Flannery’s Saturday session

It had been too long since my last sojourn to Flannery’s on a Saturday night.

I have to say, for a pub I associate with the old Ireland, the evening held a number of novelties – the first of them the “session kit” you see there to the left. The kit there is the creation of an English ex-pat looking for a way to apply his kit skills to traditional sessions. Its components are a practice snare (a snare rigged under a skin with no drum body), an uber-light high hat (those are almost splash cymbals mounted on that hi-hat stand) and a bodhran drilled and braced with some timber pieces and hooked up to a kick pedal.

In fairness, the sound off it is quite delicate and the footprint small, but I wonder if you’d find room at a table in a crowded session for it. No hassle in Flannery’s, of course, there’s always room for another musician!

The second novelty was a few enthusiastic Polish lads enthusiastically listening to the music who were eventually pursuaded to give us a polish song.

Not to fear, there was plenty of the aul Irish stuff to go around, like this fabulous number big T and the shaman pulled out.

The sherrif and kuch were in attendance as well and it seemed that, despite his protestations, a good number of folks had come out to wish hardy well as his birthday is just around the corner.

As I was kuch’s official escort for the evening and neither of us was feeling particulary feisty – don’t even ask about our Friday nights – we slipped out a bit early, albeit reluctantly.