Why would anyone visit Ireland once, not to mind *twice*, given the following:

1. it’s one of the most expensive countries in Europe now, with bad value for money;
2. the culture, which was our greatest asset, has been killed stone dead in the last ten years;
3. the weather is crap – but we can’t do anything about that – when we still had a culture, tourists used to overlook the weather because of the “Irish Charm”;
4. the traffic and getting around is a nightmare, and so expensive.

The quality of life in Ireland has been destroyed. We are a nation of amazing marketing geniuses, but we can’t keep fooling the tourist – and we won’t. People used to come here for our easy going way, our fantastic way of looking at life and the “green legends”. Only the legends live now…

The Celtic Tiger was built on a fantastic ,but weak, foundation which was our corporate tax level mainly. If the rest of Europe applied the same taxes we would be back digging trenches with our fingers, sowing spuds to feed our families. The only other industry we had was tourism and we have killed that, because we all got carried away with an arrogant attitude because we made a few quid in a few years. We will not always be so clever.

The Chinese and the Eastern Europeans are gaining ground on us at serious speed. We are now a police state, an open prison. Our people are under so much pressure that we are now leading Europe and the Western World in a competition for who can work hardest and sleep the least. We don’t even have time to look after our own families, let alone look after tourists.

When you come to Ireland and visit our famous pubs, restaraunts and hotels, and you are met by somebody who is Eastern European, it´s not good enough. I have nothing whatsoever against Eastern European folk – to the contrary, I believe they are a huge asset to our society, but if I go to Poland (which I have many many times) I want to meet the *Polish*. Any Eastern European working in the frontline of the tourist industry should have perfect English, a very good understanding of Irish culture and history. It is not their fault that some of them in the frontline don’t have the above knowledge – it’s the people that employed them. I don’t care if the Eastern Europeans own the establishments, but I bet you if they did (and they will) they will be clever enough to have Irish working in the frontline.

The Irish are now working and living in the following way:

1. both partners in the family are working flat out;
2. their travel time to work is ridiculous;
3. between child minders and big mortgages, they only have time to sleep;
4. they are constantly under pressure because their one and only beautiful life is out of control trying to juggle so much;
5. the word balance has dissapeared out of peoples` lives as they drink at home like hermits, never mixing with others;
6. they are trying to keep up with a rat race that somebody else invented for them;
7. we have gone from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye in the past ten years, and we are going to pay for these mistakes in the future.

Who do we think we are? We have no natural resources worth talking about. We have a well educated young population, but China and the Eastern European countries are catching up so fast it would make you dizzy, and they are much more competitive. Believe me, I have travelled the World and we are so insignificant and will become more so unless we start to change fast. We need to look after tourists and get our culture back on track. We always got on well as Irish wherever we went, because of who we were, not who we are now. We have become so arrogant just because of a few good years with the Celtic Tiger. There is an expression that “a friend in need is a friend in deed” I think is the exact opposite, i.e. “it’s only when your friend doesn’t need you anymore that you really find out how much of a friend he/she is”. The Irish government and its people got a few quid and look what it did to them….

Our Taoisach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern has lead our country for ten years now. He got the real difficult problems sorted, fair play to him. He sorted out the economy and he made fantastic moves as a national and international diplomat, but why couldn´t he stop that Michael Martin and Michael McDowell destroying all of the good work? Those two a***h*les turned Ireland into an *open prison*, and ultimately Bertie is responsible for this. They have brought out legislation that is of no effect except to annoy people, for no good reason, and lost the run of themselves.

If I had the power tomorrow, these are the changes that I would make to put us in some way back on the right road:

1. I would stop the traffic cops wasting time with their silly speed checks and catching people breaking speed limits by 5kph or even 10. This is annoying people and wasting resources. All of the traffic cops should be in unmarked cars, vans and even trucks. They should have video equipment and be catching people driving dangerously. It is much safer to be doing 80 mph on a main road at 6 o´clock on a fine summer´s morning than it is to be trying to pass out at 60mph on a bad, wet, dark December evening at 6pm with the roads full of traffic. I see people driving dangerously nearly every day at home and I´m sure an unmarked van or truck would too. Of course, there has to be a speed limit – but common sense must prevail!
2. I would stop these stupid tribunals dead and stop wasting huge amounts of money. It would be better to find a way to stop corruption from happening again and get on with life. Of course, Bertie can´t do that because he is implicated in them. If the tribunals don´t find anything more or substantial on Bertie, this will be a desperate waste of time. Ok, so he got a dig out of whatever (maybe 80,ooo Euros – I don´t know the exact amount). This is wrong, but how wrong! Everybody has sins, and when someone is minister for finance and going through a divorce, that is serious pressure. He didn´t do this to have a mansion or a Rolls Royce. He wanted to take the pressure off in the easiest way possible and with the least amount of bother. I bet he is sorry now that he didn´t just organise a loan. If they find more it´s a different story, but I don´t think he is a greedy person who was trying to build up huge wealth for himself. Maybe I´m wrong, but I doubt it.
3. The price of drink in off licences should be the same as pubs. This would stop people drinking too much at home and they would go back to the pubs and socialise more, just like it used to be. It would also stop under age drinking, or at least slow it a lot.
4. Taxis taxis taxis! The way they brought in this deregulation was a disaster. Of course, we needed more taxis at certain peak times, but most of the time there were taxis hanging around anyway. They should have made part-time licences available only for the rush hours and let the full-time taxi drivers make a living. This was so badly tought out and so many taxi drivers were banking on selling their licences for their pension. Now in Cork we have gone from 200-300 taxis to 2,000. They are all sitting around and not making a living. I think there should be a standard taxi fare of 5 Euros from anywhere in the south side to the centre, or with in the south side and the same for the north side. I firmly believe the taxi drivers would make more money and traffic would benefit because people would use taxis much more, and would go out much more. The current prices on the meters would have to stand at peak traffic times because the taxis can´t get around fast enough to make money. Somebody should set up a base for all those independent taxi drivers and charge the above prices. For sure they would all make money! Some similar scheme should be introduced in all areas of Ireland. I can only comment on Cork, as every city and town is different in size etc.
5. The famous smoking ban!!! I wasn´t in Ireland when the ban came into force, but I was sure that it wouldn´t be enforced because I tought people would get up in arms and rebel. I was wrong! I am a smoker and I hate smokey bars. I only want to smoke my own cigarette. If there were proper ventilation and smoke extractors fitted there should have been no need to have a smoking banned, as smoke would rise to the extractors straight away. Of course, Uncle Michael Martin knows what´s best for everyone regarding health, even though he, in my opinion, looks twice his age from interfering in the way he thinks others should live. There is one for the ex-minister for health! Did he ever stop to think about the effect his smoking ban would have on society, with people not going out like they used to, sitting at home, lonely? Their only interaction was with people in their local for a few pints and he destroyed that, which I am sure has caused mental stress, loneliness and even suicides. Should Michael Martin be brought up for murder? Again, it was one extreme to another, by a very arrogant type of human being.
6. There should be a limit on the amount of money a couple or a single person can borrow, which should be a percentage of only one income over the past five years. Also, only 70% of the price of a house should be advanced by a financial institution. This would bring down the price of property and leave people with a reasonable disposable income – to have a *life*. In the event of any bank advancing more money to somebody, they should have no recourse in the courts to regain the difference. A Celtic Tiger based on screwing the people into borrowing more than they can afford, cracking up under pressure, being a contributary factor to suicides and marrige breakdowns and even family murders (in extreme cases) isn´t worth a shit. People working flat out with 30 year mortgages, some on interest only for a period and 100% financed. We don´t need that type of tiger. The tiger was fuelled by other factors as well, and they were positive, but this part was very negative.

When I bought Charlie´s Bar in Lanzarote, my main reason was to have a place for people to go and enjoy the craic and the music like it used to be back in Ireland. We have live music seven nights a week with two live bands and you can get a taxi home for 3 Euros. You can go out for a good steak, glass of wine and a coffee nearly anywhere for 15 Euros.

I keep going back to Ireland every few weeks because it´s where I have family and friends, but if I was not from Ireland, I couldn´t see any reason to go there at the moment. I hope all that will change sooner rather then later before there is too much damage done, or before the tourists cop on. This is constructive critisism of a country and a culture I used to love. It´s not Ireland bashing for the sake of it. Let´s make sure that what ever politicians we vote for put these simple but important things right again, and keep them right, which shouldn´t be difficult given the much more difficult bridges we have already crossed as a nation before.
Adios and Rock on Charlies.

