The Irish Connection

This year I have decided to do away with my usual New Year’s Resolutions. Like most people my desire to pick up something new or abstain from some vice usually peters out by mid February. Any personal or professional goal I set ends up weighing on my mind until I inevitably feel bad for not following through. So, in the interest of, well, me, I am going to focus on carving out more of a niche for this blog/podcast.

I started down this path last year by interviewing some up and coming musicians and artists from Cork and further afield. I made a great new friend in singer-songwriter-podcaster JOEM from Finland; I had great chats with Eibhin of Rotten Rouge, an artist and journalist from Dublin; I clicked with Cork singer-songwriters Emmo and Lorraine Nash, who have since gone on to appear in venues around the country and release hit singles; and I caught up with my old friend Meghan Maguire (Airs of Mali), discussing her upcoming album. I thoroughly enjoyed that series of interviews and felt that I was finding my groove as a (Lord forgive me for using this phrase) creator of content and interviewer.

Unfortunately and typically, I let college and work get in the way of doing more interviews. In fact, I probably used college and work as excuses to get out of doing more interviews. I was getting nervous and scared that I was some sort of impostor. Who was I to be interviewing these talented individuals? I wasn’t making headlines and I wasn’t furthering any of our careers. What was it all for?

I have since realised that constantly backing out of these tasks to do with The Rathpeacon Rambler is me running away from something real. I am happy to sit in my day job and complain about it while not actively trying to break into the journalism industry. I am afraid of failing at the first thing that I have ever actually wanted to do. That stops now.

So, doing away with the typical New Year’s Resolutions, I have decided to follow up on the good strides I made last year. Instead of reviewing something that I liked on a streaming platform, I am going to focus on Irish films, t.v. shows, art and theatre as well as any of these mediums that feature Irish players. I will review one piece of Irish art (this can be anything from film to a historical exhibition or quirky stall in a farmers market) a week, while hopefully securing some interviews with creative types locally and all over Ireland.

Of course, Rathpeacon is home and I also want to make and create pieces about my home. As the P.R.O. of Rathpeacon G.A.A. and a member of the local community council, I will be sharing whatever I do for those groups here too and I hope you like them. I have had a bit of time to reflect over the past week in isolation (Covid got me eventually) and I can’t waste another year barely updating this site. This is the year that I take this seriously and it is only the beginning.

Thank you for all the support so far, and for anybody that may have seen me post something similar to this over the past few years, no you didn’t and please respect my privacy at this time.

My first review will be of the Irish film Deadly Cuts and that will be on the blog tomorrow 🙂