St Patrick's Day 2025

Cobh, Cork glimpsed over Spike Island
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session had a St Patrick's Day theme being just two days before the actual date. This Friday there is no theme.

I am pleased to say that the new manager of The Bridge Inn, Mike, is looking after us very well and in particular keeping us warm - previously a bit of an issue for some visitors.

When listening to the songs from last week, bear in mind that though the obvious topics were Ireland or the Irish, I invited people to consider St Patrick's other patronages: Nigeria, Montserrat, Archdiocese of New York, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Boston, Rolla, Missouri, Loíza, Puerto Rico, Murcia (Spain), Clann Giolla Phádraig, engineers, paralegals, Archdiocese of Melbourne. He is also invoked against snakes and sins.

Colin, MC as usual, started us off with Steve Knightley's The Galway farmer, a timely tale of an Irish visitor to the Cheltenham Festival who puts a tidy sum on one particular horse.

Paul stayed in the same county with The Galway Shawl (roud 2737). A few of this week's videos are a bit personal to me. Mike shown here on guitar is a friend of mine, and Andy on mandolin is the player I told Denny of who I used to accompany on Bodhrán.

Denny continued the session with She moves through the fair (roud 861) and Simon completed the first rotation with Muirsheen Durkin (roud 9753). This last video is the first of several by The Boston Folk Orchestra, who aren't Irish, but several of it's current and past members attended the same school as I did, though not at the same time. This is from their 1978 cassette - remember those? In April 2025 the band celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Given the theme I didn't expect many additions this week to the Dragon database, but in fact there were four, and for the first I have an apology to make. I suggested that Denny's singing of Bold Robert Emmet (* round 3066 - Thomas Maguire) would not be new to the database, but as indicated by the asterisk I was wrong!

Next for the database was Colin's singing of The orange and the green (* Anthony Murphy).

Danny sang The Kipper Family's Bored of the dance (* Chris Sugden) and the final new song for the database came from Colin: Liverpool Lou (* Dominic Behan).

The ony song of the evening not found on YouTube and therefore not in the playlist linked from "a selection" below was Denny's King of the railways (Roy Duffield).

The final song of the evening, appropriately resulting in a sing-along, was Simon's Paddy lay back (roud 653).

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 4 of whom 4 performed)

What a difference a week makes

Grand Union Canal, Park Royal (Photo: Derek Arridge)

What a difference a week makes! From a very (ahem) intimate session the previous week we had a perfectly adequate crew this week, not least thanks to three occasional visitors. John O and Chris O are not local but visit us when they are in the area with their caravan. John says this was their fourth visit, which seems about right. We were also joined by Lisa who has been before and was a very welcome sight and sound at the session.

This week's session will have an Easter theme, being on Good Friday (yes, we don't let something like that stop us), and next week will be our St George's session (26 April, just three days late).

St Patrick's Day - 2017

Chicago River dyed green for St Patrick's Day 2015
Photo by Scott M Liebenson

No excuses this time, our session really was on St Patrick's Day and most of us managed at least some Irish songs though I'm not sure we answered Gary's challenge from the week before to name some decent Irish song writers from the last 50 (was it?) years.

With the absence of several regulars it was good to be joined by Steve G, who drops in occasionally, and Paul, who is a rare sight since his move to the wilds of Somerset.

Colin as MC put himself on first and sang Galway Farmer (Steve Knightley), an appropriate celebration of the Cheltenham Festival which usually coincides with St Patrick's Day and is therefore a honeypot for Irish owners, riders and punters.

Follow the caravan to Rio

Last weeks session was again well attended and this time everyone was a performer.

We were pleased to welcome newcomers Chris and John, on a weekend away from their West Midlands home with their caravan. Rose and Jonjo also returned this week.

In Colin's absence, Richard had the MCs book for the evening and he put himself on first with The Constant Lovers (Roud 993, Laws O41).