FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
In the 30 years or more that I have been reciting humorous verse in Cleere’s Bar of a Monday night (the longest running session in Kilkenny). I have come across musicians [pictured]: famous, infamous and not so famous. I’ve come upon actors on the way up, actors on the way down and some in between. I have come across playwrights, poets and novelists (I have even been the warm-up act for a few: Joseph O’Conner and Rita-Ann Higgins come to mind).
I have come upon country & western singers, folk singers and even opera singers, not least during our Arts Week, now the Kilkenny Arts Festival. And yes, the Arts Festival was, and is, a time when you could just about bump into anyone and everyone, from the Arts world and beyond.
And I haven’t even mentioned the Cats Laughs Festival when George Wendt sat at the corner of Cleere’s Bar and sipped a pint or two (just as he did when he played Norm in the TV series Cheers).
And so, after 30 years or so, you reckon you’ve seen it all. But then you’re not foolish enough to think you’ve ever seen it all. And so it happened that the Monday night of our Arts Festival gone by, I, and my fellow performers, saw something that we’d never seen before. We saw a bride! All in white and who had just been married earlier in the day in a civil ceremony. And we didn’t just see her, we heard her because, fair dues to her, she asked to sing a song – the last song of the evening as it happened. And what did she sing? One of my all-time favourites (a song I have been known to sing myself on the odd occasion). The Parting Glass. And she sang it beautifully.
And it couldn’t have been more appropriate as two dedicated participants in the session, David and Vasso from Connecticut who I met in Cleere’s eight years ago (and have remained great friends with ever since) who visit every year were returning to the US after their annual visit to Kilkenny.
Also two more devotees of the Monday night session, French couple, Bruno and Jackie, who live in Kilkenny some of the year were returning to France the following day. Mentioning France, Helen and Billy, the newly-weds, were off to Brittany the next day to celebrate their marriage proper.
Helen and Billy – I, and all the crew of the Monday night session in Cleere’s were surprised, and delighted, to see you and we wish you health, happiness and harmony in the years ahead. Oh, and as you both slide down the bannister of Life together – may the splinters always face the right way!
Has anyone here
seen Harvey?
I see Harvey every week, especially on Sundays yet I have never seen him! In person. In the flesh. Perhaps there is no flesh. No person. I suspect that there isn’t. But I could be wrong. The Harvey I am referring to, as you may already have guessed, is Harvey Norman. D Harvey Norman who graces the front pages, and back pages, of our Sunday papers – every week!
I mean when I buy the Sunday Independent I feel I am buying the Harvey Norman Sunday Independent because of the numerous pages he commandeers. Full length pages at that. The same with the Sunday Times – it’s the bloody Harvey Norman Sunday Times I might as well be buying.
And Harvey has popped up at sports events also. On scoreboards, whatever. Goddam it the ‘man’ is here, there and everywhere – proving to me, at least, that advertising must work; why else spend a small fortune every weekend if it doesn’t? Harvey definitely takes gold – gold, silver and bronze when it comes to the advertising stakes.
You know something else?
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he walked into Cleere’s some Monday night and distributed fliers. Hell, he might even sing a song!
