In O neills 1001,there are no polkas,does this mean,that when he formed his collection,they were not being played.,or did he choose to ignore them.
this work[1001] was published in 1903.
Francis o neill died in 1936.
are there any collections of polkas in his later books,is there any evidence at all,as to when polkas entered the irish repertoire.
Ditto with slides. Maybe no sliabh luchra musicians available at that time?
Could they have been classified elsewhere in O’Neills, among the ordinary jigs and reels for instance?
1922:
http://www.archive.org/details/TomEnnisAndJohnGerrityIrishPolkas
1925:
http://www.archive.org/details/MichaelColemanandTomMorrisonHeightsofAlmaAlltheWaytoSligo
1928:
http://www.archive.org/details/TomMorrisonMaggieintheWoods1928
1929:
http://www.archive.org/details/JamesMorrisonandHisOrchestraFarmersDaughterLittleBrownJugGirlILeftBehind
1930:
http://www.archive.org/details/LiamWalshOldIrishSetDanceSingleDoubleHornpipe
1937:
http://www.archive.org/details/PaddyKilloranAndPaddySweenyDeccaPolkaJimRyansFancy
‘Irish Americans’ have not been shy of making distinctions as to what they considered ‘proper’ Irish music. I’m not saying O’Neill himself was part of it, as I believe "Waifs and Strays" may have had some in it. However, I have heard in Ireland and in North America fools respond with contempt when someone played something outside of their canon of reels, jigs and hornpipes ~ even to the point of saying something to the effect of "That’s not Irish!" ~ or ~ "Polkas aren’t Irish!" There are, as Ramiro has linked to, numerous early recordings of such, including Barndances, which I have also heard lambasted by the ignorant… Why folks would want to impose their brand of limiting tyranny on music I will never fully understand… Like with any collection or archiving, there can be preferences present we don’t always see clearly. Some folks hate polkas… Some people don’t like the Kerry accent. I’m happy to say I’m not one of their number… ;-)
"The Roche Collection of Traditional Irish Music", published in Ireland ~ started in the late 1800s, published 1912 the first two volumes, and 1927, the third, include polkas by name and scattered through the three works…
I don’t have my O’Neill collections on hand to check but remember some polka tunes being amongst the lot, like "Seige of Ennis"…
& Single Jig / Slide
henk,a lot of the slide tunes are there under single jigs.
ok
I came from the North West of Ireland and was learning traditional music in the fifties. I think the first time I came across the name Kerry Polkas or Slides was in London in the sixties. I was however familiar with many of the tunes, but not in the that style. I actually learned the tune which I now know to be Egan’s Polka from a guy who played in a pub near the Shamrock Dance hall at the Elephant and Castle. He played three parts to that tune and that is how I learnt it. Over the years the first part seems to have disappeared completely.
free reed ,that is very interesting, would you be kind enough to put the missing part of Egans Polka on sound lantern.
Somewhere else on the net I came across another musician,who was from that part of Kerry ,who also said he had never heard the name [sliabh Luchra],until the 1960s.
he too was in London,and I believe he said he first saw ithe name on the back of a record sleeve.
When did polkas become all the rage in Cork and Kerry? I don’t think it was all that long ago in the history of Irish Traditional Music. Is it possible that, at the time when O’Neill was still in his native Co. Cork, they had simply not yet gained the popularity they now enjoy in that area? If ‘The Book’ was published in 1903, when Francis O’Neill was already a high-ranking officer (a post which he attained in a relatively short time, I believe) in the Chicago police force, then would probably have left Ireland sometime in the 1890s. It is possible that many of his sources (most of whom were Chicago residents) has already been in America for some time (some of them could have been second- or third-generation immigrants), so the music they played might already have been ‘outmoded’ in Ireland.
Francis O’Neill was from near Bantry, W. Cork, which, in the days before tarmac and motor cars, was a long way from Ballydesmond. Perhaps he’d never heard slides and polkas, or just regarded them as so foreign that he didn’t they were relevant to his collection.
…A great many polkas in the Sliabh Luachra repertoire *are* borrowed from foreign lands - Scotland, England and The Continent - so there must have been a point in time before which they were regarded as ‘foreign’ tunes.
there is atune in ONEILLS which is in fact OldZipCoon,in the foreword.he O neill says[doubtless some over zealous champion of irish music will criticise the inclusion of number739 in this collection however convincing evidence of its Irish antecedents came to hand a few years ago in a roll of ageing manuscript belonging to the omahonys of Dunmanway],
pull the other one Mr ONeill.,it is an American minstrel tune,even if it was performed by an Irishman Dan Emmett.
