When my Da was 27 he got engaged. And married the next year.

When I was 27 you were still 3 years away from being born, though it would be almost another 3 full years more before I would know. And then you were great. Unremittingly great.

Happy Birthday so.

Maybe one day someone will have the decency to tell you the truth.

Read: Birthday. Happiness. Wishes. »

Read: Gabe »

This is a suggestion you express your Irishness, or help somebody else express theirs, while at the same time support a bona fide real Irish artist in Ireland. We’re talking over 400 paintings of the Ireland you love. Read on.

Here we are again. St Patrick’s Day. But a Pandemic Paddy’s Day, so it’s indoors. And without other people, depending on where in the world you live - but especially here in Ireland.

It certainly means you can’t come to Ireland to join us. Because you’re not allowed. And there’s nothing to join. The Festival has gone online this year. Once upon a time I would have gone into town to watch the parade. No one goes to town any more. I walked the 5 miles in to get my bike repaired last summer. Haven’t been on a bus in over a year. Like most people.

So I just wanted to remind you, that if looking at Ireland is your cup of tea - you can go online and see pictures of our landmarks bathed in green light, because that’s very 2021, but you can also look at Killarney and the Ring of Kerry, West Cork, Connemara, Donegal, and Kilkenny, the Cliffs of Moher, the Antrim coast, the Rock of Cashel, and both sides of Dublin city, the Dingle Peninsula, the Burren, the Sligo of Yeats, the flatlands of Kildare, the Wicklow Mountains, the majesty of Mayo, wonderful Wexford, the Copper Coast of Waterford, and Howth Head, Leitrim, Monaghan, Limerick, Down, Carlow, Derry, Longford, Louth, and I could go on. I’m talking about the places in Ireland that I have been to and painted. So you can look at the paintings, Irish landscapes and towns from all over the Ireland. And you can buy them. Well, not the originals - all of the original paintings I’ve done in the last ten years have sold out (bar one of Dublin from December gone, tick tock) - but you can buy prints. And mugs. And throw pillows. And t-shirts. And greeting cards. Of over 400 of my paintings of Ireland. So go on then. At least have a look. And maybe tell your friends. My paintings of Ireland, hundreds of the things.

Listen, if you’d like to keep more up to date have a goo at Facebook where you’ll find me under the name LiamDalyArt

Thanks. Be safe. Safer than you’ve ever been. We’ve lost too many people.

Read: Ireland. In Paintings »

IrishKC is dormant folks, at least in a Kansas City sense. And certainly in a St Patrick’s Day sense. Because I’m in Ireland. Living in Ireland, painting in Ireland, drinking tea in Ireland. I just don’t get the time any more. And if I did, it would go into painting. To produce paintings like this. Here is my current collection of paintings.

At this time all of the original paintings are sold, bar two: “Kilmore Quay” (Wexford) and “Passage East” (Waterford), so this collection links you to the prints. But not just prints - you can also get the paintings on mugs and throw-pillows and t-shirts. So do. Please.

There are 28 paintings in the latest collection, of which 26 are of Irish scenes. That’s just this collection. If you click around you’ll see I have 374 paintings in total on there - many in collections pertaining to just one county, like Cork Paintings and Dublin Paintings and Galway Paintings, but nearly all Irish counties are represented in the 374 paintings - and that’s a lot of Ireland.

Stone Wall, Cottage

See all of my Irish Paintings available as prints. Who knows, if enough people in KC (or Missouri or Kansas, I’m not that fussy) buy prints of my paintings of Ireland maybe I’ll find myself painting a series of specific Irish Kansas City scenes. Meanwhile, enjoy your day - by which I mean St Patrick’s Day 2018.

Read: Ireland Painted »

Last month I had the great privilege and fabulous pleasure of watching the duo that is Kansas City’s own Iris Temple perform in England on their European tour as support act for Xavier Omär.

After performing in Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris, it was in the Soup Kitchen in Manchester’s Northern Quarter where I saw them perform. They would go on to finish their tour the following night in front of an 800-capacity crowd in London, before returning to Chicago.

While sometimes performing with a full band, Iris Temple on this tour performed just as a duo and, such is the quality of their songs and their talents, the two Quinns pared down sounded no less polished and soulful than the EPs they put out. They were enthusiastically and appreciably received by the fans of Xavier Omär.

