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November 14, 2009
Howdy again!
It was a fantastic last week in Charlie´s Bar before we broke up for the holidays. I really enjoyed the week with Finbar and Sheila Furey. The one thing that I enjoyed more even than the fantastic performances Finbar gave, was their company. Finbar reminds me of a great friend of mine who has passed away, but with the same name. They would have really enjoyed each other´s company because the Finbar that sadly passed away was the same, in as much as he had great principle and honour in his bones, and was a mighty character and great craic as well, and always up to devilment. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to go away with both of them for a weekend – for sure it would be a weekend you wouldn’t forget in a hurry…
Photos of Finbar on stage with Skin & Hide in our Photo Gallery
I will always look forward to welcoming Finbar and Sheila over here to Charlie´s Bar anytime they can make the time to visit our humble little watering hole again. I know I can speak for all of the staff and musicians at both Charlie´s and the Craic when I simply say “thank you” to Finbar for taking the time to get to know us and giving us the opportunity to play a few tunes with you.
Now we take a break for a few weeks before we head for Ireland to play the Xmas Gigs, and it’s a true testament to Finbar that he has decided to come along to one of our Irish gigs and join us on stage for a few tunes and a bit of craic. We look forward to seeing you back in the old sod! Rumour has it that there might be a very beautiful box player joining us for a few tunes along the road as well…
I would just like to thank all of the customers of Charlie´s and the Craic on behalf of all of us for your custom throughout the year, and we will be looking forward to getting home and firing Charlie´s Bar up again on 26th December. In the meantime Rory, Jon, Widgeon and (I think) Gally will be playing at different times at the Craic over the next few weeks – so enjoy, and thanks again.
Cheers
Barry Murphy
May 28, 2009
I am in Ireland for a few days and the news here is covered by the scandals of the way the Church treated kids in their care, throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s mainly. Now, you have a situation where the Bishops are telling the different congregations to provide more money to the children that were abused in so many ways. They are very wealthy organisations and they have been shifting assets from one company to another to avoid paying out.
As far as I can make out, the *total* of the Catholic Church should have *all* of their assets confiscated and the proceeds of the sale of such assets should be divided between those unfortunate people who were abused.
The Catholic Church should also be labeled an illegal organisation, and it should be an offence to be found to be a member or to support such an organisation. I accept that there are some good priests etc., but if they had any respect for themselves they would resign and create some new mechanism for moving forward, and I still don’t believe that even the *good* ones didn’t know what was going on and are guilty by not coming forward.
Can you imagine what would happen if these kinds of activities were found in some kind of cult religion (and what is or isn’t a cult religion)? As far as I’m concerned, the Catholic religion is as much a cult religion as any, and maybe more so, the way they kept denying, hiding, telling lies and playing a hand to try to hang on to what they could.
They are LIARS, RAPISTS, ABUSERS AND COVER-UP MERCHANTS of an organisation that should be banned from operating in Ireland, and at least the victims would feel that they got juctice.
October 3, 2008
Yes Taoiseach, this whole situation has come about by greed. The problem is, why this wasn’t seen long ago and that the relevant legislation wasn’t put in place to help those greedy bastards to control themselves, because they couldn’t contol their greed, and that should have been seen in advance.
On the other side of the coin, we, as a small nation, have no control over the world-wide situation, which is today at least the USA and the UK, and we are just riding along with what has gone on. Fair play to you for taking the plunge with this guarantee, but every leader in the future must understand that human greed must be controlled. I am totaly agaist excessive legislation, but why are ye after f*cking up the Irish culture with your legislation and forgot to control what really was important to control?
Aomeone, somewhere lost sight of the big picture and they were counting pennies with smoking rules etc. but forgot to control the f*cking *greed* properly – which has lead to, and will lead to more, deaths from stress and financial pressure than any smoking will ever do. It’s like checking the upholstery in the car and forgetting about the engine. Stick with reality Mr Cowen, drop the bullshit and know the difference, which is the most important part. It seems to me that you understand that anyway, thank God, even if a little late. When all is settled down a little and you have had a chance to have a week with your family, fly down here to Lanzarote and come to Charlie´s, and there will be a pint of the plain standing on the counter with your name on it. Cheers.
I genuinely pray to God for your health, Brian, and wellbeing in these difficult times. Head down, like a bull, and a*se to the wind. Blink for no one, trust your own instincts and drive on like f*ck, and it will all work out for the simple reason that I know you genuinely want what’s best for the Irish nation, above all else. Good luck.
Murphy
October 2, 2008
Following on from my blog post yesterday, now it seems that the Irish government has only guaranteed 6 banks and left out the other banks operating in Ireland, which is unfair competition – but nice try.