ONeill ALSO SAYS if we have trespassed on our British neighbours,we hardly owe them an apology,as from their own admission they have availed themselves very liberally of our dance music for centuries,and it is quite probable that we are merely reclaiming our own heritage.
So judging from ONeills fairly catholic/ almost all embracing attitude to what was Irish it seems unlikely that he excluded polkas,because they werenot IRISH,more likely that his musicians didnt play them.
an old west cork fiddler said to me about 1995,of course we never used to play polkas that was Kerry music,we used to play for the pattern dances and tunes like the Blackbird for solo dancing.
So although Sliabh luchra polkas have exteneded beyond Sliabh Luchra,this might appear to be phenomenon of the last forty /50 years,since Comhaltas have been formed.
it is possible that O Neill did not have any kerry musicians,as sources for tunes
Polkas were a dance craze that swept all of Europe in the mid-18th century. In their native Poland and Bohemia, they remained eternally popular, as well as other scattered areas around Europe long after the craze was over. SW Ireland was one of these place.
Irish folk in those places "polka-ized" any of their own melodies that would have worked, in addition to using other countries’. The local public wanted more Irish sounding polkas, so old tunes were altered for that purpose.
For example, the structure of the Ballydesmond Polka is very old, I mean the notes and the mode used. These polkas with that plaintive quality are perhaps among those that got altered to fit a popular demand. Certainly central European polkas don’t sound like that.
Polkas were around a long time. Up until the modern era Counties were isolated, as were musical styles. We discuss how regional styles got homogenized and lost to a degree in the modern era all the time. Every valley had its own style, so for Polkas to hide in Kerry and Cork since they first were the rage of Europe in the 1740s & 50s is not that hard of a stretch to make, IMHO.
can I have some magic mushrooms too.
…and I really enjoy playing them.
One request to the general Irish polka playing public: Stop playing 47 of them in a row at top speed, please. Play them two or three at a time. Take them at a moderate, unhurried pace, and see what nifty things you can do with variations of them, instead of flogging them senseless. Thank you.
(Brought to you by the SW Florida Irish Polka Preservation Society)
Sorry dickens, it’s been years since I was in college, can’t help you there. Long drive to Florida for you regardless, isn’t it?
…and I’m about to play some tunes with friends, polkas for sure, so any further excitement will have to wait, sorry.
In particular to the thread, Chief O’Neill was from Bantry in Cork. I wonder if the lack of polka playing in Chicago led him not to include any in his collecting? I’m sure he must have had some from his native county.
SWFL fiddler - you’re about 100 years out with the origins of the polka. Sources I’ve checked have it coming from Bohemia in the early part of the 19th century - ie 1840 or slightly earlier, but not 1740/50 as you say. Fintan Vallely’s book has polkas arriving in Ireland in the late 1800s. O’Neill apparently left Ireland in 1865, so, given the state of transport and communications at the time, it is possible that he may not have been familiar with polkas at all, and who knows how long it would have taken them to arrive with - and be accepted by - the Irish communities of musicians in America ? A very interesting question this, and something I’d never thought about. Thanks for raising it, "dickens metrognome".
I’m no expert on dance, but weren’t polkas and quadrilles introduced to Ireland by the British Army in the mid-nineteenth century (some info here: http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/quadrill.htm where it says that "The Polka (a Bohemian dance) was introduced in 1845, followed by the Schottische, the Mazurka and the Redowa") It might be just historical that they weren’t actually around when traditional Irish music was exported when mass emigration took place as a result of the potato famine. Also if there’s an association with the British Army that might have limited their popularity just a bit.
it seems to me that much of the music of Kerry is far older than the classifications of "polka" and "slide" .perhaps some of the most ancient music of western Europe
swfl,this old fiddler from cork ,[durrus ]near bantry]told me he never had polkas in his repertoire,he called polkas ,kerry music.he had never heard of the term sliabh luchra,either.
Polkas do appear as ‘quick-steps’ in o’Farrell’s pocket companion to the pipes.
—DtM
Yes Kenny, thank you, my bad, 19th century, 1800s for polkas.
Dickens, that’s interesting! Polkas = "Kerry Music" to a Cork fiddler. HA!
