Celtic Recipes

Interview with The Placks - Acclaimed Celtic Infused Scottish Highlands Band

Alastair Kneale's picture
Submitted by Alastair Kneale on January 27, 2019 - 7:17pm

A new Celtic band, based in the Scottish Highlands called The Placks is about to release a debut album, 'Rebellious Sons', which is receiving much acclaim and positive reviews. The band has been described as playing 'a dynamite mixture of Celtic infused punk rock and folk, with melody.' Combining guitar, accordion, fiddle, the band includes two former world champion pipe band members in their ranks.

Proudly Scottish, The Placks are firm supporters of Scotland's pro-independence movement. At the same time they are keen to reach out to the worldwide Celtic community, also sharing their music with as wide an audience as possible.

With this in mind they will move from a studio project to a live band arranging tours and making festival appearances. The band's name comes from Scots word Plack (Scottish Gaelic: Plang), which was an ancient Scottish coin of the value of four Scots pennies.

Celtic Women and Spinning Wheels

Alastair Kneale's picture
Submitted by Alastair Kneale on January 27, 2019 - 5:33pm

Images of lone Celtic spinners, sitting at spinning wheels at the doors of thatched cottages. They are evocative of times gone by, but not really so long ago. Failing eyes getting out of the smoky, indoor darkness to obtain the benefit of daylight. What the eyes can no longer focus on, compensated for by years of experience in the craft and knowledge of the machine.

Isle of Man: New CD by Clash Vooar Breaks New Ground on the Manx Music Scene

Submitted by Valerie Caine on January 27, 2019 - 2:44pm

Local six-piece band Clash Vooar (Big Groove) has been breaking new ground on the Manx music scene with their extraordinary powerful mix of songs, tunes and languages, which has been described as Manx Gaelic gypsy jazz blues, with their debut album hot off the press,

Rushen Abbey was an important centre of knowledge and literacy on the Isle of Man

Alastair Kneale's picture
Submitted by Alastair Kneale on January 25, 2019 - 1:45pm

There has been increased interest in the Isle of Man (Manx: Mannin) recently about Rushen Abbey. Rushen Abbey was founded in 1134 by Monks of the Sauvignac Order on land granted to them by Óláfr Guðrøðarson (died 29 June 1153) who was a twelfth-century King of the Isles. The Kingdom of the Isles, also known as the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, comprised the Hebrides, the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Isle of Man from the 9th to the 13th centuries AD.

'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows'

Bernard Moffatt's picture
Submitted by Bernard Moffatt on January 24, 2019 - 6:06pm

I’m reading about this Manx Radio report on the latest Climate Change Coalition (CCC) foray and humming the tune of Dylan’s ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ to myself. You know the one with the line; ‘you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows’:

https://www.manxradio.com/…/momentum-is-building-says-envi…/

Obviously the Dylan analogy is a little awry (check Weathermen’ on Wiki)’.

Manx Quartet to Represent the Isle of Man at Pan Celtic International Song Contest

Submitted by Valerie Caine on January 24, 2019 - 6:00pm

Local quartet Drogh Yindys was selected to represent the Isle of Man at the annual Pan Celtic International Song Contest in Letterkenny, County Donegal, during the local heat Arrane son Mannin at the Masonic Hall in Peel recently.

Celebrating Robert Burns National Poet of Scotland 25th January

Submitted by Douglas MacQueen on January 24, 2019 - 5:21pm

Robert Burns was born in the scottish village of  Alloway (Scottish Gaelic Allmhaigh) on January 25, 1759. The eldest of the seven children of  William Burnes (1721–1784), a tenant farmer from Dunnottar in the Mearns, and Agnes Broun (1732–1820), the daughter of a Kirkoswald tenant farmer. His parents ensured that their son received a relatively good education.  He died at the age of 37 on 21 July 1796 and his Mausoleum is at St Michael’s churchyard in Dumfries (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Phris). Throughout his life he was a practising poet and wrote many poems, lyrics and other pieces.

Shangri-la - Twinned with Jurby...surely not!

Bernard Moffatt's picture
Submitted by Bernard Moffatt on January 24, 2019 - 12:00pm

Isle of Man News and Politics host, James Corrin, sends me a link. I thought my reading tastes were wide ranging what with The Star (of Lebanon) and the Finsbury Communist but James supplies a much more exoitic link, ‘The Nepali Times’.

Nepal to us is more associated with twinned towns, mountain holidays and overseas aid but it seems it's also in the arena of ‘tax twinning’ or dodging.
It’s apparently a land of hidden money as well as hidden mystical ‘paradise’ (no pun).

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