I’m back at my now-diminishing pile of contact notes found in a folder in my filing cabinet while obsessively cleaning it out. I found quite a few cards from Ireland, including one from a fellow named Tom Sherlock. I remember that when I first met Tom, he was working behind the counter at a cozy little shop called Claddagh Records in Temple Bar. I learned that Claddagh was the best place to go for traditional Irish music recordings in Dublin. From then on, every time we came to town, I spent some time and some money at Claddagh, and Tom was expert at tipping me to the best stuff, and albums that were unlikely to be automatically be imported to the states.
On one particular trip a few years later, Tom wasn’t there—they had a new person working behind the counter, and I learned from the new guy that Tom had moved up the musical food chain, and was now managing a band—and not just any band, mind you, but a really good and highly-regarded one called Altan.
After I reconnected with Tom, he tipped me to a session going on that night at a pub not far from our hotel. I went, along with Hadley, Ron and a couple of others from our band. This was in the days when Dublin pubs were a smoky fogbank, but Tom met us at the door and ushered us upstairs, where we could see, hear, and breathe, all at the same time. (I have video from that evening, and it’s great.) Several members of Altan were there, along with the legendary Steve Cooney, a Celtic guitarist from Australia, who doubles on didgeridoo. And doubling on didgeridoo is a difficult deed to do.
That night was the first time we heard and met Tony McManus, a spectacular Celtic guitarist out of Glasgow, then working in Dublin, now living in Canada. Tony tours around the world—we ran into him a few years ago in Australia, where he was playing in Perth. But he now lives in Toronto, and with his touring curtailed, he did a virtual recital the other night with another fine guitarist and fiddle player, Julia Toaspern, and it’s up on YouTube, and you can watch it by going to this link.
Tony McManus and Julia Toaspern ‘
Meanwhile, Tom Sherlock now has the Tom Sherlock Management Company, and he just sent me an email promising a further update, so we’ll see about that. I did, however, watch a YouTube video of Dreamers Circus, a band he’s managing now, and they’re terrific. You can check them out at this link.
On the other hand, the brilliant fiddler Tricia Hutton doesn't seem to be findable. Tricia had just done an album with her band Lia Luchra when we met. She was booking the players at Gogarty’s in Temple Bar, and she invited me to sit down in a booth among the musicians. It was the best stereo sound ever. I traded her tickets to our show in Dublin, and she had a great time, but has since vanished. There was a rumor that she was in Nashville for a while. Anyway, if you bump into her, tell her to look us up.
Another one of my Irish friends, one who has been a bit easier to find is Gráinne O'Driscoll. When I first met her, she was in the advertising business, producing commercials for Guinness (what do you think, she was going to be selling Miller Light?). I saw her whenever we came to Dublin. Once I asked our horn section if they’d like to come along on our arrival day and meet her when she finished her coed rugby practice. When we got to our meeting place, she said she had been kicked in the face during practice and looked a bit the worse for wear. On a subsequent trip to Dublin, the horn guys passed on a get together, (maybe they remembered her injured look). On the return visit, however, Gráinne and a friend met me at a pub, ane they were all dolled up as girly glamourous as can be, and I took a picture, just to let the Hollywood Horns know what they missed. 
On another visit, Gráinne brought her mother and met Sarah and I for cappuccinos at our hotel. But on our last visit to Dublin, in 
2017, her career path had veered and she has become a quite successful Pilates instructor. I’ve been doing Pilates since the 1970s, when Ron Fletcher brought what he’d learned as a disciple of Joe Pilates to a Beverly Hills studio. Gráinne had learned her Pilates, and gave me a right proper workout and we followed it with a great dinner, too. Her studio is called ‘Grá For Fitness.’ (Grá is Irish for love—to have a ‘grá’ for something means we have a love for it—like some have a grá for music.
Another recurring Irish connection is a gentleman named Michael Devine. Mick’s gig is transportation. He always handled our transport whenever we came to Ireland, and he personally drove our vocalist whenever we were in town—except one time, and therein lies a tale.
Mick had driven the actress Julia Roberts when she was doing a film in Ireland, and Ms. Roberts became good friends with Mick and his family. Such good friends that when she hit a patch of relationship woes and wanted to hide away for a while, she stayed with Mick and his family. Flash forward a few years, and Julia was in a much better place, so much so that she had become engaged, and asked Mick to give away the bride at her wedding.
So Mick was in New Mexico to do his marital duties, and couldn’t drive our boss around town, for the only time ever.
We met a lot of friendly people in a lot of friendly places over our years of touring, and it’s nice that some friendships have endured.