Did he make a nasty face and spit when he said it? ;-)
if anyone has Canon goodmans collection of tunes,this might throw some light on the matter ,Goodman was born in west kerry,and compiled his collection between1840 and 1860.
it is unlikely that two collectors would not have included them if they were being played.
Plenty of Kerrymen ‘listed with the other side in that French Empire fracas. So did plenty of Poles.
Lack of polka playing in Chicago? ~ I kind of doubt that…
RichardB ~ YES! ~ "The Polka (a Bohemian dance) was introduced in 1845, followed by the Schottische, the Mazurka and the Redowa") ~ BUT ~ music is music or a dance, and the craze quickly carries a tune, wherever and whoever the source might be… That includes the introduction and influence of the foxtrot and quickstep…
The ‘hate’ of things foreign, and specifically music and dance, is by accounts I heard traced back to the latter 1800s. There was an awareness and attitude toward polkas as being amongst those things ‘foreign’ that needed purging in order to destill something that could be considered pure Irish. The Gaelic League were vehement in their drive to purge the foreign devil from their midsts, picking and choosing and choreographing or reordering dances to be eventually tagged as ‘official’, the ceili canon. There were tons of country dances that didn’t meet their approval, and that includes their accompanying music. They didn’t like polkas, or waltzes, as examples of tune forms, and they hated the swing. They took the ‘seven-step’, which came in with couple dances from German Europe, and stylized it, bringing things more up on the toes, more pointed, higher stepped. Ignoring the long history of mixed blood in Ireland and as the Celts crossed Europe, they strove for a pure and distinct Ireland ~ at all costs… O’Neill and others would have been riding that wake of jingoism, something still not uncommon amonngst Irish immigrants in other lands…amongst who the same old tired mythology continues to be supported…
Also despised by organizers for a pure Ireland were the sets, or sets of quadrilles. They were even outlawed, along with other dances and practices seen as ‘foreign’… As one might imagine, such dogma/tyranny does little good for anyone or anything…
"The polka was introduced in 1845" - doesn’t actually say WHERE it was introduced.
‘There were tons of country dances that didn’t meet their approval, and that includes their accompanying music.’
Do you have any evidence for this remarkable claim?
Or this one?
‘O’Neill and others would have been riding that wake of jingoism.’
O’Neill left Ireland 28 years before the foundation of Conradh na Gaeilige.
But, worst of all, this piece of utter rubbish?
‘Also despised by organizers for a pure Ireland were the sets, or sets of quadrilles. They were even outlawed, along with other dances and practices seen as ‘foreign’.’
Outlawed by whom? Point me to a legal enactment in Ireland which banned ‘foreign’ dances.
Nan Quinn as just one source of many. She was one of the leading figures and collectors of the Dance Commission. She represented quite openly those that disliked these things, considered them ‘foreign’, and were instrumental in banning them from official ceilis. But you wouldn’t know these things and would feel particularly antagonistic toward anything I’d have to say in your generally nasty dislike for me and your love of the ‘attack’. Nothing I’d have to say would count for much with you anyway, so why bother with the antagonism and ignorance?
The strength of attitude against these things was mentioned repeatedly by musicians and dancers I had the pleasure of sharing these things with in the 70s across Ireland. and there were some alive then that could represent at least the last decade of the 1800s, when attitudes about things considered not Irish and acceptable as Irish were evident.
One example of active attempts to supplant the ‘foreign’ sets of quadrilles with the official ceili dances was in oral history, a teacher who came in like an evangelist for the cause. This was only one example. Do you really want a long list of sources ~ people, who I trusted and who I will stand by. But you believe what you will Flossie…
As far as you and dance, you probably couldn’t dance a fling step if your life depended on it, let alone know anything about the history of that aspect of the tradition…
These attitudes and their history were also found in North America, the U.S. and Canada… But some folks, as in Ireland, ignored the hoopla and continued with their enjoyments, not worried about whether they were considered ‘foreign’ or not by others… Bless them for that…
Dance introductions ~ they don’t sit long, they spread like wildfire. What was being done in the ballrooms of Paris were soon in London, Belfast, New York and beyond… That is part of the magic of music and dance… It is hard to confine… If the polka became popular anywhere in 1845, by 1846 it would have been everywhere…
Mea culpa, mea culpa…
Attitudes spread too easily as well. I remember sitting in on some music in Donegal, and we were playing some ‘Germans’, appropriately titled, or ‘barndances’ if that suits your mood better. Some talented and lovely lady commented with disgust, "That’s not Irish music!" She hailed from the other side of the Atlantic bog. If memory serves me right, we started into mazurkas. She left with her disgust.
