Jeremy Keith

I spent the last three weeks in the north of Ireland.

Myself and Jessica flew to Belfast where we spent the first night. We managed to get to a session that evening where we were warmly welcomed.

The next day we travelled to Donegal. A train from Belfast to Derry. A bus from Derry to Donegal Town. Finally another bus from Donegal Town to Glencolmcille, our home for the next week.

Oideas Gael

This was our second year coming to Oideas Gael to spend a week learning Irish in the beautiful surroundings of Glencolmcille. We both really enjoyed it last year but we weren’t sure whether lightning would strike twice for us.

We needn’t have worried. It was absolutely magical. The place is beautiful. The people are ridiculously friendly. And there was a session every single night in the local pub.

But we weren’t just there to enjoy the peaceful landscape and the fast fiddle tunes. We spent the week hard at work immersed in the Irish language.

There were eight different levels for the classes, ensuring that everyone was catered for no matter their proficiency. I spent the week in level six. Jessica was in level three, which is quite remarkable considering that last year she started from absolutely nothing at level one.

My teacher was great and so were my classmates. And it turned out that some of them were also heading the same way as us at the end of the week…

Belfast Tradfest

We conducted our intitial journey in reverse to get back to Belfast. We should up when Belfast Pride was in full swing, which was quite a shock to the system after the peace and quiet in Glencolmcille.

We were back for Belfast Tradfest. This is the one event we never miss. It’s easily the best-organised traditional music festival out there. Excellent classes, sessions, and concerts.

I had an excellent week attending a workshop with Macdara O’Faoláin and getting to some great sessions. I even got to practice a fair bit of Irish by going to the sessions at the Cultúrlann.

One of the things that makes Belfast Tradfest doable is the accommodation situation. Through the festival, you can book a room in modern student digs right in the heart of the city. This year they were offering the chance to stay there for an extra week…

The Fleadh

The fleadh is the biggest gathering of Irish music anywhere. It’s a week of non-stop music, dance, and—let’s be honest—drinking. I’ve never been to the fleadh before but this year I wanted to show my support for it. For the very first time, it was happening in Belfast. There was a time when that would’ve been unimaginable.

People have been talking about this all year. The general vibe has been hope tinged with worry. Everyone I know in Belfast really wanted the fleadh to succeed, but they were also prepared to be disappointed.

As it turned out, it was a huge success. That’s in no small part down to the people of Belfast. 1,300 people volunteered to help out at the event and it showed. Despite enermous crowds, everything felt managable, friendly, and fun.

I’m not usually one for big crowds but the vibes were so good that even I couldn’t help but get into the swing of it.

That said, when I wanted some good tunes I went outside the city centre to the Cumann Cultúrtha Mhic Reachtain for a nice morning session before hitting the streets.

I am so, so glad that the fleadh didn’t just go well, it exceeded expectations. I’ve been going to Belfast for the past few years and I sing the city’s praises to anyone who will listen, but I always got the impression that there was some scepticism. But now, anyone who’s been to the fleadh knows just how great this place is.

After three weeks in Ulster, it was time to head back to Brighton. Although, technically it wasn’t three straight weeks away from home…

Brighton

This is going to sound ridiculous (and it kind of is) but in between Belfast Tradfest and the fleadh, we nipped back home for a couple of nights. That’s because Nick Cave was playing his only UK date this year in Brighton, the town he called home for many years.

This might be the furthest I’ve travelled just for a gig, which is ironic because it was literally a short walk from our house.

I think I first saw Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds when I was living in Galway in the early 90s. I saw them in London in the early 2000s. I saw them in Brighton in the 2010s doing a warm-up gig. I couldn’t miss this this one. It was terrible for my carbon footprint, but the man knows how to put on a good show.

I really liked Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls so when I saw a copy of Girls In Their Married Bliss for £1 in a local charity shop, I snapped it up even though it had the worst cover you could possibly imagine.

This is the second and final sequel to The Country Girls which means I’ve skipped over the middle book, The Lonely Girl. I’ll have to rectify that.

Once again the narrative centres on frenemies Kate and Baba but things are different this time around. For a start, we get the first-person perspective of both women this time. And the setting has moved to London, which probably explains the much darker tone of this book.

Things are grim. That grimness is described perfectly in O’Brien’s writing. The boredom and sordidness of this life is detailed as precisely as the city and its cold damp weather.

It’s a short book, which is probably just as well. I’m not sure I’d want to spend much more time in this milieu. But there’s no denying that it’s the work of a great writer giving a voice to people who’s story doesn’t often get told.

I absolutely loved Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, particularly the first book, Ancillary Justice which blew me away when I first read it.

Since then I’ve enjoyed the other books she’s written in the same universe, dealing with the fallout of the events in the original series. Radiant Star is the latest addition to the canon.

I think the story falls into the category of planetary romance; the narrative is very much driven by the unique characteristics of the world we find ourselves on. Or should I say, in. The setting here is a rogue planet without a sun. Everything happens underground in an technology-mediated ecology that works great until it doesn’t.

This is a self-contained story with just vague rumours and nods to the events of the Imperial Radch trilogy. By the end of the book, those events—and the subsequent decisions reached in Translation State—make themselves felt keenly.

There’s a lot in here about infrastructure, admin, religion, hierarchy, social structures and power dynamics. I have to admit that the initial groundwork laid out at the start of the book was tough going, but once the story hit its stride, it really took off. Stick with it.

Any Ann Leckie book is guaranteed to be a good read, and Radiant Star is no exception. I thoroughly enjoyed this.