Green 'n Clean

What a lovely Irish night at the RX theatre on Wednesday evening - St Pat's Eve!  And thanks to all the people who trooped out for it ....including some genuine Irish folk in town.

The feedback on Borderless was most gratifying with audience members commenting that they just loved the stories and appreciated that somebody was bringing this information to light.  For some, it was a real insight into just how influential Irish womens settlement was on Australian family and society today.  And with @ one-third of Australians claiming Irish ancestry, that's a whole lot of influence!

The audience also enjoyed some cracking Irish yarns from Clark Gormley and Catherine Knight - such accomplished storytellers! - as well as some sweet Irish songs from Bilbo.  And everyone - performers and audience alike - expressed appreciation of being able to celebrate St Pat's day [albeit in advance] in such an authentic way.

Those comments contrasted glaringly with some anecdotes related to me only last night...... "we went to 3 local pubs after work at it was ghastly!  They were all full of ugly drunks and there was NO music!!  We couldn't believe it!  What's St Paddy's day without Irish music?!" ... and this  "we found music at lunchtime in one pub but it wasn't REAL Irish music.  We were hoping to hear some traditional Irish but what we got served up was plastic paddy crap which just sooooo bad and then it deteriorated into stupid rock music sung in this ugly false accent"

I reckon it's a pretty poor indictment of local venues disrespect for their patrons.  And maybe that presents some good opportunities for alternative initiatives NEXT year.   If patrons can't get what they're looking for from their local pubs, they'll find it somewhere else.

Oh well, you know what they say .....it's an ill wind.......