Tag: Ireland

Now I Have to Go

There is going to be a ton of back story to this one. You’ve been warned.

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Bridget Murphy. Her friends called her Bride, or Bridie. She had a bunch of kids (five, but one passed as an infant) and those kids all had kids of their own and two of those kids had a lot of kids of their own. That means I have roughly 25,000 first cousins (I exaggerate of course, but only a little). Many of us are on a Facebook Messenger chat thread together.

One of my zillion first cousins’ daughter got married this weekend. It was a destination wedding. The destination was in Ireland. Glorious! Some of my cousins have been sending photos from the trip to the Messenger thread. One of them just sent something that changed my personal mindset about visiting Ireland. How so?

I have always wanted to visit Ireland but now… now I HAVE TO VISIT IRELAND!

The photo was of a store front. The name of the store:

Bridie Murphy’s Home Bakery.

Yes, I now have to go to Ireland. I have to go to the land where Bridie Murphy’s Home Bakery exists. It is a must. It is a moral imperative. It has to happen.

Duel Citizenship

I have had three people recently tell me that they might qualify for citizenship to a country in Europe. Given the direction the USA is heading, I am seriously jealous. In 2017 there was talk of Ireland offering levels of citizenship to people whose family originated there. My paternal great-grandparents were from Ireland, but that was too far removed for me to qualify for anything.

Today, purely out of jealousy, I looked to a couple of other options. My maternal grandparents were born in Newfoundland. At the time it was still a British Dominion, not a Canadian province. What the hell, I checked on both options. Canada was a no. It said there might be possibilities if my grandparents served in the armed forces or worked for the government. My grandfather was a fisherman. He planned to enlist in the navy during World War I but the war ended just before his 18th birthday so he did not sign up. My grandmother was a house keeper. No government service at all.

I looked at the UK too, though after Brexit why would anyone want to sign up for UK citizenship? Since Newfoundland was British when my grandparents were born, the Google reported to me that there was a 13% chance I would qualify. How it came up with 13% I don’t know, but when I dug even a tiny bit deeper it was clear the answer was no.

Maybe I could hire a lawyer to dig a little and pull some legal strings. You know… just in case the USA continues it’s trend of flushing itself down the crapper. Just to have options, you know? Not that I would ever leave… it would be nice to know I had somewhere to go if I needed to… not that I would.

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Happy St Patrick’s Day, everyone. Today is the day where the population of the United States who are not descended from Irish immigrants pretend that they are of Irish descent and celebrate like drunken stereotypes. Personally, as one whose family did come from Ireland but who does not drink at all, I am all for it. Pretend away, my friends and neighbors. For this one day each year you are more than welcome to join our club.

Sláinte!

Go raibh maith agat!

Go n-eirí an t-ádh leat!

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona duit!

Go here to find out what those four phrases mean.

Ireland: 1000 Years of History

As promised in my daily writing prompt post from early this morning, I have started brushing up on Irish history. My heritage. My people (sort of). It’s time I got myself at least a little bit up to speed on the place where my family came from.

I’ve started with this video. I’m up to the potato famine, about halfway through the video. I have 15-20 more videos on my Watch Later playlist.

ADDENDUM: Damn it! The video doesn’t embed. Friggin’ youtube. Here’s a link.

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Happy everyone in and around Boston, Massachusetts pretends they are Irish day! Even those of us who actually are of Irish descent. It dawned on me yesterday that with all the weight loss over the last year, and all of the needing to buy new clothes, I don’t actually own any green clothing. After I had that realization it also occurred to me that I didn’t own any green clothing last year either.

We are not doing anything special to celebrate my national heritage this year. I floated the idea last week, but after having Harry home for spring break it seemed underwhelming and I didn’t pursue it. I’d like to drive to New York instead, but I haven’t floated that idea at all so it ain’t happening. Unless Jen reads this and jumps at the idea. Heh heh heh.

No stomach issues today. Yesterday I was dealing with stomach aches off and on all day. The day before I had a minor stomach issue at lunch and then a huge issue at dinner. Today, nothing yet. I had a protein bar and a little bit of chicken for breakfast. No problems. I am hopeful that I can keep this trend running for the day.

I’ve been trying to get into Mastodon (@RobJ_1971). I wrote there this morning that if I had my way my agenda for today would include playing guitar and watching The X-Files and nothing else. Obviously that ain’t happening either (thanks, adulthood). Tomorrow though… Sunday though… who knows. I might finally stop thinking about it and start trying to sell my Stratocaster and using the proceeds to make repairs on my ES-335 (frets and wiring harness) and Les Paul Custom (frets, wiring harness, and pickups). Maybe. Frankly, the idea terrifies me. Mostly because I don’t know what a 2000 American Series Stratocaster’s fair price should be. The used guitar market is constantly in flux and I don’t want to let it go too cheap. I also don’t want to try to gouge people either. I’m thinking $1,200, but is that fair? I don’t really know.

Okay. Get to work, Robert. Happy St Patrick’s Day, everyone. Happy Friday. Don’t drink and drive tonight. Be careful out there. Wash your hands and be safe.

Irish Gig

We are on a call with Bellana right now. Literally as I type this.

She shared a ton of details on her birthday trip to Ireland. One evening they were hanging at a pub near the house they were staying in and the pub was asking people to come up to the stage and sing. Well, seeing as Bellana is literally a world class vocalist she graced the crowd with a song.

She gave a performance… in Ireland… SHE DID A GIG IN IRELAND!!!!

I just fainted from sheer glee. How awesome is that?

