Mondays Off...Dublin, Ireland (Post #1)

With Haley performing in Riverdance eight shows per week, we are limited to staying in or close to Dublin city seven days a week. We spend our mornings working out, taking long walks in either Merrion Square or St. Stephen's Green, studying the Irish language, shopping, exploring new neighborhoods, and visiting various sites within walking distance like the National Museum of Ireland and the Irish Traditional Music Archives. We tend to walk between 6-9 miles per day.

Haley has Mondays off. Our plan is to use these days to the best of our ability to explore further afield, visit with friends, or find other more time consuming adventures here in the city.


Monday #1
We spent our first Monday staying in Dublin. We visited the National Gallery of Ireland. Two wings of the gallery were closed for renovation/repair which left us able to view a lot of Renaissance babies and saints or print art (most of which was absolutely incredible). We loved learning how the process of print art worked in the early-mid 1900's. From the Gallery, we walked to Raneagh. The route Google Maps took us was beautiful with big trees and beautiful old homes.


The walk was long and the weather varied from partly sunny to drizzling rain but no matter, we enjoyed every moment of it. We had lunch planned with friends at The Garden of Vegan restaurant. We arrived a little early and were a bit chilly, so we tucked into a little coffee shop for a quick tea and delicious little vegan cakes. The flavors available for the cakes were difficult to chose between so we picked two, almond berry and lime, then shared them both.

Our lunch with Deirdre and Brenda was delicious. So much fun chatting with them. We weren't quite finished talking so we walked together to a the Cake Cafe, a cute, little restaurant tucked away behind a bookstore with both indoor and outdoor seating and lovely, funky decor.


Haley and I only drank tea because we were full from our lunch and earlier tea shop treats but we made plans to return the following week to give their vegan cakes a try (and we were not disappointed by the way...their vegan chocolate brownies were delicious).


We walked back to town a different, and much shorter, way than we had taken to get there then went to meet a few of Haley's fellow Riverdance co-stars to see the movie Rocketman. What a fabulous movie though it did make me feel a little old to remember seeing most of the happenings (and those costumes worn by Elton John) when they occurred.

Monday #2
Haley's 17th Birthday just happened to fall on her day off and Daddy came over to Ireland for the week to see us and help us celebrate. Haley decided she'd like to head to the North for her birthday so I booked a rental car for two days and a hotel room for two nights in Belfast. We headed to the airport to pick up our rental car right after the show on Sunday night and drove to Belfast.

The next morning we rose early...not an easy task when twice throughout the night (1:48am and 3am) some drunk guy was banging on our door, not saying anything when asked what he wanted, and there was another dude in the hallway with him which all freaked us out. Security handled it and supposedly he just had the wrong room but still, not a fun full night's sleep. We walked to Oh!Donuts...the absolutely best vegan donuts on the island. Haley and I knew about the place from our visit last October so it was her birthday dessert request.

We drove up further north to see a few sights we had not yet gotten around to seeing on previous trips.

Our first stop was Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge. The northern coast is absolutely beautiful! We all walked across the rope bridge and explored the island on the other side then took the longest walk possible back around to the car.

 It was a short drive from there to Giant's Causeway. With the purchase of your ticket, they provide a little recording device that queues on at various spots along the walk telling you about the sights or little stories about Finn McCool and the legends of the making of the causeway. We walked around on the stones then hiked up the mountain to and took the high road back to the visitor's center. The hike was amazing...weather perfect and the sights fabulous. Haley and I definitely would love to go again someday.

Giant's Causeway from the high path.

We drove back to Belfast and ate birthday dinner at Jumon, a fabulous vegetarian/vegan Asian fusion restaurant. All meals are vegetarian with vegan options. Their food is delicious. We each enjoyed our dishes but they have chips with tofu and kimchi that are out of this world!

We had a much better night's sleep then drove back to Dublin Tuesday morning. Daddy was able to see Haley perform in one more Riverdance show Tuesday night before flying back home on Wednesday.

Preparation

Being the mother of a musician has been a wild ride.