Murphy

There are so many single people in our society now, more then ever before. I think there are many reasons for this.

1. There are not many places to meet others anymore like there were before.
2. Both sexes are working harder than ever now and leading very busy lives, and in my opinion too busy.

I believe that there are three main types of relationships:

• fully commited (co-habiting),
• committed part-time(not co-habiting), and
• casual/frienship.

The most important thing is to find someone that wants the same type of relationship as yourself so that nobody gets hurt. For sure there is somebody there for everyone in this world, at any level.

Our aim at Charlie´s Bar is to facilitate people coming together but with a great craic along the way where people can just have great fun for a week, meeting all kinds of new aquaintances.

There are more and more people meeting on the internet now than ever – whether that’s a good thing or not, it’s simply a fact. We want to combine the internet with real life and while you book your holiday on the website, you still get to meet each other in real life in an easy going, safe & fun way.

Whether you are a group of lads or lasses or simply tavelling solo, we will all welcome ye at Charlie´s, and do what we can to make sure everyone has a great time with us.

Charlie´s is mostly suited to people between the ages of 22 to 45 years of age with its fantastic live music which it has been renowned for for over twenty years.

We feel that with our location on the beautiful island of Lanzarote it’s easy to access from Ireland, and our great pub, musicians and staff that we are very fortunate to have, we get the opportunity to bring people together in such a positive way.

We hope all our guests have a crazy, fantastic time with us. There are only two main rules at Charlie´s:

1. NO drugs
2. NO violence (which we have never had, thank God).

Charlie´s is a place for fun-loving, crazy people to enjoy themselves in peace!

So ENJOY!

… like a prisoner requires the patience of Job and the control of a saint!

Like everyone else in the world who finds themselves in the above situation, you would rather be on the top of a glacier in -30 degrees naked with no real chance of survival!!

Christmas is a fantastic time of year for these situations, when families are forced together. The in-laws/outlaws/children/grandchildren etc etc, which some of them don’t get on and are there only out of a sense of obligation. Don’t do it. Put a few drinks into the equation and Hiroshima looks like a teddy bear´s picnic…

The real question is how far do you go with your sense of obligation given the fact that you have only one short life and it’s better to spend it in a positive atmosphere as much as possible.

I recently had a conversation with a gentleman in his late 50s who told me that some of his family came to stay with him last year for Xmas, from a large city to his country town. In the group were his daughter and granddaughter. The 13 year old granddaughter dragged her feet around the house, picked up nothing after her, mumbled some jibberish when asked polite questions by her grandfather who was trying to make conversation, and made no eye contact.

Grandfather calls the child aside and has a few words to say about manners. Granddaughter goes to mother. Mother goes to grandfather and tells him to stop upsetting granddaughter in a rage. Grandfather feels like a pile of shit in his normally peaceful home. He apologises when he really shouldn’t, just to try and get through the next few days. Grandfather says to him self “I’m going to Lanzarote next year with a few friends”, granddaughter stays in big city next year and all is well, or at least for grandfather.

I have learned from past experience to be extremely careful of getting myself into “trapped” situations with people who are potential trouble, or whom I am potential trouble for.  I am a very bad actor and can’t put on a show just for the sake of it.  Can’t be doing going around with a false stupid smile with people who don’t contact me from one end of the year to the other, but think so different on Xmas Day or any family occasion, out of a sense of duty.

My experience of these situations is that you try to do the *right thing*, and everything ends up even worse than before.  Be a hero – and stay away.  Just like aquaintances, family are the same – some I get on with extremely well, and some not at all.  That’s life, and I prefer to spend the time with those I consider *real* people whom I get on with.  Can’t spend time with assholes who are trying to impress a false image of themselves upon others.

The bottom line is that I know they are doing this out of a sense of insecurity within themselves and I feel very sorry for them.  It’s my own weakness that I don’t have tolerance for these situations.  Can anyone give me a prescription???

Maybe I could smoke joints for these occasions, which I don’t do – nor do I judge those who do.  Then I could sit there smiling away at everyone and everything around me and laughing stupidly at Santa the bastard falling off the Xmas tree.  Bad idea?  Or maybe not, mmmh.

Adios.

Hi there,

This is Barry Murphy, the proprietor of the great Charlie´s Bar in Lanzarote. Just to let you know a little about myself and our future plans.

