The 2009 Annual Celtic Music Benefit run by Kansas City’s Harp & Shamrock Club takes place on Friday, November 6th, 2009.

Doors open at 5pm for this 9th Annual Celtic Benefit, a benefit as always for Children’s Mercy Hospital.

Entertainment for the 2009 event includes:

  • Bob Reeder
  • Flannigan’s Right Hook
  • Ellis Island
  • Pipes and Drums of Ararat Shrine
  • Rob Gavin

More details will be posted closer to the event, but put the date in your calendar for now.

Last year, from the Annual Celtic Benefit, along with the Wellies Race in Weston, booths at festivals, and donations, the Harp & Shamrock Club raised almost $12,000 for the Hearing Aid Fund of Children’s Mercy Hospital. Kids are waiting for hearing aids and you can help them on Friday night, November 6, 2009.

The next H&S Club meeting is Friday, July 17, 2009 at The Office in Gladstone, Missouri at 8pm.

Read: 2009 Annual Celtic Music Benefit »

Apologies for online quiet these days but for the last several days I’ve been mostly offline in rural Ireland. Technically that means online but the connectivity has been diabolical. Think 1 hour wait to load a single unremarkable webpage - and there are a lot of unremarkable webpages on Irish KC.

I’ve been on Ireland’s east coast - and for those of you who think Ireland only has a west, you can see some pictures of it I’ve been posting (with amazing patience) on Bicyclistic.

More pictures of Ireland will follow, and updates to Irish KC will resume, once I return to Dublin and its super duper internet highway later today.

Of course you’d know all this if you followed me on Twitter

Read: County Wexford »

The greatest feast of Irish sport that Kansas City has ever seen takes place on Saturday June 27, 2009 at Swope Park when the Kansas City Gaelic Athletic Club (KCGAC) hosts the city’s first ever Gaelic Football tournament.

The 2009 Coors Light Midwest Gaelic Classic begins at noon in Swope Park at the Wizards’ Training Facility by 63rd & Lewis, and continues until 6:30pm.

Admission is FREE.

One of Ireland’s national games regularly played in front of crowds of 80,000 in its home country, Gaelic Football is a non-stop action-packed sport which to new eyes looks something like a mixture of soccer, basketball, and rugby. A round ball is caught and kicked and punched by 15-player teams trying to score pints (over the bar) and goals (under the bar).

Teams from the cities of Little Rock, Arkansas and Minnesota’s Twin Cities are joining 2 teams from the host city in a schedule of 4 games:

Match #1: Noon - KCGAC-Green vs Twin Cities GFC(Minn/StPaul)
Match #2: 1:30pm - Little Rock GAA vs KCGAC-Navy

Consolation Match 3:15pm - Loser match #1 vs Loser match #2

Championship 4:45pm - Winner match #1 vs Winner match #2

There’ll be food and vendors, and stuff for the kids, and whatever the heat the games will be played - if it’s too hot for you then you can cool yourself down in the sprinkler.

It’s a great opportunity to learn about your Irish heritage - an ancient Irish sport - and to support Irish culture in Kansas City.

The KCGAC is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to good sportsmanship and furthering Gaelic Games in Kansas City

This event is posted on the Kansas City Irish events calendar.

Read: Midwest Gaelic Classic: KC’s 1st Irish Sport Tournament »

The Pogues are playing in Kansas City on Sunday, October 25, 2009 at The Midland by AMC.

Big news this.

The Pogues are so big and so influential on so much of the Irish music that you hear in Kansas City and the Midwest that I’ve written about them loads of times - so there’s really no need for me to do it again (see below for previous pieces), or to use it as an excuse to trot out some tired Shane MacGowan jokes.

The Pogues, like Count John Mc Cormack, Van Morrison, and The Dubliners, before them, gave us a genre of Irish music that has been imitated in every city with a sniff of Irishness about it. A curse in other words. Except for the existence of the original.

There are no negatives. Go.

Just Some of the Earlier Posts on The Pogues:
   • Blogue Mahone: Best Irish Music Blog Ever
   • The Pogues, They Started Radio Stations
   • The 27th Greatest Song Never To Reach Number One
   • Shane MacGowan & Christy Moore Sing Spancil Hill
   • Mike Webber Reviews The Pogues
   • December 25th: Shane MacGowan’s Birthday
   • Dirty Old Town by The Pogues
   • Shane MacGowan on Kirsty MacColl
   • How Do You Pronounce “Pogues”

Tickets
Tickets go on sale this Friday, June 26, 2009 at 10am to the general public, though TicketMaster are doing their internet presale on Thursday from 10am to 10pm. The official Pogues site is advertising tickets for all venues on this tour going on presale at 3pm tomorrow, Tuesday, to their internet community

Tickets start at $45 for what’s classed as an all ages show. As this could be history you might want to bring somebody young. Or somebody old come to think of it.

Coors Light Live Concert Series
This gig in The Pogues Fall Shows, 2009 - NW X W X SW Tour (see what they did there?) is presented as a Coors Light Live Concert Series show.

Irish Events Calendar
This event is posted on the Kansas City Irish events calendar - and of course it’s over on the far right sidebar of every single page on IrishKC because it’s considered to be among the events that are Irish Highlights in KC.

Pogues USA Tour
Dates are now posted for the fall 2009 USA Tour by The Pogues

Read: The Pogues in Kansas City »

There was great excitement last night at 1am (Irish time) with the launch of the greatly anticipated Coddlepot.

Do you remember me telling you what the Irish dish coddle is? Well this is its bloggy equivalent in a magazine style - starring “two Manuels, one Sweary and a lovely homemade Flann”.

You’ll know these writers from the last several years if you’ve been reading blogs out of Ireland at all - and you really should be if you’re interested in whatever Ireland is rather than just saying you’re interested in Ireland.

Whenever I made coddle in Kansas City I couldn’t help but notice that the locals talked about it - a lot - but never actually indulged in it. Well I suggest you at least try this bloggy coddle - for some real Irish flavours.

Coddle as a blog?

Watery rashers? Boiled sausages? Onions that induce heart-attacks? It’s an eccentric, contrary mess of satisfying meatiness, and doesn’t that echo beautifully as an aspiration for a motley mob of moderately funny Irish writers? A fire under our collective arse, a peppery pout, and the unfortunate glimpse of vegetable … this is Coddle Pot

Following the launch of Culch.ie and the expansion and magazinification of Bock The Robber, the birth of Coddle Pot is making 2009 a very interesting year in Irish blog world.

Other Stuff Genuinely Related:
   • Dublin Coddle Vegan Irish Sausages
   • Review of Irish Blog Awards 2008
   • Bangers Are Not What The Irish Call Sausages (Sausages Are)
   • The Irish Blogging Scene - December ‘08

Read: Coddlepot »

Read: Father’s Day »

Not to be confused with the U.S. Embassy in Ireland (2nd photo), here’s a photo I took just for you lovely American people in case you find yourself in Ireland and for some reason get invited to dinner at the American Ambassador’s gaf.

This is the entrance to Deerfield, a rather splendid home that before Irish independence was the official residence of the Chief Secretary, but since then has been a little slice of America in a park of over 1,700 acres that Lord Chesterfield left for the people of Dublin to litter.

Deerfield is in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, and if you take the wrong turn at the Phoenix Monument on Chesterfield Avenue in the Park, you’d end up in the President of Ireland’s place, Áras an Uachtaráin. But thanks to this photo you won’t do that now, will you?

You may recall that I’ve written about Deerfield before. Or you may not.

Read: US Ambassador’s Residence in Ireland »