Their 30-minute set was comprised of new songs as well as older tunes, including their first track to pass the one-million stream mark on Spotify (Lemonade). They also happened to play all my favourites, but then I might be biased.

As I watched my son sing on stage, songs that he and Quinn eile have crafted, I felt as fantastically proud of him as I have done for so many years. Apologies for the quality of this photograph, I may have had something in my eye. (Or maybe I’m just not very good with a camera).

p.s. Xavier Omär himself was ridiculously nice, rocking, and rather excellent, but for me the main act was on first.

Read: Iris Temple in Europe »

Every March I read the same rubbish.

No, the Irish were not slaves too.

No, the Irish didn’t have it as bad as Africans. Or worse.

It is utter nonsense. A myth that at best perpetuates a misunderstanding of history, and at worst enables and fuels a racist agenda.

Yes, in colonial times there were Irish who had it very bad in the Caribbean. There were also English, Welsh, Scottish, and other white Europeans. Horrific at times, and great suffering, yes, and it shouldn’t be made light of - but that was servitude. Indentured servitude. And servitude was not the chattel slavery reserved for Africans. Slavery in the Americas was racial.

This is not semantics. Servitude was temporary and non-hereditary with practical and legal rights. Chattel slavery was permanent and it was hereditary, with no legal rights because legally you weren’t even human - you were livestock.

Yes, there are many forms of slavery, and we use the term today often in a general sense, but if we’re going to compare peoples in the same time period and the same places, like the white Irish with the black Africans, in colonial times, there was no comparison. Being a servant, an indentured one, Irish and white, was far better than being a chattel slave, African and black.

So by all means, and on this day, remember this horrible dark time in history for the Irish - but do not use that to play down the greater suffering and oppression of Africans and their descendants, nor the racial significance of it.

On that note, Happy St. Patrick’s Day - whatever that means to you. I’m not in Kansas City myself; I haven’t been for ten years. I’m at home in Ireland being Irish.

Read: Stop, Stop, For The Love of God, Stop, With the Irish Slaves Nonsense »

At midnight on February 28 I tapped my fat finger on my laptop’s touchpad and a while later this face was looking back at me.

It’s not an easy way to draw digitally kids, so I don’t recommend it. If you have to use your finger use it on a tablet or just use something with a stylus.

Anyway, this is just a nostalgic way to say somebody’s got post. Or mail, if you’re American.

Read: Panda Post »

The 2016 collection of my original Irish paintings has now been made available as prints.

All 22 paintings are of Ireland, and are available as simply prints, as framed prints, as greeting cards, or printed on a whole host of products such as mugs, cushions, notebooks, tote bags, t-shirts and even skirts.

Below is one of the paintings, of a County Mayo scene I saw when cycling once.

“Mayo Cloud”

The original paintings are all sold, with all but two of them selling during the 3-day online sale at the end of 2016. There will be a new collection of paintings ready for another year-end online sale that will take place in mid-December 2017 on LiamDalyArt on facebook. These paintings will also all be of Ireland - of places such as the Burren, Connemara, Donegal, Mayo, Waterford, Dublin, and West Cork.

There are of course many more of my older Irish paintings - with well over 200 of my paintings of Ireland available as prints.

Read: 22 Paintings of Ireland »

Even Racists Got the Blues.

I used to see a lot of this stuff when I lived in Kansas City. On tea-towels, on stained glass, on tattoos, on signs at festivals, and on t-shirts.

You could see it coming too. People would look up dictionaries, or single word translations online, or ask me the meaning of a word while dismissing context and grammar and anything that might actually be relevant to that meaning.

But this is particularly hilarious. Like the writer of the post I spent a while wondering what on earth was trying to be said on this t-shirt - but I never got there, despite knowing what each of the three words mean.

The way to reverse translate this nonsense is to do it the same way it was translated i.e. one word at a time, in isolation, looking at every possible meaning of that word in English, as if it were a code rather than a language.

The post needs to be read until the end, because it’s not just wrong, indeed very wrong, but in fact in the only way it’s right it’s still wrong and fantastically funny in how it is wrong.

For what they think they mean, and for just how bad it is, read Even Racists Got the Blues by the Geeky Gaeilgeoir.

Read: Language Matters »

I posted it on Facebook this year.

Because that’s where the people who care are.

And there’s rather a lot of them.

p.s. Dog-dog is still alive.

