Guide Index Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!
You’d think a display devoted exclusively to Irish music would take as long to see as spinning 360 degrees in place, but that’s where you’d be wrong. This multistory exhibit goes through the history of Irish music and culture from the times of the Gaels (considered bastards by their enemies but very artistic and musical bastards) to the modern super groups Boyzone and The Corrs. In between, they explain how The Clancy’s playing Wild Rover on the Ed Sullivan show brought back a resurgence of traditional music that inevitably merged with rock in the 70’s to produce bands like the Horslips (I never heard of them either), Thin Lizzy, and that Brown Eyed Girl guy, as well as more modern bands like The Cranberries and The Pogues.
The tour is designed to be self-guided. You are issued a pair of headphones and pointed in the right general direction, but not enough to prevent me from entering the exit in front of Boyzone, unfortunately. The trick to the tour is to position yourself in the 1 ft of air space that carries the audio signal you want to hear. Then you must often contort or rotate your head until it’s just right, and then hope some outrageously tall Scandanavian doesn’t block your signal. It’s a lot of fun to walk back through the tour without the headphones and just watch other people trying to listen. It’s good fun!!
Highlights of the tour include many original lyric and music sheets from the Boomtown Rats and countless more obscure bands, a lyric inscribed bodhran (pronounced "Bow-Rahn": an Irish drum), signed instruments, several pages of Sinead O’Connor’s scrapbook, and a wax display of an obscure but critically acclaimed punk band from the 70’s known as The Radiators. When you enter the punk room, you see these three grungy-looking kids in their garage slagging off some of their contemporaries like the Boomtown Rats and Bono (U2 started in ’76) for being middle-class wankers and posers. Speaking of the biggest Irish band ever, notably absent from the museum was any significant U2 memorabilia. There was a guard booth covered in graffiti that was once part of a spontaneous shrine built near U2’s old studio, but little else. At least I think (hope may be more accurate) people are still allowed to continue writing on that booth, because........ well...
So if you like music or history or just have nothing better to do and you’re near Abbey St., I would highly recommend the Hot Press Irish Music Hall of Fame. You can easily spend 2-3 hours without even realizing it.
Say "Slag off" to the Radiators for me!
-Submitted to the DFA Guide by Craig Nunemaker, December 1999
Guide Index Red words? Check the Dub Glossary!