I am over and back to Ireland every few weeks and it’s amazing the changes that I see between life in Lanzarote and Ireland. I intend to write articles about many different subjects for whoever is interested in them.

It’s funny when you look at life the way I have the oppertunity to and see the crazy cultues and customs of so many countries, having travelled around for so long. What is crazy in one country is absurd in another, and when you read between the lines of them all there is usually a good balance somewhere. We put up with so much crap that has been handed down to us without questioning things properly.

For example, look how long it took us to see through the Catholic Church and the fear of God it put into us all. Of course, there were many well-meaning people in the church, but it was and is a crazy organisation, in my humble opinion. On the other hand, the one thing that it did do was create a sense of community with at least some good morals like love, not to hurt others, to be charitable etc etc, but then it went to far and made sex a dirty thing, made kids afraid of their lives of the priest (not just the ones that were abused!).

I remember the teachers panicking like hell and passing it on to us because the priest was going to pay us a visit. Thank God, we have lost so much of the negativity surrounding the church, even if it is by not practising, but we have also lost the community spirit and the parts that were good morally. Maybe somebody needs to create a much more relaxed and open way of lecturing on Sundays. I use the word lecturing, or teaching, or telling right from wrong and encouraging people to be straight, generous and loving in their dealings with their fellow human beings, because I don’t want to use the word “Religion”. I don’t believe in Religion. That is not to say that I don’t believe in God, but whatever God there is, he would be rightly p***ed off to find different types of Christians killing each other in His name, different types of Muslims killing each other in His name, and both Christians and Muslims killing each other also in His name.

I have views on communisn, capitalism, free movement of human beings on this planet, the West, the East and the Middle East, rearing kids, standards of living etc etc, which I have decided to write about over the next few months on this new blog page, and anyone is free to reply or reprint whatever they like from it.

Not so sure how all this will work out, but I’m going to give it a bash anyway!

Now a little about my own back round. Much to the detriment of society, I was born in 1965, raised in Bishopstown, Cork, with two brothers (one since deceased by suicide unfortunately, which is another topic I have a lot to say about at a later stage) and one sister. I left school at 15 years old – a rebel – which I still am, and don’t intend changing, and served my time as a mechanic. I was a crap mechanic and still know as much about cars as pigs do about holidays. I love operating and testing any mechanical instrument to the last but hate fixing them.

I got married when I was 21 and my eldest son was 1 year old, and then I had two more sons within a few years. All doing well, thank God! I also have a beautifull 18 month old son now.

Over the years I have been involved in several businesses, and still am. I was a workaholic. Then three very strange incidents happened in my life within a few years that changed the way I looked at things for evermore.

1. My beautiful brother Kevin passed away at 27 years old, which made me think fast about what I was doing with my own possibly short life.
2. I went on a fantastic ski holiday with my kids (Barry, Shane and Ross). I had never gone or been able to afford to go on a decent holiday. I remember sitting on top of a mountain in Austria, thinking “I have to start enjoying this life more and doing the things now that I won’t be able to do in another twenty years or so”.
3. I met this wonderful girl in my life (even though we are no longer together, but I know we will remain friends for life) who played music all her life and I couldn’t believe that she was having so much fun without working 16 hours a day, or even 6, and she was getting along in this life as good as me, or maybe even better, and there was me killing myself! Something wrong here, Murphy! Time to have a quiet chat with yourself!!

So then I set about learning and playing music intensely until I could play a gig. I learned the chords and words to 30 songs in as many days 24/7….

I got rid of one business which was a very good business, but was taking up way to much of my time for the way I wanted to live, bought a camper van and a moterbike and set off touring Europe, playing music wherever I could find deaf enough people to listen to me, together with another great female friend of mine for over a year. We were then asked to cover a gig in Lanzarote for a week and off we flew from Gran Canaria. That was in Febuary 2004. We ended up coming and going, sometimes living here in Lanzarote since.

