Bloomsday at The IMCC

It was SRO at The IMCC for this year's Bloomsday celebration. Organized by Tom and Nancy Shawver, the annual reading of Joyce's Ulysses brought people from all over the Kansas City community together.

Boulevard provided the beer, The Roasterie the coffee and board members and volunteers brought the food. It really made The IMCC come alive and showed what a great space it is for bringing the Irish community together.

In addition to the reading,  Eddie Delahunt warmed up the crowd with a great set of Irish songs and was joined by the girls from the Driscoll school of dancing. They created an atmosphere that made you feel you were 5,000 miles away in Dublin and not in the basement of Union Station.

 Big Tom Shawver and Eddie Delahunt get on the level with each other

 Steve from The KCGAC talking to the Rugby King of Kansas City

I hope he was asking him to send us more young, fit players!

Brookside Parade Report 2010 - You had to be there

The weather was cold, wet and windy, just like Ireland, the Brookside parade organizers had obviously pulled out all the stops to ensure authenticity. 

We stood in the cold like brave arctic-explorers and counted down the minutes 'till go time. However, compared to the Renaissance Festival Kids we were relatively melting, those guys and girls had little more than napkins covering their torsos.

We were surprised how many people came out to cheer-on all the floats and groups, to all those folks I say a BIG "Thank You" from the KCGAC.

And thank goodness there were not too many flagrant examples of gratuitous Irish stereotyping, well there was that little old lady in the motor-scooter done up as a potato. That was a bit much, we had a famine people, a potato famine and the scars run deep.

International Rules Series

Back in the day when an Irishman won an all-expenses paid trip to Australia, courtesy of The Empire, it was not a thing to celebrate. Australia was one great big penal colony, Britain's problems sent to the far corners of the earth, never to return (until they started showing Neighbours on the BBC).

The exiled Irish brought with them their language, religion, funny last names, work-ethic, pasty white skin and their sports.

There is still plenty of debate as to the origins of Aussie Rules football, but just watch the game for a few minutes and you'll see plenty of similarities to Gaelic Football, and you just can't help but think; definitely a bit of Irish in that sport.

There have been compromised games between the Irish and the Australians in the past, but in 1998 this was organized into a series between the Gaelic Athletic Association and Australian Football League, called the International Rules Series.

It took place in Croke Park, Dublin in front of 22,000 people and it was probably raining. The series enjoyed great success in both countries and grew to the point where in 2006 the crowd was over 82,000 people, mostly because the sun came out.

Unfortunately, that year there was a wee bit of rough play on the pitch and the GAA postponed the 2007 series. It resumed again in Australia for 2008, but the future of the series is uncertain.

See below for some of the reasons for that decision. There is no sound, but something like this needs to be watched in pure silence!

In August 2009 when we were the guest of the Twin Cities GAA at their seven-a-side tournament they invited the local Aussie Rules Club: The Freeze. Their fitness and stamina was on another level compared to our lads, but our ball control and ability to score saw us as victors over The Freeze on the day. You could say we froze them out...

We have a club here in Kansas City called the KC Power and we might have to talk to them about a modified game of the International Rules.