hutchingsmusic | I'm in Dublin!

I have been here since Friday evening. The choir weekend has gone very well - nice friendly bus driver, easy ferry trip. Shame about the Belfast concert being cancelled, but it meant we had time to go for pizza instead, which was rather good. There were thirty of us on the trip, and nobody got isolated within the group, which was fab. We then went out, decided not to go to the bar opposite the youth hostel, split up a bit and then reunited in a nice place called Madigan's on O'Connell Street, where we proceeded to get thoroughly hammered.

Saturday was good as well. Left the youth hostel with plenty of time to spare, got some extra rehearsal time at St Patrick's and did a concert there at 1pm - there were about fifty people in attendance at various times, dotting in and out throughout the concert (this is normal for St Pat's.) We then went onto the Guinness factory, where we got free pints (I think most people who wanted more than one pint managed to get them from other people) and did a slightly tipsy mass at St Mary's Pro-Cathedral. There must have been four hundred people there.

However, we'd been asked to do a Kyrie, Agnus Dei and Sanctus during the service. We had the Faure Requiem, which has movements with the above names. We thought "no problem, this'll be fine". The priest agreed.

We did a Kyrie (just started from the Kyrie section of the first movement and cut the "Requiem Aeternam" part at the beginning) and Sanctus with no problems... but then realised that the Agnus Dei didn't quite have the right words. So instead of "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis... dona nobis pacem" we gave them "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem, sempiternam requiem" and then went into "lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in aeternam, quia pius es"... thankfully, Ewan realised that we had to stop there, before we belted out a full-on Requiem Aeternam during a Mass. We got a few funny looks from the few members of the congregation who understood Latin. However, they still gave us a round of applause at the end.

We had an organist from the Pro-Cathedral choir, who rocked, and kept us right as to where we were meant to sing... because we had only two Catholics in the choir, and they were somewhat lapsed Catholics, whereas St Mary's is not only High High High Catholic, but has the least helpful congregational handout EVER. No music for anything, and half the things in the service weren't even mentioned on the handout. So for a choir made up of 50% atheists, a few Anglicans, a bunch of Presbyterians, a couple of Jews and a pagan or two, it was slightly confusing.

So after that, we went back to the hostel, dumped our concert gear, got changed, and hit Temple Bar for everything it could take. We all got drunk and skint. It was good, and involved much whisky, Guinness and cider. I also got introduced (by the Irish couple across from us) to a Fat Frog - made by mixing together Smirnoff Ice, orange Bacardi Breezer and blue WKD (half a bottle of each, in a pint glass). It's not as nasty as it sounds, but it is quite lethal. We then played drinking games in the youth hostel's kitchen, and one guy managed to cut his head on a chair, but it wasn't serious.

This morning was a service at St Maelruain's out in Tallaght, followed by tea and sandwiches provided by the congregation (they were very friendly, even if not many of them came to the concert at 1pm.) The last concert did sound a little bit tired. I then saw everyone off on the bus, gave the ferry tickets to the driver, waved goodbye and parted sadly.

Basically, a fab tour, and I think we'll do it again next year.

Now I'm staying in Abbey Court hostel, and scouting out orchestra venues from tomorrow onwards.