The truth is if the EU or the UK did the same to any Irish bank abroad, the Irish would have gone mad in Brussels, and rightly so. The opposition in Ireland are trying to dance all over the government, with easy hitting, claiming they (the government) are not sure of what they are doing. They are probably correct to some extent, but we are in uncharted waters here and the government should be supported in every way possible, and for sure they are doing the best they can. Even Cameron said in the UK yesterday that they have to row the boat together with Labour, because this is an unreal situation and there is no room for politics. He will be the next Prime Minister of the UK, and the sooner the better!
As regards the EU, now you can see how important it was to vote “NO” to the Lisbon Treaty. The EU are right to take the government to task about the foreign banks operating in Ireland, and I would hope that whether they had control over us or not, we would support all the banks operating in Ireland equally, just to be right. We should be happy to do what is right regardless, but the thought of having to get permission from the EU to wipe our a*se, well, f*ck that!
This is a classic situation where we are happy to co-operate with our EU neighbours, even at our own cost from time to time, for the benefit of the common good, but if it comes to your a*se or ours, good luck son, and definitely when there are important decisions to be made in a hurry and stupid EU bureaucracy is standing on the fence thinking “too slow Brussels and Adios”, if it comes to it. Brian Cowen, as I said before, should stand up and say:
“We (the Irish nation) are happy to work with Brussels to a point, but if that´s not possible, we will, and are not afraid to, work on our own. We have enough wealth and talent to survive and a great belief in our own best asset (our people, and their strength).”
David Cameron also said today that if the Irish haven’t ratified the Lisbon Treaty before he gets into government, he will also put the Treaty to the English population – and I will bet any man that if that happens the English will vote “NO” as well. The sooner we get Obama and Cameron into office, the better for the world as a whole. Not HOLE!!!
September 9, 2008
In addition to the announcement I made in THIS POST, there are also 3 cheap flights a week to Lanzarote for you lot up in Belfast for 80 Euros each way from January to June 2009…
August 1, 2008
Ok, the price of fuel is more expensive in Ireland, but that’s where the comparison ends. The taxi that took me home from Charlie´s last night at 04.29 am charged me €2.70. The drive is approx. 7 minutes or 3 km. If I got the same taxi in Ireland, it would cost me at least €8.
The Irish taxi drivers tell you that the Canarian taxi drivers are picking up €3 every 10 minutes, but that’s simply not correct. Any night that you want to look out the window of Charlie´s you will see at least twenty taxis waiting for a fare, and if you watch the last one to join the queue, they are waiting at least 40 minutes before moving, and most of the time even longer.
This is a crazy situation where the Irish taxi is way overpriced and the Canarian taxi is way underpriced. If a person sits for a minimum of 45 minutes on a rank at 4am to get a €2.70 fare, there is something seriously wrong! It’s an embarassment to hand a man €2.70 at this hour of the morning, when he drives you home in a spotless Mercedez Benz. I’m not encouraging inflation or ripping people off, but every man is entitled to make a living, and especially those who are working at 4 am in the morning. Why can’t both the Irish taxi driver and the Canarian charge €5 for the fare, with some little adjustment for the price of fuel up or down as appropriate?
There was a time when the Canarian taxi driver was picking up fares every second minute, but that´s history now. The reasons are either because they issued more taxi licences, or there are less tourists around. They may have issued more licences to cover peak times, but I still got a taxi on the last day of July (peak season) at 4 am for €2.70.
This is simply not right. Can someone fix this, please? I have Charlie´s Bar here in Lanzarote and I don’t want to see prices going up on anything for tourists, but I also don’t want to see people’s souls being broken while trying to make a living to support their families.
Charlie´s is the best live music venue on all the Canarian islands and we don´t rip people off with the price of drink. ENJOY!
Someone wake up fast please, both in Ireland and the Canaries….
June 18, 2008
The controversy over the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland is unreal in my eyes.
The whole campaign was simply funny, in that the politicians forgot that they were dealing with Irish people, and Irish people by nature don’t like to be railroaded or pushed into anything. It’s their character, thank God, and they make up their own minds of what is right and wrong. Just like stubborn pigs, if you push the rare species of the Irish man in a certain direction hard enough, he is sure to go in the exact opposite direction!
I can’t understand why Brian Cowen didn’t come out and say “if we vote “yes” this will happen, and if we vote “no”, we will be fine as well”. What came across to me was that we had a leader who had no Plan B. If we voted “no”, then we were f*cked for evermore. That was the message from the campaign. It wasn’t just Brian Cowen either – all of the politicians with a few exceptions were saying the same.
