We were celebrating Michael Flannagan’s birthday in Brosna today so I must make the 200 km trip back south. I stopped to see my friend Dave Harper in Tubber which is in the Burren close to Crusheen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burren
The Burren is a beautiful area of the country with unique vegetation. Harper bought himself a cottage recently and is using his building skills to make a beautiful home for himself and his partner Yuka.
Then back to Castleisland where I met up with Jackie O’Connor. He gave me a huge feed of cabbage and bacon then we warmed up on some of our new tunes. Terrence collected us at 9:30 and we drove to Brosna. It is fun for me to listen to the 2 lads chat about Kerry history, local characters and football. We arrived at Flannagan’s bar and the place was packed to the rafters with patrons there to wish Michael Flannagan a happy 93rd birthday which had occurred the previous day. So if I have this right he was born on October 20th, 1918. Michael was in fine form directing various patrons, including myself, to sing a song. The amount of food they put out was quite amazing; wee Irish sausages on toothpicks, sandwiches and birthday cake. It seemed I was meant to eat a plate of 20 sandwiches by myself. There was a lovely 10 year old box player, Patrick Moriarity, who gave us some great tunes. He place 3rd in the All Ireland this year. Jackie, Terrence and I played til near 1am then made our way home.
