Here’s a look inside the current talk of the Irish town, Kansas City’s newest Irish pub, Waxy O’Shea’s in Shawnee, Kansas.

The photo was taken pre-opening so you can have a good view of the carpet.

click to enlarge

Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub is the cover story on this month’s Midwest Irish Focus with a picture of the proprietors Lee Sanford and Bob Ridenhour in the pub behind the pumps (Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp, Bass, and special edition “Guinness 250″ among the beers pictured). The August issue of the Focus is available on newsstands all over the Midwest this weekend.

Waxy O’Shea’s is also featured in a recent story in the Shawnee Dispatch where Lee Sanford says they will be as authentic as they can be to ensure customers will get the full Irish experience:

This will be seen in items like the restaurant’s bar, made in Ireland, and artistic floorwork. Irish music will be played at all times, with live Irish music on the weekends and Ceilidhs, traditional Irish folk music events pronounced “kay-lees,” on various Sundays during the year. The menu will have some American fare, but also will feature corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, bangers, black and white pudding and boxty sandwiches, made with Irish potato pancakes.

I really like the story where Sanford said both he and Ridenhour, residents of Johnson County, drove by the Shawnee building for years on their way to their Irish pub in Branson, Missouri called Waxy O’Shea’s, always thinking it looked perfect for a pub and then they found out it was available so chose to open another Irish pub, another Waxy O’Shea’s. Everyone should do things like that.

Read more about the newest Irish pub in the KC metro area, Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub

Read: Inside Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub of Shawnee, KS »

Apologies to the person who emailed me about my painting of a Slovenian church and inquired about possible other Slovenian paintings for a benefit in Kansas City, but I somehow lost the email before I could reply.

I don’t have any more Slovenian paintings I’m afraid, although from my cycling travels in Slovenia I do have many great visual memories still firmly planted in my brain that at some stage I would hope to turn into paintings - from Ptuj, to Škofja Loka, to scenes along the reka Sava, to Laško, to Ajdovščina and the Vipava Valley, and the architcture of Ljubljana.

Slovenia is a stunningly beautiful country, in detail as well as in the larger scale of its landscapes, and just one painting to date is a poor output for a land that at times made me giddy from its beauty.

Good luck with the benefit and sorry I can’t help with any paintings.

See also my paintings of Ireland

Read: Slovenian Paintings »

Snow Patrol, the biggest band out of both Northern Ireland and Scotland since the Bay City Rollers, are playing Kansas City in September.

The ever-present Gary Lightbody, and whoever else makes up Snow Patrol these days, play at the Uptown Theater on Tuesday, Sep 29, 2009. The gig start time is down as 7:30pm (It’s a school night) so with this being the Midwest you’ll want to be there for 7:30pm

Venue
The Uptown Theater, in case you live very far away like me, is located at 3700 Broadway in Kansas City, Missouri’s desirable zip code area of 64111.

Support
The support act for the gig is Plain White Tees.

Tickets
All seat are general admission and cost US $29.50. They are available from TicketMaster.com

Previous Posts on Snow Patrol
   • Snow Patrol Start North American Tour
   • Winners of 2007 Meteor Ireland Music Awards
   • Snow Patrol play Kansas City 2007
   • Spiderman 3: An Irish Conversation

Read: Snow Patrol in Kansas City 2009 »

Those of you who liked some of my Travel pieces from the past, such as A Table in a Prague Tavern, or the Phnom Penh piece called Friends, or the piece about Cycling in Serbia, might be interested in the latest such offering that I’ve opted to post over on Bicyclistic, called A Night in London.

It comes from a trip I made to London a long time ago, for my first visit to the Tate Gallery - in the days before Tate Modern existed.

More of my Travels:
   • My Cycle Across America
   • A Visit to Genoa, Italy
   • Traveling by Train in Ireland

Read: An Irishman in London »

Those of you who have been hitting category pages and found yourselves getting 404 Error - Page Not Found messages instead of the good stuff, will be pleased to know that I’ve fixed that now.

It means if you fancied looking at, for example, just the posts about the differences between Ireland and the US, you can again now enjoy those 63 (at the moment) posts in one series of pages (with 20 posts listed per page).

Or perhaps the 79 posts about History are more your cup of tea? Or the 91 about Literature & Irish Writers. Or maybe the 102 Irish conversations.

All the categories are listed and linked in the centre column (you’ll probably have to scroll down a bit to see them). At the moment there are exactly 300 different categories. You can expect more. That’s the kind of man I am.

The 404 problem was a legacy of some of the changes and upgrades I’ve recently put into the site - supposedly behind the scenes where you weren’t meant to see them. Thank you to the reader who alerted me to this problem last night. Now I can get on to tell you some news…

Read: Four O Four Fixed »

Well actually I have. But posts have been rare due to a couple of issues at least one of which is now fixed.