One part of this was to get it ratified, which was their aim, but they made a balls of it. And had they handled it better, I’m sure they would have got it ratified – but I’m personally glad that they didn’t get it ratified. I believe in bringing people together in any common good direction, but it must be common. We all have different cultures in the EU, and while there are a lot of things we should and do share for the common good, we should not get so close that we end up with a situation where we lose control of our way of handling situations – whatever they may be.
If we had a European president, an EU minister for defence and an EU minister for foreign affairs representing us on the world stage, why would we need an Irish government? Then our politicians could hide behind the EU – which they do sometimes any way.
Now, all of the politicians are thinking of how we move forward from here and the tone is between the lines “can we change something legally to move on” or “can we try to sell this again in some other watered down way?” It’s all the EU politicians are thinking like this, not just the Irish. This is very simple. 27 countries had to ratify this treaty for it to be passed and one has not. Scrap it and get on with running your countries thinking positively forward. Brian Cowen should have told the Irish people in a very confident way during the campaign, if the irish people voted “no”, he will be very happy to move forward and knows how to move forward, given that situation. What he did do was tell the people that we are f*cked if we voted “no”, and he doesn’t know where to go from there and tried to bully them into voting “yes”. Bad move, Sir, when it was your first big challenge as leader! As I said, you forgot we are stubborn Irish people…
On the positive side, I’m very glad and proud that we were the only nation of the 27 countries that were given the opportunity to vote at all on the treaty, and very proud of the outcome. As I said, there are a lot of opportunities to work together with the other 26 countries of the EU, and any other country outside those 26 as well, for the common good of all, but we, as a nation, fought for nearly 800 years to get our independence with massive loss of life and hardship, and to sign any part of that away with the stroke of a pen would be madness, and a complete insult to those who lost everything for us to get where we are today. While we are a small nation, we are also a strong friendly nation that is well able to paddle our own kanoo, and all of our politicians should believe that, whoever they are.
Irish people don’t like to be sold anything, they like to buy things!!! A very simple example of that is on the street outside Charlie´s. PRs are put on the steet to bring people into bars and they are having the exact opposite effect as we all know – but hopefully not for long more.
Adio.
Murphy
June 8, 2008
Dear Barry,
I wish to thank you for your kind e-mail.
As you are aware, I have been privileged to serve my community, my party and our country for many years in public life. In that period, I hope that I have made a contribution to an unrivalled era of peace, prosperity and progress on this island.
My motivation for entering politics 31 years ago was to represent the people of my constituency. In 1994, I was elected Leader of my party and three years later, I was humbled to have been entrusted with the great responsibility of leading our nation. For over a decade now, my greatest desire was to repay the trust invested in me by working hard to secure the peace and the prosperity we now enjoy.
As I said recently, I believe that Irish people are innately decent and I have been privileged to have served them and to enjoy tremendous support. Over the past few weeks, I am humbled and overwhelmed to have received so many messages of goodwill such as yours. I truly appreciate your kindness and I have taken great encouragement and solace from it.
Kind regards,
Bertie Ahern, T.D.
May 21, 2008
Howdy again,
As most of you know, we (Skin & Hide) are on holidays from the 10th May to the 24th. We would like to thank “Ignition” for covering at the bar the first week, and this week we have a bunch of talented f*ckers from Manchester covering. They are playing a lot of music similar to Skin & Hide, but with fiddle and banjo instead of electric guitars! They are a right sound bunch of lads that I have known for a couple of years from my trips to Manchester. Next Saturday night should be a great night with Skin & Hide sharing the stage with the lads from Manchester for some of the evening. It’s also the banjo player´s (John) birthday.
As for Skin & Hide in Ireland… most of us travelled to Galway for Leo’s funeral, which was a bad start to the holidays. If there is such a thing as a “nice funeral”, Leo’s was very special. It was the first time in my life that I saw people singing and playing music at a graveside, and it went on for what must have been an hour, while Sharon and Leo´s friends and relatives took turns at filling in the grave. It was an amazing natural feeling to have been there. As devastated and shocked as Sharon was, she still found the energy to organise such beautiful music in the church and sent Leo off better than anyone could have done. I would also just like to take this opportunity to thank Leo’s brother Kevin for his hospitality in the Roisin Dubh after the funeral.
As I write this, Massimo is in rome playing music with a few of his friends during his holidays, Widgeon is in Texas, Shane in Kilkenny, and Shaky on a plane back here to Lanzarote from Dublin. Jon Gold is chasing sheep around Connemara with a vicious look on his face, and Sergi is lost somewhere between Scotland and Ireland, looking for Barcelona with a compass in his hand!
We are all looking forward to a great summer in Charlies, and our next “siesta” will be the first two weeks in December.
Our thanks again to all the lads that filled in for the holidays at Charlies.
Cheers
Murphy
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