Michael Walsh, Chair of the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group has sent me another little write-up of their last event to whet your appetite for this Wednesday evening’s talk by Peter Duffy- The 1916 Uprising and War of Independence – A personal Journey of Discovery (action starts at 7pm in The Irish Club).
Red Hand of O’Gara
The June Event of the Birmingham Irish Heritage Group carried a title which did not do justice to the depth of the presentation given by Alan Bairner PhD. The subject “Studying Irish Sport” whilst interesting in it’s self to many, revealed much about the underlying clash of identity in North East Ireland.
Alan demonstrated much authority on the subject having spent many years there engaged in field research and lecturing. Anybody who missed this event lost the opportunity to hear a very professional speaker, who in addition had the talent to engage with the crowd. After a prolonged session of interesting questions and contributions from the floor, a halt had to be called as we had run out of time. However we do hope to have Alan back in the not to distant future.
Birmingham Irish Heritage events commence at 7 pm on the first Wednesday of each month, but this was the first to be held in a palatial listed building. Not just any listed building, but one that had been visited over a century ago, by no less a personage than Princess Helena Christian of Schleswig- Holstein. Now I would hazard a guess that Schleswig-Holstein is not a name that rings a bell with many of our readers, even those who are supporters of the Heritage Group and I readily forgive them for that.
Even if it did ring a bell at one time and they had forgotten, they are in good company. Lord Palmerston the British Politian who held high office for much of the nineteenth century, is on record as having said about the mind numbing complexities of the problem.
“Only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein Question. The first was Albert, the Prince consort and he is dead. The second is a German professor, and he is in an asylum. And the third was myself — and I have forgotten it.”
This answer did not do any harm to Lord Palmerston, for shortly afterwards he won an election. So there is hope for Gordon Brown, and indeed for the Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen, if either of them were to comment in relation to the financial meltdown that there were only three men who had the answer to it and:
Regrettably the first man was dead. The second man has become quite mad. And the third is myself – and I have forgotten it.
However such extraordinary answers would not cut any ice with the crowd at the Heritage Group Event, if their keen questioning of this months speaker was any guide. There were questions and contributions from John MacIntyre, Patricia Naylon, Charlie Neylon, John Costello and several others whose names are regrettably unknown to me. They were several contributions from the crowd on rugby player O’Gara meeting Queen Elizabeth as part of the Lions Team.
Each received a thorough reply from Alan based on his long experience seeing first hand the feelings generated by the separate sports of opposing communities in the six counties. The debate would have gone on for much longer had we not run out of time, but likely it continued in the well appointed lounge afterwards. Those who missed this exciting event can watch it on film, on the internet at digbeth.org thanks to the support of the operator of the Digbeth is Good Blog, Nicky Getgood. Type Irish Heritage into the search box half way down the screen on the right hand side and click GO.
Regarding the headline of this report, the picture shows that O’Gara’s hands were in his pockets and the red was on the faces of the others, but much too long for a headline. Anyway why spoil a snappy headline, with a pedantic adherence to trivial facts. Is O’Gara on his way to joining the hate figure of the British media “Hand of God” Diego Maradona.
I have a cat called Samson. Here he is, next to my Flip camera:
He’s a lot sweeter than he looks and makes a great size scale. Using cats as size scales is my patented Genius Technique, which has been embraced by others. One day it will make me very rich.
Belfast has a Samson too – a ruddy great big old Harland & Wolff crane who, with his brother Goliath, dominates the Belfast skyline.
Well, that’s just silly, isn’t it? At 308 feet tall, Samson Crane is far too tall to be used as a size scale – he’d just dwarf everything put beside him and make it all look teeny. Samson Cat is a far more sensible size and proof that small is beautiful. He wins it for Birmingham, but seems pretty nonplussed by his victory.