I wish I’d had the sense to also chase up those folks that were responsible for 1935s "Public Dance Halls Act". I would have liked to have known it from that side as well, the whys of it, the vested interests. Instead I spent my free time in the countryside with musicians and dancers, for example the Crehans of Clare and the Savages of Armagh, and hearing their accounts of how it was institutionalized and enforced. I heard too often about negative attitudes towards certain dance and music to discount it, to devalue it and their effects.
"The Public Dance Halls Act 1935"
~ including the writing of Junior Crehan as published in the magazine ‘Dal gCais’, 1977
http://www.setdance.com/pdha/pdha.html
From another source ~ with regards to the 1890s ~
"As a foreign import, set dancing (quadrilles) was regarded as an un-Irish aberration by ‘The Gaelic League’ shortly after its inception in 1893."
"The Rough Guide to Irish Music" ~ page 11
Geoff Wallis & Sue Wilson
Rough Guides Limited, 2001
ISBN: 1-85828-642-5
It would be foolish to discount the Irish influence on the Irish Immigrant populations worldwide, in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere. The same institutions and similar ones travelled, including competitions and celebrations and an innate need to standardize and toward officialdom and recognition. The influences went both ways… These negative and influential attitudes were not limited to just the dance, but to the musical forms that accompanied those dances considered to not be Irish, to be un-Irish, foreign, alien…
The virus of this still exists in the not uncommon and what was growing the last time we were in Ireland, the ‘Fior/Pure Ceilis’, where only the ‘official’ ceili dances were allowed, danced in their ‘official’ and standardized forms.
Despite Nan Quinn and others wishing to supplant the sets and other things, and purge dance of the dreaded ‘swing’, what Nan called with disgust ‘slogging’, these things they considered abomonations, foreign, some persisted anyway. I still remember how proud she was in their ignoring a greater body of ‘country dances’ they considered inferior, English, Scottish, European, foreign. On those that became ‘official’, things and bits were chosen, borrowed, doctored and choreographed to fit what became their acceptable "30 Popular Figure Dances", the publication of ‘The Gaelic League’ branch ‘Án Coimisiún le Rincí Gaelacha’, “Ár Rinncide Foirne”, which also spread across the world shortly after its first printing, 1939…
The memory of these injustices, attitudes or acts, persisted amongst those I had the pleasure of sharing time with, music, dance and chat, and endless cups of dark strong tea and home cooking… I wish I’d had the money and ability to record every word they shared, every emotion, everything, as I count them the greater value than my disfunctional and imperfect memory. Their passions still drive me forward, sometimes foolishly. But, I am always open to learning more, from those that actually have it to offer, and in my experience usually do so willingly, without spite, but with context, which includes emotions…
For those bereft of heart, you’ll hardly understand, if at all, and that includes the pulse that drives this lovely social craic… I’ve been blessed, but I also know I’m flawed. I try to get it right, to offer what I can, but I acknowledge that sometimes I get in the way of that. I haven’t given up on trying to better my ways, improve on my consideration and respect for others ~ for those deserving of it…
Floss, knowing you hate my rambles, I suspect this will stick in your craw and cause indigestion… I hope so…
Sliabh Luachra polkas ~ just in case anyone goes looking…
& for your reading pleasure:
"Stone Mad for Music: The Sliabh Luachra Story"
Donal Hickey
Morino Books / Mercier Press, Dublin, 1999
ISBN: 1-86023-097-0
Ceol,
I certainly do not have a ‘generally nasty dislike’ for you, but had to cease our recent correspondence because you repeatedly brought into that arena personal information about yourself and your family which I really did not wish to know. I asked you to stop, but you persisted in bringing your life into mine. I gather that others here have had similar experiences and responded in ways similar to my own which you have misinterpreted as antagonism. It’s just nothing of the sort - you’re just too much to handle and, frankly, way off-beam at times.
Underneath the veneer of pleasantry you also seem to possess a rather repugnant assumption of being right about absolutely everything. Have you actually read Helen Brennnan’s wonderful ‘The Story of Irish Dance’? Your comments suggest otherwise.
1) The very easy one. You’ve not responded to my request for clarification regarding O’Neill and jingoism. It’s highly unlikely that anyone in the US would have been aware of the debates taking place about dances in ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’ in the first decade of the 20th century. And, of course, said debates took place after the publication of the first edition of ‘The Dance Music of Ireland’.