Since moving to North Carolina last year, Haley and I have spent more time away from home than at home. We've traveled all over the United States from Washington all the way down the west coast to Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Massachusetts, to Canada, and overseas to Thailand and Ireland. She has performed in festivals, competitions, homes, pubs, and other venues.

Now we are preparing to head to Ireland for the summer where Haley will be the fiddler for Riverd*nce. Preparing to be away from home for a little over three months is not easy.

We have both sorted through clothes, narrowed down choices, then weeded out even more until we had what will fit in our suitcases. Haley has researched vegan food options and I have researched places we'd like to visit on off time: art museums, historic museums, Irish music museums, parks, pubs, and sights.

She's also been practicing. She's determined and loves the music so she enjoys it immensely. She is very excited and looking forward to the first show on June 11th!

Check out our other blog www.theversatilevegans.com  to learn how we manage to stay vegan on the road!

March Madness 2019... in videos

I decided to do this post with videos of some of Haley's favorite moments of the month....

March started at North Texas Irish Festival with her trio, Shared Madness. Two fun days of music performances then hours and hours of tunes into the early morning hours each night.

 

 The following weekend we drove up to New Jersey for a soloist gig with composer/conductor Johan de Meij and the New Jersey Wind Symphony. Johan arranged a collection of Riverdance pieces composed by Bill Whelan who came to see the performance.

 

On our way back home to North Carolina, she had a gig at The Inn at Little Washington in Little Washington, VA with accordion player Sean McComisky.




 We had a quick week at home then flew to Jackson Mississippi for Celtic Fest Mississippi. So many great tune players at the festival. Haley performed with the Máirtín de Cogain Project, with Don Penzien as a duo, as part of the ceili band, then until 4-5am each night in sessions.


 

Haley has some exciting thing coming up in the next few months-- including the release of a brand new duo CD with multi-instrumentalist Quinn Bachand with a CD release tour in May. She has also been contracted as the fiddler for Riverdance all summer in Dublin, Ireland!

Life on the Road

It seems the busier Haley gets, the less I blog.

We've spent the last two months on three different continents and been home exactly one week. Right after the New Year, Haley and I took off for Boston where she had her first gig of the year with Joey Abarta and Keith Murphy. From Boston we drove to New York to fly to Thailand where we visited the Mercy Centre again.

It was so nice to see the children now a year and a half later. Haley enjoyed hanging out with them, watching their music and dance lessons, and giving some lessons to the children attending the kindergarten. We met the Little Birds, young people who have grown too old for the Mercy Centre but are HIV positive and need the support they can provide each other. Haley, along with musicians Mick Moloney, Donie Carroll, and Brenda Castles also performed in a session nine nights of our two week stay in a session at Scruffy Murphy's Pub. Bangkok is an interesting city and we had many adventures.

After our Thailand trip, we fly home for a week then flew back to New York and off to Ireland for another two weeks. Haley was selected to compete in the Sean O'Riada Gold Medal competition. She did not win the competition but enjoyed the event immensely. The event organizers really encouraged the fiddlers competing to get to know one another and made it a community building event. The other fiddlers were each amazing in their own way and it was a treat to hear them all perform.

After the competition, we traveled around the country visiting different cities and Haley participated in Irish sessions with various musicians nearly every night...one night she and our host in Ennis, Bob, participated in four sessions (almost 8 hours of music)! She has decided she needs to spend more time in Ireland absorbing the music and the culture and this has helped her make some decisions about her future...at least the next few years.

We really enjoyed visiting Connemara for the first time and Haley was honored to be invited to record for a very exciting project that will be released in the United States this coming winter...sorry to be so mysterious but don't want to spoil the surprise. We definitely would love to return to Connemara and explore it when the weather is a bit warmer.

We flew back to NY from Ireland and, due to an impending storm, headed straight for Montreal where we got snowed in for a day then picked up Haley's musician friend, Quinn, and drove north a bit to a recording study where the two of them are working on a new album.

Some exciting stuff happening for my girl!