There’s a surprising amount of animal life on the urban streets of Digbeth. So much so, I made a map out of it with the help of Pete Ashton’s photography:
I wasn’t expecting to find much faunography in Belfast. How wrong I was. Imagine my delight at discovering Belfast Castle’s Cat Garden, a testament to an old story that a white cat has always lived there. It’s a beautifully kept garden with 9 felines – mosaic cats, sculptured cats, hedge cats…
It was upon visiting this garden and getting near deafened by mine and Karen’s high-pitched squeals that our poor taxi tour driver learnt the difference between us lesser-spotted bloggers and the more common-garden, journalist-on-a-press-trip fodder. It’s a garden full of cats.KITTEHS. Belfast wins.
“A short film directed by Matt Watkins featuring Lucy McLauchlan’s improvised painting process and the harvesting of urban detritus. Tacit was filmed between locations in Birmingham and Walsall Art Gallery.
The soundtrack was composed, performed and recorded by McLauchlan and Watkins with a circuit bent broken radio and a ‘prepared’ piano in the reception of Birmingham’s Custard Factory.”
The Stirrer – News that matters, campaigns that count for Birmingham, The Black Country and beyond – The Rainbow gets some surprise support from Birmingham Conservative councillor Robert Alden. There were also more optimistic noises coming from The Rainbow Facebook support group after landlord Kent Davis was invited to a meeting at the Council House on Friday with regeneration chief Clive Dutton.
Landlord Kent Davis is also sounding a little more optomistic after his meeting with Clive Dutton:
“Finally it looks as though some common sense may be being applied to this emotive subject. Clive Dutton (Director of planning and regeneration) and Cncllr Martin Mullaney organised a meeting attended by Jaqui Kennedy (Head of Regualtory services), Cllr Ernie Hendricks (who is looking at a music policy for Birmingham), myself and other interested parties. This was a first of its kind and more are needed if in Mr Dutton’s own words we are ‘to satisfactorily navigate our way through the current issues through good collaboration and common sense’.”
Paradise Circus » July Social Media Surgery – 15th July 2009 – The next surgery for voluntary and charity groups in the West Midlands looking to learn a bit about social media is on Wednesday, July 15th, between 5.30pm to 7.00pm at Fazeley Studios.
I’m answering Shona McQuillan’s question here. Regular readers will know I’m no stranger to these. I was a tad ill after my Digbeth Week of Breakfasts, done with local historian Richard Trengrouse to bring to you the world of Digbeth’s cafe’s.
Now in Belfast they have something a little different to the Full English. They have the Ulster Fry:
According to Wikipedia ‘A traditional Ulster Fry consists of bacon, eggs, sausages, soda bread and potato bread…Other common components include mushrooms or wheaten bread. All this is traditionally fried.’ Oof.
However, even that is not as likely to bring on a coronary as this gargantuan number:
Michael Grimes was served this in Birmingham’s wholesale markets after doing the 4am project outing on 4th April. What he managed to eat was a full platter of 4 fried eggs, 4 plum tomatoes, 4 sausages, 4 bacon rashers and mushrooms all floating on an unseen bed of beans. With toast and tea. I can’t imagine anywhere else on the planet that would see fit to serve that for breakfast at 5 o’clock in the morning. Birmingham wins the Stroke Inducing Breakfasts round for the most ridiculous portion size I’ve ever seen.
As far as I know, Birmingham currently only has 1 Getgood – myself. There was a guy called Adam Getgood who went to Birmingham University but I think he’s moved away since graduating. It seems I’m on my lonesome. (Let me know if you know different.)
Belfast has loads – Uncle Ernie, Aunie Margaret, cousins Ian and Jude. Not to mention all those lovely little Getgoods:
Uncle Ernie likes to pass down the family traditions to them:
He also has the Getgood eccentric streak. Look what he did to Chez Getgood’s oil tank:
So Belfast wins on having more Getgoods. Whether or not this is entirely a good thing, I’ll leave up to you to decide.