2) The easier one. I asked you to detail a piece of legislation which ‘outlawed’ foreign dances. There isn’t one. The Gaelic League attempted to ban dances it reckoned were of foreign influence, but, as you should well know, it didn’t succeed.
The Public Dance Halls Act says absolutely nothing about the form of dances - http://bit.ly/4uyW0F - but restricted where any public dancing might take place, stretching the definition of ‘public’ to include private homes. I’m sure you’ll be aware that the messes and social clubs of the military and guards were exempt from the Act. I wonder why that was.
3) You presume that I know nothing about the history of dancing in Ireland, exhibited by your vitriolic ‘As far as you and dance, you probably couldn’t dance a fling step if your life depended on it, let alone know anything about the history of that aspect of the tradition…’
You’re very wrong on the second count, and I really don’t care about the first.
You wrote this: ‘There were tons of country dances that didn’t meet their approval, and that includes their accompanying music.’ Yet you’ve given no evidence to suggest that the Gaelic League did anything about said ‘accompanying music’.
If you know anything about the history of the Gaelic League (and much of your sprawling comments suggests otherwise), you’d be aware that Nan Quinn is a very minor figure in its development.
Your suggestion that the polka’s popularity might sweep like wildfire across Europe in just one year (and even to the flesh-pots of Mayo - and I bet you don’t recognise that quote) just beggars belief about your understanding of modes of communication in 19th century Europe.
I take heed of your experiences in Ireland, many of which match my own. I appreciate your strong love of dance and the tunes which accompany it, but I do challenge your unwritten assumption that you’re the font of all wisdom on this board (and if you’re still not clear about this, consider the word ‘swamping’). Certainly, I know I’m not said font, far from it, and I’m about to dine on a delicious home-cooked lamb curry which will cause me as much indigestion as your bilious messages.
No, I don’t consider myself the font of wisdom or anything, and apologize if I give that impression. Sometimes the passion gets the better of sense. No also on your other assumption, the only nasty response I ever got, repeatedly, was from you, and I wasn’t about to name anyone, but as you raised the issue, so be it. If anyone else has been similarly irritated by me, they’ve had the grace to just let it pass and not make an issue of it, or get nasty…
I also stand corrected, that by your experiences and reading you have opinions that differ from mine. I haven’t a problem with that… I’m not particularly fond of the myths that people associated with the dance commision promote, and the cover up of a less than friendly history. Things are conveniently rewritten. I do not know the exact situation with O’Neill and the collecting he did, which I value highly, but I do not have any difficulty imagining that attitudes may have affected what was and wasn’t included or ‘acceptable’ at the time.
Polkas and many other tune forms, such as mazurkas and highland flings and schottisches/barndances/Germans were not uncommon amongst the musicians and communities O’Neill had access to, and evidenced in recordings, but yet he didn’t include these tune forms in the collections, generally. Having experienced Irish and Irish-American jingoism, and American, and English, and something of that in any country I’ve visited, and in some of the literature concerned with the subject and collecting of ‘tradition’, for me to not doubt the possibility of such influence, well, I don’t see that as untenable.
I also don’t see ‘communication’ over the last few hundred years that limited, from what I’ve seen and read, and from the accounts I heard in my journies around the back roads of Ireland and elsewhere. I have a greater respect for how fluid things were despite difficulties during the 1800s or the 1900s. I don’t see things as limiting as you might be suggesting.
Regarding Helen Brennnan’s work, for which I am not in complete agreement with, for whatever reasons, here’s the full information for anyone else who might pass this way and want to satisfy their curiosity further:
"The Story of Irish Dance"
Helen Brennan
Roberts Rinehart Publishers, Lanham, Maryland, 1999
ISBN: 1058979-003-0
As you suggest, that I may not have given it the consideration it deserves, or understanding, I’ll crack it again and give it another read… I don’t necessarily share the same superlatives with its regard, but value it just the same.