Then an other problem arose, or had been arising, and I couldn’t see it at the time. I had gone from one extreme to another, and was getting bored with my new life. It was time to get involved again with something. This time I was going to get involved with a business that I *wanted* to be in and I got the opportunity to buy the famous Charlie´s Live Music Venue in Lanzarote, which is much more work then I bargained for but I still love it to bits…

Since I took over Charlie´s Bar in December 2007, or at least re-opened it then, after a lot of re-wiring etc. I have slowly but surely put together a fantastic bunch of musicians, that are now called “Skin & Hide“. They have just finished playing with Sharon Shannon for a week here at Charlies, and what a craic we all had!!! They play Irish Rock with Trad Tunes put in the middle, country, rock classics and nearly everything you can throw at them. A sounder bunch of lunatics you couldn’t meet.

I am now looking forward to welcoming Aslan to Charlies for the first week of March (playing 2, 4 and 6 March).

I am very disillusioned with the way our own Irish culture has gone over the past 10 years, with nobody in the pubs, no gigs and everyone rotting at home, working flat out, not able to afford to go out and socalise – all to pay mortgages that they should never have been given by greedy banks, and driving property prices through the roof. That’s a topic for another day though, but it’s so serious to see the pressure that people are under back at home, and so sad, while their lives pass them by…

We will be organising fun holidays for singles, with loads of activities, fun competitions and great nightly entertainment with our live bands nightly. These will be organised weekly, and off-peak from May when it’s not expensive to get to Lanzarote. Keep an eye on our websites www.charlieslanzarote.com and www.charliesholidays.com

Cheers
Barry Murphy
Drink Sex Feck

Hi again Folks,

I’m sitting here in my apartment on Tuesday morning the 5th of February writing this. The sun is shining, as it nearly always does here. Walking on the beach this morning reflecting on Sharon Shannon’s first gig at Charlies last night made the sun seem ten times brighter. I’m finding it difficult to express what everyone experienced in the bar last night, but I will try to set the scene for those of you who couldn’t make it…

On sunday I was waiting for Sharon Shannon and the rest of the crew to arrive at the airport in Arrecife, thinking what will they be like to meet? Will they want this, that and the other, what will the week be like etc. etc. etc.! I never organised anything like this before and I was obviously a little nervous! They all arrived through the gates smiling, some with children, some with parents, even “out”-laws!! After chatting for a while we eventually got all 14 of them to their temporary abodes and organised to meet at Charlies later for a drink.

It became obvious very fast that I had nothing whatsoever to be nervous about. Sharon walked in the door, threw her arms around me and said “would you like a pint, Murphy?” That was that! I have seen her play live at the Opera House and the NEC before, and as well as always appreciating her music, I have always been attracted to that fantastic smile of hers. You wonder then what is she like off stage? The answer is in her smile on stage. That’s who she naturally is, just as I expected, but I was very happy to be right and very right. She is a remarkable character, a great craic, and couldn’t be more helpful – just like all the gang that travelled with her…

I was very wrong about one of them though. I have always seen Jim Murray onstage as someone very serious, as he is about his music (like them all), but this guy is a dangerously funny man, down to earth and fantastic company.

Mary Shannon was just as I expected her to be – easy-going, always smiling and friendly, just like her sister, and she completely knows what she is up to. She is just like a very pleasant breeze about the place, and as helpful as you would meet on any road you would travel.

The last of the geniuses that descended upon our humble live music venue here in Lanzarote was Leon the sound engineer. What a professional! And just like them all a great, very capable, friendly and helpful character. The Sound is so important in a music venue like Charlies and to see this man in action, and the way he sets up sound is simply frightening. He offered to help in any way he could while he was here with the sound of our own bands, and we will take him up on that in future. A really very sound sound man!

Last night was their first gig of the week and they played tunes that they had written themselves (which they are renowned for) that are on their new album called “Renegade” along with many other great stuff. For me, and I think I can speak for everyone that was present, it was Sharon Shannon at her best – in an intimate setting, this was a session rather than a gig – and what a session! As I said last night “I could die happy now” after hearing them in this setting and knowing that I was part of making this happen here in Lanzarote.

Talking to them all afterwards, they had really enjoyed it as well. They were so relaxed and cracking jokes between the tunes and they created an amazing natural atmosphere. Jim was telling me that they were playing some tunes that they hadn’t had a chance to play in a long time in their usual lineup, and it had been a session to them as well that they really enjoyed.

I am told there is a friend of Sharon’s arriving here today whom we all know very well, just for the craic, and I’m sure he will join them on stage as well and will add to what is already simply unbelievable…

All I can say from here is “Roll on the rest of the week”!!!