Many hours were spent trying to work out some behind the scenes settings to change so as to tie in with improvements made by the hosting company yesterday. That’s now done - apologies to those of you who were getting error messages instead of pages since yesterday - I’m not as technical as I used to be.

Meanwhile the gimpy arm continues to impair not just posting to the blog, but everything, and that in turn impacts on posting to the blog.

The arm is improving but it’s a slow process, and I’m not making any promises or predictions about when I’ll be back to full speed. Meanwhile the left hand has taken over painting and typing duties. New as it is to such activities, that too is slow but at least it doesn’t hurt.

Talk to ya soon.

Read: I Haven’t Gone Away, You Know »

I’m told that the greatly anticipated new Irish pub for the Kansas City area, Waxy O’Shea’s, is about to open.

Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub opens in Shawnee, Kansas, Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 11am.

Update: A glimpse inside Waxy O’Sheas Irish Pub of Shawnee, KS

What do we know about Waxy O’Shea’s? From the minutes of the Shawnee Planning Commission last month we can glean some information:

Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub & Restaurant is a full service restaurant and Irish bar that is occupying the tenant space that was the former location of the Bandana’s BBQ restaurant. The full service restaurant will be themed in an authentic Irish Pub tradition. The applicant proposes to offer live traditional Irish/Celtic music, Celtic/Irish rock and general rock music for the entertainment of the bar and restaurant patrons. They are also planning live entertainment in the form of a DJ, Karaoke, and Open Mic Night’s

Location
The new Irish pub is located at 11900 Shawnee Mission Parkway, at the NW corner of Quivira at Shawnee Mission Parkway, which is west of I-35 and east of I-435. The pub’s space is located in the east end of the building located at the southeast corner of the Ten Quivira Plaza (formerly Bandana’s BBQ). The entrance to the restaurant is on the south side of the building, facing Shawnee Mission Parkway.

Hours of Live Entertainment
Live entertainment shall be limited to live music from a band, DJ, or Karaoke, Sunday through Thursday from 7pm to midnight, and on Friday and Saturday extended to 1am.

Céilidh
Céilidh events (described in this instance as “traditional Irish and Scottish musicians that get together to play unamplified traditional folk music and storytelling”) will be allowed on Sunday afternoons somewhere between Noon and 7pm. This should remind Kansas City patrons of similar events which were held once a month at O’Dowd’s Little Dublin on the Plaza back in its Irish heyday.

This is all fairly standard stuff and Waxy O’Shea’s has indicated that the provision of live entertainment will not necessarily occur every night of the week, and the Céilidh events will be periodically on Sunday afternoons.

St Patrick’s Day
As you might expect, live music will be allowed prior to 7pm on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) of each year.

2 Stage Areas
In a floor plan submitted by the pub, 2 stage areas were indicated - the larger stage area would be located in the south east corner of the building in the main dining area, and a smaller stage area would be more centrally located within the interior of the dining/bar area.

Parking
It’s Shawnee. It’s a shopping center. Bring a big car. You’ll be grand.

The Name
Asked by Commissioner Pfflum where the name for the pub came from - the Waxy’s part that is - Lee Sanford replied, “It is an Irish nickname for a candle maker”.

Gigs
I’ve already seen a gig listed for Waxy O’Shea’s Irish Pub & Restaurant - Vera, Chuck and Dave on August 14, 2009 at 9pm. Regulars of Tuesday Folk in Lawrence, Kansas should be familiar with Vera, Chuck and Dave.

Phone
I’m told that the telephone number is 913-631-1759

Owners
Waxy Shawnee Pub, LLC, is listed as the business owner. Lee Sanford filed the planning application and Bob Ridenhour was also present at the planning commission.

Sanford & Ridenhour have a pedigree in opening Irish pubs in the KC area. Mostly known for WJ McBride’s Irish Pub & Restaurant in Overland Park (that closed (under different ownership), then reopened as the KC Public House, and closed again), they also helped found O’Dowd’s Little Dublin on the Country Club Plaza before that.

In recent years they’ve been responsible for the sister pub to this new pub, Waxy O’Shea’s in Branson, Missouri, and prior to that were associated with the other WJ McBride’s the one by the Legends in KCK over by the Speedway, that is now a chicken restaurant.

Disclosure
I did web work for both WJ McBride’s Irish Pubs - designing each version of the Overland Park pub and maintaining the sites of both pubs. I also created and presented the Pub Trivia Quiz competition (multimedia, big screen affair) that ran for several years in the OP pub.

See Also:
   • The History of an Irish Pub
   • An Irish Odyssey in Kansas City
   • A Bad Pint

Read: Waxy O’Sheas Opening: New Irish Pub for KC »