Nan Quinn was not alone in freely sharing her attitudes about foreign influences. There is no sense in making a list, but Armagh alone had many more dances before such influences and organization than after it, and yes, that would include the music as well… That didn’t seem to be unusual to just that one county, in my experience…
With regards to the rapidity of spread, well, that is easily proofed with the many dance manuals that were produced, and dance descriptions, dated ~ within short order of a dance’s show in the Paris ballrooms. The world is full of surviving tomes, and some of these can be accessed via The Library of Congress and other fine online resources, and libraries. It never surprised me to even find such things in the possessions of older carriers of the tradition, as it didn’t surprise me how many were what some might call ‘musically literate’. I don’t underestimate people and what they know. The Irish have always travelled, and those I’ve known have always had a hunger to know, one they weren’t shy of satisfying where possible. I’ve even come across dance cards, not just the manuals and tune collections…
No, I have never suggested I was the font of anything, I can only go with what has been shared with me, and hope I don’t distort it too much, and do my damnedest to make corrections where I or my sources may have had a wrong impression of what was affecting their life and the music and dance… I keep learning…
Sorry if my rambles cause you or anyone indigestion… May you survive your lamb curry with satisfaction and fulfillment…
‘No also on your other assumption, the only nasty response I ever got, repeatedly, was from you, and I wasn’t about to name anyone, but as you raised the issue, so be it.’
This is utter garbage. I didn’t raise the issue since you’d already written this: ‘But you wouldn’t know these things and would feel particularly antagonistic toward anything I’d have to say in your generally nasty dislike for me and your love of the ‘attack’. Nothing I’d have to say would count for much with you anyway, so why bother with the antagonism and ignorance?’
For the record, I offered you a copy of the Vincent Broderick cassette. You responded by swamping me with emails which included personal information which I really did not need. I asked you to stop doing so and requested that we only discussed music, but you persisted to the extent that I felt I was being stalked. I decided not to have any further correspondence with you and told you this in straightforward and not unkind words.
If you’d like me to post my very decent and reasonable requests for you to stop sending me personal information, none of which could ever be considered ‘nasty’ in the slightest, I’ll happily put them all here on this forum.
It may not be obvious, and again, apologies if it’s not, but I am aware of my limitations, and that the greatest and weakest of these is me ~ my history, perspectives, passions, attitudes and preconceptions… Objectivity is impossible, but it is stil something desired, as is often the case with things ‘impossible’… I keep questioning myself and any assumptions I’d prefer things weren’t left to potentially stagnate. I little introspection isn’t a bad thing.
Best of luck in all you do…
So, no apology for misrepresenting me here?
You caught me in a raw state, several people I know had died, family and friends, and one in very unpleasant circumstances, fully realizing that you greatly dislike such personal information. I was chuffed someone, you, was willing to trust me with something considered by me priceless. I couldn’t just let it be sent without some proof of who I was, good or bad, but definitely emotional. It has been an awful summer for us, though this is something you don’t want to know, and suddenly someone offered something special, a kindness, an earful of the music of a recently deceased and respected character.
‘Nasty’ is relative, I’ll own that interpretation. To me your responses to me were, and at a time I was caught completely off guard, personally, by other things aside from your growing and openly voiced dislike of me… Your began with a criticism I immediately acknowledge as not unjust… We are obviously oil and water and it is best to do as you’d suggested and not correspond. Apologies that I rose to this, and confession that it was in part in anger. Anger is something I’ve learned that I don’t generally feel without some reason, like feeling hurt, a defense, if the wrong way to go about reacing, but a reaction I take full responsibility for…
Apologies, I won’t repeat it ~ good luck…
Sorry again, I forgot to add, with regards to Helen Brennan’s work, yes, Yes, and YES again, read it first before considering anything I might say, and also Larry Lynch’s "Set Dances of Ireland: Tradition and Evolution" and any of Dr. John Cullinane’s works on Irish dance history… All of these I have respect and appreciation for, their experiences and opinions… I particularly appreciate Helen’s concluding chapter ~ "Last Words"…well observed, thought out and shared, including the well chosen quotes and observations from others… I should quote more myself, and avoid anything that might come off as a statement rather than an opinion… Mea culpa!
Ceolachan,
Let me repeat for the record that all I ever asked you to do was to stop sending me detailed personal information about yourself and concentrate instead on the music. However, you persisted in bombarding me with details of your life which had no bearing upon mine. At which point, and at the end of my unflossed tethers, I cut you adrift.
How can I accept your apology when you’ve included the phrase ‘your growing and openly voiced dislike of me’? I don’t want to drag this on any longer, but let me state categorically that I have not expressed any ‘dislike’ of you either in my messages to you or on this board or any other public forum. And, since I’m completely indifferent to you, the word ‘growing’ in relation to ‘dislike’ is completely redundant.
If I can offer you some more words of advice, it would be to look inwards first before transferring your emotions onto others.
I think we should let this matter rest.