Testimonial From Grateful Tour Member

From the SBCC touring choir and other guests on this Ireland adventure, many impressions and reactions to the trip will be shared by the individuals to families and friends for a long time to come, no doubt. What follows (shared with permission) are excerpts from a letter of recommendation sent to our tour management company, Incantato, from a grateful Santa Barbara "Kathleen" [McGuire].

I am now one week home from my wonderful singing tour with your company and... I've just looked at my almost 600 pictures for the 4th time and felt compelled to write you to say thank you for such a beautiful experience. Not only is Ireland breathtakingly beautiful but the well-run and thoughtful manner in which the tour was conducted added to the beauty...

I was particularly impressed with the caliber of tour guide. Not only was Barbara extremely well-versed in what we were seeing and experiencing, but she fielded questions from the tour group and had ready answers and information for all. She went out of her way to share with us ideas for filling our free time and often would check to see that we had proper directions for getting where we wanted to go. It is appropriate to say that everyone on the bus fell in love with both Barbara and Sean. Sean knew just when we were getting tired and would put on some lilting Irish music or Irish comedian to brighten our spirits. Both Barbara and Sean went out of their way to see that we were able to do things which appealed to us - like stopping along the road so we could walk on the bog and see the peat moss and bog cotton up close...

To sing at St. Patrick's Cathedral was a highlight of the trip and even more special was the beauty which surrounded us as we performed in the Gothic Cathedral at Kylemore Abbey outside Galway. Most touching to my heart, however, was our sharing of the mass with the Polish Church of St. Augustine's. er was delightful and all will remember this trip for a lifetime.

4 hours in Dublin

As we pulled into Dublin Friday 13 June, some of us chose to spend our free afternoon in town, some at our hotel. What to do, what to do, with only 4 hours in Dublin? Some shopped -- this group single-handedly kept the Celtic Tiger healthy while we were in Ireland -- some went to the National Museum to learn about the fascinating, unique history of Ireland. Having been through so much of the country by then, it was great to put details to the bigger context.
A big part of Dublin history, specifically, has to do with the six major Irish whiskey distilleries which operated in the town. We purused the Jameson distillery site, now a museum and restaurant, on our last night in town. More about that here including a one-of-kind photo of the SBCC choir on the Jameson stage. Brief but memorable!
We also learned Friday about the outcome of the European Union "Lisbon Treaty" vote, about which we saw posters for and against throughout the country, on any post that could hold a sign. Here's a link to an article reflecting on the meaning of Ireland's NO vote.
[Flickr photo credit: Uploaded on January 25, 2007 by AndreasC]

Final Concert and One Full Day Left to Enjoy

Through this door we entered to sing our last concert of the tour today, Thursday. The Incantato blog has a link and a great description of the Kylemore Abbey Gothic Church, and even some videos.

It was a splendid day altogether, doing the Connemura Loop, checking the setting of that old famous movie THE QUIET MAN, walking on a peat bog, viewing Ireland's only fjord, and taking in the second-to-last full day in Ireland for most of us.

Irish Mist

After a gorgeous day on Tuesday -- so much sunshine we thought we were in Santa Barbara! -- today started with light rain and gray skies. When we got to the so-famous, 600 feet high Cliffs of Moher, we had a magical moment taking in the scene, the birds, the flowers, the sea, before the mist subsumed them and us. On our long bus journey today we have had damp but stunning views of the Atlantic, the Burren, and Galway Bay before arriving in the city of Galway.

We also discovered today that our performance on Tuesday night might be on the regional radio. Some of our tour members met a radio show producer at the sheep herding demonstration on the Ring of Kerry (oh... there are SO many stories to tell back home) and, long story short, intrigued by meeting them, our new friend came to the concert, loved it, recorded it and will broadcast it on Radio Kerry. We post a notice of the time or how to access it when we learn it.

p.s. Please do check out a quick video from our Killarney gig at Danny Mann Pub at the Incantato Blog, and read about it there!! If you don't already know about the Incantato site, please check out our tour managements postings about our trip.

Tuesday 10 June and videos

Today was the magnificent Ring of Kerry tour. Hard to encapsulate in a short passage. Let this image entice you to ask us stories.

Thanks to Incantato Tours for these sample videos:
Amazing Grace
Shenandoah
Soon Ah Will Be Done
Precious Lord
Irish Blessing
Shout Glory!

Will be adding photos

To the link at the right hand side called

Photo Album

Not many on yet -- just the first two days!

May 2008 Concert now online

Follow the link at the right hand side that says:

Listen to our concerts

Sunday 7 June 2008

We have been so very busy, not too many posts so far.

Some highlights of the past few days:

After two full days in Dublin, we traveled south by our coach on Saturday from Dublin to Cork on an exceptionally lovely, sunny and warm day, with stops in Waterford to have a tour of the crystal factory and another stop in the little town of Dungarvan for lunch. Dungarvan is pictured here. Luvley (lovely) small town. On the drive we passed through several counties and learned about their history and geography from our superb tour guide, Barbara Hunter. We arrived at a FOUR STAR hotel, the Imperial, in Cork in the afternoon. After settling in and rambling a bit, we had a great dinner as a group in the hotel.

Cork is the Repulbic of Ireland's second largest city and has a lot to explore. On Sunday choir members were on their own to do so. Some went to the Women's Gaol -- quite interesting. Some to St. Fin Barr's Cathedral for a service that included their own choir -- quite good. Some went to the hotel spa. Some saw a cricket game. Many of us watched the hurling match between Cork and Tipperary. A huge event in this town.

We walked together to the Augustinian Cathedral of Cork to participate in the Polish Mass. The Polish community in Cork is over 20,000 (of 123,000) so this Catholic church has two Masses each Sunday. They have a choir which performs during the mass and we too sang three of our American pieces as part of the service (see video of 3 here]. Looking out at what was probably 1,000 faces was surprising, as was their applause. It's not clear what parishioners knew about us ahead of time -- the priest explained in Polish who we were at the outset of the service -- or even if they understood the words of the songs, but the tears we witnessed and kisses some received spoke volumes. It was exhilarating and moving and we can't wait to sing more. The Masses are recorded and we are trying to sort out the Polish language on the website to see where ours might be [any Polish speakers reading this? Link here].

p.s. Tipperary won, sad for Cork. Germany won over Poland in football (read: soccer), sad for our Polish friends.

We're here!

All luggage, all choir members intact...though tired.. in Dublin! We got on our bus at 10:00 to set off for a bus tour of Dublin, to give us an overview of the city and its rich history. Knowing that we were pretty tired, our great local guide, Barbara Hunter tried not to overload us with information but wanted to provide us with enough orientation to walk ourselves around the town. We stopped near Trinity College for lunch on our own and then checked into our hotel. Not bad at all. Dinner in the hotel at 19:00 with some preparation for a full day of touring tomorrow, punctuated with a concert at noon. As we arrived it was 8 degrees C and gray clouds have now turned to light rain.

Dublin weather...and start learning Celsius!

This week's forecast can be found at this site, with a "weather cam" of O'Connell Bridge, and a Fahrenheit to Celsius converter - try it out.

Time to start reading the Irish Times, or another newspaper

From the countdown clock, it looks like it's time to get ready to read the Irish news. The Irish Times can be found here. The Irish Independent here. And some radio news in Gaelic here.