Archived News

Summer 2011

Hey guys, Áine here 🙂

Well I don’t know where to start! WHAT a summer we had in the states!! To say it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING would be a complete understatement! We started off in Conals home place ‘Philly’ and what a few days we had!!! Between running up the Rocky steps and eating Philly steaks we were wrecked altogether, but we had a ball!

The first festival we played at was the great American Irish fest and it was so much fun! It was our first festival gig in the states and we were like big kids at a carnival, eating deep fried Oreo’s and getting fake tattoos Colm and I were even brave enough to get back massages,

But I think Colm got the raw end of that deal!

While driving back home to Conal’s, we took a wrong turn and ended up at the Philadelphia eagles stadium, aka ‘The Link’. Our lovely driver Adam was sooooo amazed at the sight that he forgot he was driving and drove into a huge piece of metal that was sticking out of the pavement. We then had to wait a few hours for someone to replace the wheel and I’m very happy to add that it was a female. It was funny to see four “strong” lads stranded at the side of a road while a woman went under the car to change the wheel. Priceless!!! 🙂

 

During our time in the states we took in some FANTASTIC places!! Every weekend we played at a different Irish festival, some of them being the biggest Irish festivals in the world. We had a total blast! We got to meet and play with so many unbelievable musicians, some of whom we looked up to growing up, so it was a big honour for us. One of our favourite places of the tour was Beaver Island. We travelled by ferry and had a very relaxing few days. Conal showed us his skills with a gun (a toy gun obviously) and we even challenged the locals at a few games of pool!

 

 

 

We also got to hang out with some great people along the way! Below is a picture of us, The Fuchsia band and Seamus Kennedy having a bit of session at the La Crosse Irish Festival.  Ian Gould and his lovely wife Liz where also there and we spent the next few days hanging about with them and their lovely kids!! Seamus stayed in the Gould household as well and we introduced him to beer pong for the first time. He was a natural!!! 😉

 

 

 

Along with playing with other musicians and singers at the festivals, we were able to entertain the crowds at Peoria with two of the most amazing Sean Nos Dancers, Brian and Irene Cunningham.  We had so much fun performing with them. They are such energetic dancers; we were sweating looking at them!

 

 

 

Although we were in the States for 8 weeks we didn’t have much time to ourselves so on the first day we had off we went toAmerica’s largest WaterPark. The day was full of fun as you could imagine. However, Colm had a bit of an accident. While queuing for one of the last rides of the day, we overheard a small child ask his Dad “how come that man has a hole in his bum”?  He was of course talking about the huge split in Colm’s swimming shorts that he had been walking around with all day. Well I never  seen him turn so red so quickly!!!

We saw some magical sights along the way! Below is a picture or myself, Tadhg and Colm in awe of one of the beautiful sights to be seen at the Milwaukee Irish festival. We were so excited to be playing there as it was one of the big festivals we all had heard of growing up and it was every bit as magical as we had imagined! At the scattering we had the pleasure of playing alongside  Altan, Moya Brennan, The Young Wolf tones and Fidil as well as many others and the fireworks display at the end was just breathtaking.

 

 

 

While we were in the states we were treated so well!! So many people did such nice things for us; e.g. letting us stay in their homes, showing us around their hometowns and we appreciate it so much! A special mention has to be given to a great friend of ours, Douglas Dowd. He looked after us TOO well when we were inSt Louisand gave us the run of his house to work on material for our new C.D.  So keep an eye out for ‘Dowd’s number ten’ on the new album!

Another great man is Kyle Forsthoff. He too went out of his way to take us sightseeing aroundKentuckyand we had a really great day with him!! We even got to go to a REAL Kentucky Fried Chicken and man was it good!!!

Our driver Spud also had a very kind heart (this one time) when he surprised us with a giant congratulations cookie for our graduation (the picture above). As some of you already know we missed our graduation due to our tour but spud made our day special! Tadhg and Conal thought it would be a great idea to get some milk for the cookie and ended up buying a litre of milk for over 20 dollars from the downstairs bar as there was no shops open!!Now that was some good milk! 🙂 Marty Cahill, from the Syracuse Irish festival, also celebrated our graduation by presenting us with diplomas on stage at the festival. Such a great man with such a big heart!!!

 

All that’s left to say now is thank you!!! Thanks to all of the festivals we played at including the magnificent Great American Festival, the outstanding Dublin Ohio Irish Festival, the unforgettable La Crosse Irish Festival, the amazing Milwaukee Irish Festival, the fabulous Kansas City Irish Festival, the spectacular Syracuse Irish Festival, the unbelievable Pittsburgh Irish Festival, the wonderful Peoria Irish Festival, and the Fantastic Michigan Irish Festival. Thank you also to all the homes (The Brown household and O‘Mulder’s pub) and to all the venues we played in during our tour!!!Unfortunately we can’t name them all but you know who you are! We had so much fun.

I think that’s all for now folks. Be sure to check out the Goitse website for up and coming gigs and ye can always keep in touch with us via facebook.

