It started in Dublin. Myself and Jessica got there in the afternoon and I went straight to The Cobblestone in Smithfield for some tunes.

Then I went up the street to the headquarters of Na Píobairí Uilleann, a beautiful Georgian building on Henrietta Street.

I was there to deliver my talk on the making of The Session. There weren’t that many people there in person but quite a few people watched it live online. You can watch the video of the talk if you want. I’m pretty pleased with it. The few times I played some tunes on my mandolin, the acoustics were lovely!

The next day we took the train down to Cork and onwards to my home town of Cobh. The town was looking its best. The weather was nice and the Queen Anne was docked at the deep water quay.

We spent a lovely weekend hanging out with my mother, including a trip to Cork to see Michael Keegan Dolan’s latest dance piece, Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig. It was joyous! Normally I’d get irrated by someone in the seat behind me tapping their foot, but everyone was tapping along to the classic first album by The Bothy Band.

On Monday morning Jessica flew back to Brighton, leaving me to spend the week at the inaugural Irish Mandolin Gathering.

When I saw that this event was going to be happening, I thought “I’m going! Wherever it’s going to be, I’ll make my way there.” Then I saw it was happening in Little Island and I couldn’t believe my luck! Little Island is halfway between Cobh and Cork, easily reachable on the local trainline.

So I spent the week having a very pleasant commute. This was when the temperatures were getting dangerously high in England, but remained within reason in Ireland. Whenever anyone at the Mandolin gathering complained about the heat, I couldn’t help pointing out that we were actually in the coolest place in Europe for that week.

The mandolin nerdery was excellent. Lots of deep dives into technique, lots of trying out other people’s instruments, and of course, lots of playing tunes. Seán, Macdara, and Marla did a fantastic job, especially considering that this was the very first one!

The inaugural Irish Mandolin Gathering culminated with a concert at The White Horse in Ballincollig, which was excellent but every time it was mentioned, I had that John Spillane song in my head.

Now I’m back home and feeling recharged from a thoroughly enjoyable week in Ireland. Next time I’ll be there will be for a week of learning Irish at Oideas Gael in Donegal—táim ar bís!