Blas meal tickets there even though they clearly state they are to be used in the Scholar’s Pub. 

After dinner there was a traditional Irish music pub quiz and, while he was on a team, Chris did not lead them to victory. These people are tireless. Every night there is a session in the pub, and, if there is something else going on there, then the session just starts later. The music is spirited and I suppose that serves the musicians’ energy. Last night there were accordions, concertinas, boxes, flutes, tin whistles, fiddles, mandolins, banjoes, drums and singers. Occasionally, the dancing students will jump up and engage in one of three types of traditional dancing. It’s not the kind of dancing you might normally picture when you hear “bar dancing.” It’s like their shoulders and spines are nailed to two by fours and maintaining that rigidity shoots all the power to their legs which kick up as high as my head. Chris listens carefully and plays the tunes he knows, and I was able to get some video of him playing last night and again this evening.  Right now, there are about 25 musicians playing in a large double ringed circle that just keeps getting bigger as more people join.  In addition to all the other instruments, today there is an Irish piper, as well. 

Last night an accordion-playing woman from Dublin told us we should be drinking hot whiskeys. She said it is a very excellent drink to drink if you have a cold and/or if you want a drink, so tonight we are and I think everyone probably should: hot whiskey with a slice of lemon stabbed with cloves. I consider this a sipping drink; Chris is treating it like it’s a cup of coffee.  This is one more thing—like so many—that we mutually enjoy differently. 

Today, while Chris was at class, I walked a footpath along the Shannon River. I passed a dozen people or so in two hours, most walking their unleashed dogs, all quiet and welcoming with a hello. My sister Susan was just in Ireland on her own trip or I’m sure she would be here with us, and I wish she were so she could identify the birds I saw along the water. I snapped pictures when I could but sometimes it was their call that alerted me to a bird I knew I had never seen before. There’s so much I’ve never seen before and I look forward every day to seeing more.