Mucho love,

Áine 🙂

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Saturday November 20th 2010

Hey guys, Áine here again.:)

Well it has been an eventful few months since our last news update so I thought it was only fair to let ye in on all the gossip. But where to begin? Ah yes! The All-Ireland fleadh. The five of us decided to take a wee trip up to county Cavan for the week and what a week it was. While Colm and Tadhg were getting the extra ceilí band practices in ( to give James’s band a run for their money), I was busy catching up and playing tunes with loads of friends I hadn’t seen in ages. Throughout the week tension was brewing between the three boys and by Sunday it was at an all time high. Myself and Conal didn’t know what to do but we never predicted what was to happen. We sat there, in the big hall chewing our fingernails, waiting for the results when the judges came back into the room. The whole hall fell silent and I was practicing both my happy and sad faces(just in case). One of the judges then announced the news….there was a joint third. ‘NO, It couldn’t be’ I thought but the unimaginable happened and both ‘The Triogue ceilí band'(colm and Tadhg’s band) and ‘The Ard Eascair Ceilí band ‘(James’s band) got joint third. I’m not sure how the lads felt but myself and Conal were DELIGHTED and there was happy faces all round! 🙂

And then it was back to college for us. Myself, Colm, Tadhg and Conal entered our final year of our degree while James set off on his work experience. Although we are extremely busy with college work, it hasn’t stopped us from keeping up with our practices and we are currently working on lots on new sets! Very exciting altogether:)

Speaking of excitement, we took part in our first ever music conference/showcase a few weeks ago and what an experience it was. We got to perform for twenty minutes in front of 120 promoters, a lot of whom were from the states. We got chatting to many of them afterwards and they were such nice people who really appreciated the music. We got some great tips and advice from them and we hope to see them again sooner rather than later.

Which brings me to our next bit of good news! We are very excited to tell you that we have just recently hopped on board with RGM and are hoping to tour the states next summer. We have been eager to do this for a long time now and are so happy that we are finally getting the chance to do so.  We are also organising a wee tour of Ireland this coming January/February and are hoping to play in some venues that we haven’t played in before. Counties Cork, Waterford and Kerry are amongst others to be visited. A tour in Denmark is also on the cards for March so keep an eye out for updates on our tour dates.
So I think that’s all for now folks. Drop us a comment in our guestbook if ye have a chance and I’ll be updating ye very soon on anything else exciting that’s happening around us.

Mucho love,
Áine:)

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Wednesday 21st July 2010

Hey guys. Áine here:)..So the website is eventually now up and running. Were looking forward to keeping ye all updated with all our news and hopefully a few photos along the way and were especially looking forward to hearing from all of ye so drop us a line in the guest book.

The boys and myself have had a brilliant summer so far. We started off in Miltown co. Kerry at the World Bodhran Championships where we had the great honour of opening for Donal Lunny, Mairtín O Connor and Andy Irvine. The craic around Miltown was mighty altogether and everyone had a great few days…well nearly everyone! Tadhg was adjudicating the Limerick fleadh so he had to drive over to limerick in the mornings, adjudicate all day and then back to Kerry for the gigs in the evenings, not to mention having to stay up until all hours of the morning:)….but Tadhg, being the wee trooper that he is, powered on and despite his busy schedule had great fun too!

Next on the calendar was Gurteen, Co. Sligo. The Coleman County Bodhran School was on and Colm was up all week giving workshops. Myself, Tadhg, James and Conal journeyed down on the Wednesday and we had great fun performing on the Wednesday night as well as playing a few tunes in Ned’s afterwards with some of the pupils and tutors from the summer school. Tadhg, James and Conal ventured home on the Thursday but I managed to sneak an extra few days in the lovely Gurteen and even got to play a few tunes at the workshop. .Some of the pupils were AMAZING! I’d say Colm would want to watch his back for the teaching spot next year!!

The weekend of the 10th July we were all (with the exception of conal) at the leinster fleadh and the rivalry between the group was becoming a little tense. Both James and Colm had pupils competing in the fleadh and it didn’t take long for them to start bickering about who had the most pupils in the all-Ireland…(I think James managed to win that one.) But the real tension didn’t begin until that evening at the senior Céilí band competition. Well I didn’t know what to do. There I was, stuck in the middle. In one corner were both Colm and Tadhg belting it out for The Triogue Céilí band from Portlaoise while in other corner James was plucking away for The Ard Eascair Céilí band from Offaly. The Triogue Ceili band were 8th on the programme and The Ard Eascair Céilí band were 11th so what I decided to do was listen to the first seven bands and then I left. I knew if I stayed I would get the blame for cheering for one band louder than the other so I decided to stay out of it altogether and let the adjudicators decide and hopefully with a bit of luck I would be able to cheer on one of the bands at the All-Ireland…..But no!! The adjudicators on the day decided to make my life just that little bit harder and gave first place to Offaly and second place to Portlaoise. So if anyone would like to join me at the All-Ireland senior céilí band, you would be more than welcome. I’m going to need all the hands I can get to carry both posters!!

P.s. This was the same day Louth were  ROBBED in the match against Meath, but the less said about that, the better!!

So we are just home yesterday from Doolin, Co. Clare where we had a great gig in The Magnetic store. It was a great turn out and we all really really enjoyed it. Some of our friends from home and college turned up to surprise us so thanks to all of ye who attended. Conal is at home in the states at the minute so it was Stephen Rooney who stepped in for him for the night, and what a brilliant job he did too. Not only did he impress the audience with his guitar skills and dashing good looks (according to Tadhg), but he dazzled them with his electric banjo playing too! Everyone was really impressed so a big thanks to Stephen again!!

So I think that’s all the news for now folks. Keep an eye on the page and I will be sure to update ye soon about any more scandal that goes on. Bye for now…
Muchu love,
Áine 🙂