Birthday in Galway

My step daughter, Bellana, is in Ireland and I am super jealous. Jelly AF. Not really, but yeah, really.

Tomorrow is her 21st birthday and she has chosen to spend the day in the land of my forefathers. We had a FaceTime (actually, I think it was snapchat) call with her this morning while she was on a bus leaving the airport. We had to pause our conversation briefly while the bus’ safety announcement was read in a marvelous Irish accent. As soon as it completed I yelled out, “now in Gaelic!” They didn’t read it in Gaelic though. Oh well.

I am so excited for her birthday. I have been excited for all of her European excursions over the last few months, but Ireland… that’s just the best. I told her if she ends up in Cork she should look up my relatives. That’s where my father’s mother’s family comes from. My mother’s parents’ families are in Newfoundland, but before that they were in Mayo, so if she ends up there she can look for them as well.

She’s going to Galway today. She’s also an Elvis fan. Those are the only two things she has in common with the protagonist in this particular song, but it’s completely stuck in my head right now.

Green White Orange

Our kitchen is green. It’s been green since we moved in. We’ve always talked about repainting but just haven’t done it. We were just talking about it in terms of remodeling the whole kitchen and Jen said she was okay with keeping it green. She said green and white was nice.

I countered with this:

Erin go Bragh, am I right?

Music and Money

I’ve mentioned that at the start of March I decided to curb my post-RPM Challenge blues by doing another RPM Challenge.  I’m still working on it though it is very easy to be distracted by other things right now.  I’ve got two songs done, six more partially done, and I still need two more.

This morning there was a post on the RPM Challenge Facebook group (I didn’t check the actual RPM Challenge website, it might be there too) suggesting we all take advantage of being stuck at home indefinitely and do another RPM Challenge in April.  Good idea!  I mean, I was already planning on it, but I don’t have to do it alone.  Why not?  Why not use our stay-at-home time to do something creative?  I’m all for it… but I would have been without a global pandemic to lock me in the house so I guess I’m not the target audience there.

Turning to politics, remember when Andrew Yang was running for president and proposed giving everyone in the USA a $1,000 stipend every month?  I thought it was a good idea.  A creative way to help those in need as well as to stimulate the economy.  I also loved the implied, “you think Sanders is a socialist?  Wait till you get a load of this” vibe.

Yesterday Mittens Romney threw out a similar proposal.  Today Joe Kennedy did as well, though he provided some actual details with his idea.  Now it sounds like the fucking white house is jumping on the wagon.  They may be considering a plan similar to Yang’s.

First off, let me get it out of the way… if the dickless president really wants to make being anti-socialist a platform in his campaign, then giving away money isn’t a good way to do it.  I expect that anyone who ever said a negative word about socialism should refuse that money, right?  Just like they refuse public schools and public fire departments, and trash pick up, and police, and snow plows, and highways, and all of those other socialist things.

Second, can we just make Andrew Yang president now?  Like, let’s all vote today and just give him the job.  The proposal he made that everyone laughed at could very well be law within days.  Good work, Mr Yang.  Smart leadership is what we need and it is literally the furthest thing away from what we have.

So as for the social distancing, today is my second day working from home.  Yesterday felt like a normal telecommute day.  All day long I had this idea in the back of my mind that I would be back in the office tomorrow, same as any other telecommuting day.  It really wasn’t until I got up this morning and didn’t drive to work (I drove to the super market instead) that it really started sinking in.  Things are different.

There is a little sense of stir craziness, sure, but mostly what I am feeling today is the sense that this is going to be really hard to do.  Some how removing the commute and the office from the work day equation is going to make things more difficult?  I don’t get it, but that feels like where this is heading.  I wish I could explain it, but I can’t.

There is so much wrong with the world right now, and I’m not even talking about that textbook nazi prick in the white house.  There is so much out of wack that I can’t figure out what to focus my worries on.  I’m trying to only worry about things I can control like stocking the pantry and working from home and making sure everyone has what they need to do their work/school work without driving each other to drink (wink).  I don’t want to worry about all the other shit.  I don’t want to worry about the projections or the infection rates, or the mortality rates, or the stock market, or layoffs or closings, or the fact that I am weeks overdue for a haircut and now can’t get one (anyone want to lend me their flowbee?).

Positivity used to be the hardest thing in the world for me before I met Jen.  It’s still not easy, but it is closer to my normal mindset.  I am trying real hard to stay positive through all of this.  I may need to bash my guitar around in order to pull it off, but I owe it to everyone to do my best to keep the ship upright.  (I typo’d ship as shit and somehow that sounds better to me, hehe)

So keep your shit together, planet Earth.  I have faith in you.  You can do it.  Now let’s all celebrate St Patrick’s Day in our self imposed isolation by listening to some Irish music.  No, not U2.  No, not Makem and Clancy…

Rory Gallagher (I wanted the Irish Tour album but those pukes at Spotify don’t have it)

Happy St Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all.  Today is the day when people all over the United States celebrate their Irish heratage, whether they are Irish or not, by getting sloppy, fall down, pass out in a pool of your own vomit and piss, drunk!

I’m not sure how, or even if, people who are actually in Ireland celebrate and I really don’t care.

Bostonians in particular are well known for their St Patty’s indulgences.  I expect at least 50% of my company to call in hung over sick tomorrow.  It’s tradition.

I will celebrate this special day with my own personal tradition of being the only male of Irish decent in all of greater Boston to not get  sloppy, fall down, pass out in a pool of your own vomit and piss, drunk.  Someone has to be that guy, right?  Why not me.

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!