Music Overload

Niamh Connellan
Aug 11, 2017
6 min read

Updated: May 8, 2020

It was great to visit the newly renovated and reopened National Gallery of Ireland, which had commenced work on the historic complex at Merrion Square to address a critical need for the repair and renovation of the fabric of the Dargan and Milltown wings in March 2011. Refurbishment of the two wings was complete in July 2017. It was nice to see that the extensive upgrade of the fabric of the two buildings whilst reclaiming their original period elegance. After leaving the gallery, I strolled around the corner to the National Library to check out the Yeats Exhibition within the library. The exhibition, Yeats: The Life and Works of William Butler is stored in 100 archival boxes and occupies 24 meters of shelf space. At the exhibition, visitors can trace Yeats' family tree in particular W.B. Yeats himself and his brother and sisters who became of the most significant artistic family in 20th century Ireland.

Despite being in agony, with my knee, I totally forgot we had tickets for Once the Musical in the Olympia Theatre on Dame St. the pain was under control thanks to being drugged up on meds and once we climbed all those steps to the circle and settled in ours seats I was in state of symbiosis for the show which cheered me up and lifts both our spirits. Later on that week on my day off, I went to my special place, the zoo to check out the full restored Roberts House which been repurposed as the new Zoorassic World, a home for past and present reptiles especially Stan a life-scale replica of an adult T-rex fossil that was found in the Hell Creek Formation in South Dakota. In this new habitat, it's home to 12 living species including west African crocodiles, a king rat snake, a forest dragon, a green tree python and has educational information about the process of evolution and the work of famous biologist Charles Darwin. Like May seemed to be my weekly visit to a theatre to see RTÉ Concert Orchestra, July was turning into a weekly visit to see a musical. The following week after we saw Once, it was the turn of seeing Sheridan Smith as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, tickets of which we had booked the previous September. When it was time to get ready to finally see the show, we couldn't believe, we were finally going to see a production of Funny Girl. Sheridan Smith as Fanny embodied the role so perfectly, her voice was serene, and the production was superb that it was the ideal post work treat, and evening out. Another week, another musical, sure any excuse to see a show of musical. Tonight's choice was at the BGE Theatre, for the world premiere production of Angela's Ashes, a new musical based on Frank McCourt's Memoir of the same name, which is an emotional telling of his childhood in Limerick and beyond. Niamh had read the memoir years, so were both skeptical how they could turn such a emotional sad story into a uplifting musical. We left the musical, pleasantly surprised, impressed with the songs in the show had lyrics with a warm sense of humour.

You can't beat a music festival to start off the holidays especially after such a tough couple of weeks and when tickets were free. As it was so late minute, we had to arrange transport out to Punchestown for it, which was proving to be a logistical nightmare but thankfully Niamh friend Ste came to our rescue and offered to driving us to the festival and collect us on both days which was very nice of him. Day one was a great start to the Punchestown Music festival weekend with acts such as Shane Filan, Culture Club but when one of the acts are the Village People who got everyone singing, dancing and doing the dance moves along to the songs, it was sign the weekend was gonna be fun despite the weather forecast and exactly what the doctor ordered for medication after the last few days in particular. The atmosphere for day two of the Music Festival really started to build after a quick down pour and the sun came out to play. For the majority of the openings acts the weather managed to stay dry in particular for the dancing and singing along with of Boney My and Bjorn Again, unfortunately when poor Boonie Tyler came on to the stage and a song or two into her set, the weather took a awful turn for the worst, and the rain and wind was down for the rest of the festival. Although everyone was soaked to the bone by the end of her set, she didn't disappoint and the atmosphere was building through the music of All Saints and culminated in the headline act of the one and only Sir Tom Jones. The man himself got the whole crowd singing and dancing along even in that awful rain with all his big hits, also what was more impressive too, he still has that velvet smooth voice not missing a note. He was the perfect way to finish off this festival and by the time we were leaving, it had eased up with the rain, our clothes were beginning to dry, still frozen to the bone but we were thankful to have a lift home.

After the recent few days in particular, Paddy and me hopped on a bus down to Courtown in Wexford for the night, where we stayed with Paddy friend's parents which was very generous of them to put us up. Paddy finally got to show me around the place he spend many summers as a lifeguard on the beaches, have chips from the Dinky Takeaway, a round of Red Beard's mini golf at Paradise Cove and of course meeting up with all his mates for drinks in The Taravie Hotel bar finishing up the night with a round of shots, it was meant to be the infamous Sea Dog Dark Rum but the bar was freshly out of it, which was a tradition for them and their shenanigans although the shots we did have, was a nice way to finish off our trip in Courtown. The following Monday was the August Bank, one way to spend it, was driving around the Boyne Valley with Niamh and what seems to be chauffeur lately Set, visiting Heritage Sites, including the site of the Battle of the Boyne, Brú na Boinne, Monasterboice, Melifont Abbey, Dowth, Knowth and of course Newgrange. To round off this culture extravaganza drive along the Ancient East trail in the area and the Bank Holiday, we did a tour of the Hill of Slane, Kells Round Tower, Hill of Ward, Trim Castle, Bective Abbey and Hill of Tara to experience areas of Meath we don't normally get chance to visit and experience which was extremely nice of Ste to be our chaffeur for the day.

Later on in the week and to continue with our Irish tourist holiday adventure, our travels brought us to Belfast for a random day of culture beginning with Stormont, the political building home to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. Once we got the bus back into the city, we got a cruise with Lagan Boats Accompanied around the Lagan where we got to see so many seals in the water and on rocks in the distance. After we departed off the boat, we strolled towards the Titanic Quarter area and hopped on the Wee Tram on a trip around the area. Although it was a 2 plus hour journey up and down from Belfast, for our random day of fun, with the beautiful weather, company and culture it was so worth it. The following day, as the weather was still so fabulous, we got a box of Offbeat Donuts after hearing so much about them lately, to enjoy on our journey to Howth. Once we arrived in Howth, and departed the Dart, we were able to enjoy the August weather with 99 Ice Cream, see Ireland's Eye in the distance off the pier and to round off this leisurely trip, we hopped onto the Howth Express for quite a funny train journey around the village and castle.