[ Irish KC ]
Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

2 years ago today Irish KC launched with this little post. (The seemingly older posts were added later)

It was an ugly start, foregoing much of the personal and commentary stuff that was planned (like the differences, questions, and my paintings) for the rush of listing Irish events in the KC area in the build up to Paddy’s Day.

2006 seems so long ago, and the traffic peaks of that year should give you an indication that it’s the web itself rather than external events that yield the big days online. For those of you who maybe only came to computers in the last 2 months, there’s also a recap of the year 2007.

Like all blogs we started with 0 visitors. Yesterday over 1,500 pages on the site were visited. Given that some pages - like the main home page - carry multiple posts, that means, well we don’t know what that means. Also getting on for another 100 people a day read the site without even visiting it, such is technology these days.

I’ve changed design (from this to what you’re looking at now a finalist in last week’s Irish Blog Awards), I’ve changed country, and yesterday I changed my underwear.

The greatest thing in those 2 years has been the people the blog has introduced me to in real life. Making friends online isn’t even a phrase I would have agreed with several years ago, but last weekend I met in Ireland a woman from Scotland’s Hebrides who lives in California, and a woman from Philadelphia who lives in Canada. The impact of the people I have met, because of Irish KC, in Ireland, and KC and its hinterland, is something I cherish.

Maybe Irish KC won’t be able to carry on as it has, effectively being two blogs intertwined as one, but the recent demarcation helps. For now I do plan to carry on as is. The year ahead promises the biggest changes in almost 10 years in my own life, and they will likely unfold right here. However that happens, my art will be the top focus of Irish KC.

In the 2 years and 4,000 pages (We passed post #2,500 yesterday), Irish KC has received over 2,100 comments. As someone who reads and frequently doesn’t comment elsewhere I appreciate the time people take to drop comments here. Those who have include film-makers, authors, musicians, journalists, politicians, pub-owners, artists, editors, podcasters, especially other bloggers, and of course those without a title, probably plumbers.

So please feel free to say hello, to de-lurk, or to wave anonymously. I should add that I get more email every day through Irish KC than I am able to respond to, so commenting may be a better option. Comments are the currency of self-esteem.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 1:32 am and is filed under 1-eolai, Housekeeping. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.