{"id":65896,"date":"2017-03-17T06:05:45","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T10:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=65896"},"modified":"2017-03-16T15:02:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T19:02:29","slug":"beannachtai-na-feile-padraig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=65896","title":{"rendered":"Beannachta\u00ed na F\u00e9ile P\u00e1draig!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"americanpie2\"<\/a>
\nMy sister Jean and me, in Dublin, the night the fuse blew at the disco, and all the lights went out, and all of the disco patrons had to stand out on the street while Irish firemen and garda ran about in all their hot-ness.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n\"americanpie11\"<\/a>
\nSiobhan, Jean, Me, in Dublin, same night. Here we are by the firetruck in the street, with our new best friend who had fallen in love with Jean about 10 minutes before, and was ready to beat people up on her behalf within 2 seconds of meeting her. And look at the random arms sticking up behind us. I have no idea who that is.<\/i><\/p>\n

Now onto Elvis. Who never stepped foot in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Or … did he?? <\/p>\n

I present to you an alternate-history story entitled: The Night Elvis Sang at the Theatre Royal in Dublin<\/a>, by \u00c9anna Brophy, a retired journalist from Dublin. I so thank Mr. Brophy for sending it to me to post on my site. I wish it were true! If it DID happen, you know that Elvis would indeed keep sending postcards throughout his life signed “Seamus”. Thank you, Mr. Brophy!<\/p>\n

And, finally, for today, Elvis sings “Danny Boy”, a song he loved for years. <\/p>\n

He eventually recorded the song for real in the Jungle Room in 1976<\/a> when things were not going well. The recorded version is slowed down, way down, and is beautiful (it’s a tough song to sing, daunting high notes launching out of nowhere) but I prefer the home recording of Elvis singing the song in 1959, while he was stationed in Germany. <\/p>\n

His guitar playing is energetic and adorable, his voice is young, free, untrammeled, and passionate. <\/p>\n

The song is important to me, and I feel so lucky that Elvis recorded it. <\/p>\n