mad things

Whenever I hear the word Ireland, I immediately start singing the Ireland’s Eye portion of Mike Oldfield’s Orabidoo in my head. Okay, sometimes The Pogues Dirty Old Town pops into my head instead. So I thought I’d share the song with you today. You can listen to Dirty Old Town from yesterday’s post.

Ireland’s Eye makes its appearance at the end of Orabidoo so you’ll have to stick around for the whole song and I’ll warn you, it’s a long one. You can hear just the Ireland’s Eye portion in this Youtube video. Here are the words and they do sing to my heart (and no, I’m not trying to usurp Poetry Wednesday from Dawn Summers:

Oh, island of the soul,
Valleys hushed and white with snow.
Ireland’s eye.
You’ll linger with me ’til the day I die.
Oh, how it hurts to go.

The waters ebb and flow.
The changing seasons come and go.
Ireland’s eye.
Forever reaching up into the sky,
Oh, how I’ll miss you so.

The sunlight dancing on your rocky shores,
The moonlight playing upon the water.
Your memory will stay with me forever more,
Wherever I may roam.

Stay with my dreams, I will see you!
Safe in my heart I will keep you.

Oh, and here are some fun ecards to send to all your amateur drinking buddies!

This week’s two for Tuesday is from The Pogues, my favourite Irish band. “Let Englishmen fight English wars” indeed!

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh.

To get you in the mood for St. Patrick’s Day, this week’s Mary song is from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. It’s a fun little ballad entitled Red-haired Mary.

r.i.p. Liam Clancy, 12-04-09

Your famous Mary this week is Mary Robinson, President of Ireland during most of the 90s.

She is credited by many as having revitalised and liberalised a previously conservative political office. She resigned the presidency four months ahead of the end of her term of office to take up her post in the United Nations. Robinson has been Honorary President of Oxfam International since 2002, she is Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is also a founding member and Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. Robinson is also one of the European members of the Trilateral Commission. Robinson is the twenty fourth, and first female, Chancellor of University of Dublin.

As you can probably guess by now, I’m a big fan of 80′s alt rock. Keeping with this trend, this week’s twofer is from The Smiths:

Today’s songs are dedicated to Dawn, Alceste and Nikos.

Your Mary song for this Monday is brought to you by this awesome video from the 80′s. How on earth did Robert Palmer keep a straight face? Enjoy Johnny and Mary by Robert Palmer.

Your famous Mary, in anticipation of next week, is Irish singer Mary Black.

Here’s a bonus, Song for Ireland, from Ms Black.

So sad.

Mark Linkhous, Sparklehorse

Enjoy these two songs from The Jam.

This week’s Mary song is from Zwan

PLAY Jesus,I / Mary Star of the Sea.

Keeping with the religious theme, your famous Mary this week is Mary Baker Eddy

Mary Baker Eddy was an influential American author, teacher, and religious leader, noted for her groundbreaking ideas about spirituality and health, which she named Christian Science.