Read: Twenty »

It’s St Patrick’s Day 2016. And this is the big one.

Route:
The 44th annual Kansas City St Patrick’s Day parade starts at 11am at Broadway and Linwood. It runs south along Broadway and ends at 43rd.

Duration:
About 2 hours. The days when it lasted several years are long over.

Theme:
Blarney on Broadway.

Viewing Stand:
The viewing stand is on the west side of Broadway at 40th Terrace.

Parking:
Well it’s not the Royals, but still, the earlier the better. A lot of local businesses have been persuaded to open their parking facilities to the public, and many are. In some cases you will be charged, and in some of those cases the fees raised are going to charity.

Grand Marshal:
The 2016 Parade Grand Marshal is Pat O’Neill

Weather:
My Norwegian sources (I know you’re nowhere near Norway if you even know where it is, but they’re good at this sort of thing), say it i Kansas City, Missouri will be about 50F when the parade starts and 57 when it finishes, with no rain on the day.

Buses:
The buses are messed up, man. RideKC has the details of all bus routes which have been altered due to the Paddy’s Day parade and revelries. Additional KCATA buses will be available at 39th and Broadway/Main to help ease pedestrian traffic at the end of the parade.

Read: 2016 KC St Patrick’s Day Parade »

Pat O’Neill, Grand Marshal of the 2016 Kansas City St Patrick’s Day parade, is on Nichols at Night talking about the history of the Irish in Kansas City from the first immigrants in the 1800s up to the present day parades and festivals.

Pat talks with his usual charm about the arrival of the first immigrants from Ireland, the original St Patrick’s Day parade, the birth of the modern St Patrick’s Day parade in the 1970s, Browne’s Irish Market, the revival of all things culturally Irish, and through it all about his own family and their proud place in Irish Kansas City history.

For a more detailed understanding of the stories Pat tells, get yourself a copy of his book on the story of the Irish in Kansas City, the literal and figuratively titled “From The Bottom Up”

Read: Pat O’Neill - Grand Marshal KC St Patrick’s Day Parade »

Tim Finn is reporting that the organizers of the KC Irish Fest have announced the line-up for the 2016 Irish festival in Kansas City in September.

The Back to Rockville blog is reporting the following music & dance acts as confirmed for the 2016 Labor Day Weekend Irishfest at Crown Center:

• • We Banjo 3
• • Tupelo
• • The Elders
• • Derek Warfield
• • Larry Kirwan
• • The High Kings
• • The Young Folk
• • Gaelic Storm
• • Solas
• • Runa
• • Byrne & Kelly
• • Eddie Delahunt
• • Flannigan’s Right Hook
• • Bob Reeder
• • Driscoll School of Dance
• • St Andrew Pipe & Drum
• • Céilí at the Crossroads
• • O’Riada Manning

From previous festivals and other Irish events in the city you should recognize those names. Most of them are written about here on the pages of IrishKC.

Read more over on Back to Rockville and keep your eyes open for more acts to be announced for the September 2-4 Irishfest.

Read: KC Irish Fest Line Up 2016 »

We’ve been over this ground before, and I know you’re improving, but now my good friends over at Vocativ have come up with a solution to fix the ignominy of North America referring to our patron saint’s day as “St. Patty’s”.

It may seem like an inconsequential thing, just two little, errant consonants on a day when most people are slurring their speech anyway, but to a large proportion of Irish people, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. In Ireland, the day is referred to as either St. Patrick’s Day (formal) or Paddy’s Day (informal).

Solution? A Google Chrome browser extension.

If you install their “Kill St. Patty” Google Chrome extension on your browser, every occurrence of “St Patty’s Day” on any website will be removed and changed to either “Paddy’s Day” or “St. Patrick’s Day”…

…as God intended. For Americans and Canadians, this will help you avoid offending Irish people, if that’s a concern of yours. For Irish people, this is internet ear muffs.

Pop over to Vocativ for their Chrome ‘St Patty’s Day’ killer extension - and then come back here and read this post again - where it won’t make much sense, but the rest of your browsing will be like looking at the World Wide Web through the eyes of an Irish man or Irish woman.

It doesn’t however fix “St Pat’s Day” or even the mixed-message “St Paddy’s Day” now gaining favour in America, but it’s a good start. Remember, if you care, there’s no (St) Patty’s Day in Ireland

Read: Get Rid of St Patty’s Day for Ever »