After spending some days in Wales and enjoying a great rugby match, today, TheWinsors and The Grandma havetravelled to Belfast, the capital of North Ireland tocelebrate Saint Patrick with the Irish community.
During the trip, the family has studied some English grammar with For/Since,and they have been talking about Irish culture and the concept of luck in different cultures. Finally, they have assisted to a fantastic Irishfolk concert.
Saint Patrick's Day or the Feast of Saint Patrick in
Irish, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, is a cultural and religious celebration held
on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD
385–461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland.
Saint Patrick's Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early 17th century and is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion especially the Church of Ireland, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Lutheran Church.
The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in
Ireland, and celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in
general. Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals,
cèilidhs, and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. Christians who
belong to liturgical denominations also attend church services and
historically the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol were
lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday's
tradition of alcohol consumption.
Saint Patrick's Day is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, NorthernIreland, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, for provincial government employees, and the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora around the world, especially in Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand. Saint Patrick's Day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival.
Modern celebrations have been greatly influenced by those of the Irish diaspora, particularly those that developed in North America.
In recent years, there has been criticism of Saint Patrick's Day
celebrations for having become too commercialised and for fostering
negative stereotypes of the Irish.
Patrick was a 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland.
Much of what is known about Saint Patrick comes from the Declaration,
which was allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he
was born in Roman Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy
Romano-British family. His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a
priest in the Christian church. According to the Declaration, at the
age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave
to Gaelic Ireland. It says that he spent six years there working as a
shepherd and that during this time he found God. The Declaration
says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be
waiting to take him home. After making his way home, Patrick went on to
become a priest.
According to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The Declaration says that he spent many years evangelising in the northern half of Ireland and converted thousands. Patrick's efforts against the druids were eventually turned into an allegory in which he drove snakes out of Ireland: Ireland never had any snakes.
Tradition
holds that he died on 17 March and was buried at Downpatrick. Over the
following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became
Ireland's foremost saint.
After reading the complete Arthurian saga, TheGrandma wants to visit Wales,where all the Arthurian legend began.
She has decided to visit Cardiff, the capital of Wales to assist to The Six Nations Championship in Stadiwm y Mileniwm.
Wales vs England is one of the best rugby matches that you can enjoy nowadays.
The Six Nations Championship (known as the Six Nations, branded as Guinness M6N) is anannual international rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales.
It is the oldest sports tournament contested by the Home Nations. The championship holders are Ireland, who won the 2024 tournament.
The tournament is organised by the unions of the six participatingnations under the banner of Six Nations Rugby, which is responsible for the promotion and operation of the men's, women's and under-20s tournaments, and the Autumn International Series, as well as the negotiation and management of their centralised commercial rights.
The Six Nations is the successor to the Home Nations Championship (1883-1909 and 1932-39), played between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which was the first international rugby union tournament. With the addition of France, this became the Five Nations Championship (1910-31 and 1947-99), which in turn became the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy in 2000.
England and Wales have won the championship the most times, both with 39 titles, but England have won the most outright titles with 29 (28 for Wales). Since the Six Nations era started in 2000, only Italy and Scotland have failed to win the Six Nations title.
The women's tournament started as the Women's Home Nations in the 1996 season. The men's Six Nations Under 20s Championship is the successor to the Under 21s tournament which began in 2004.
The tournament was first played in 1883 as the Home Nations Championship among the then four Home Nations of the United Kingdom -England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, England was excluded from the 1888 and 1889 tournaments due to their refusal to join the International Rugby Football Board. The tournament then became the Five Nations Championship in 1910 with the addition of France. The tournament was expanded in 2000 to become the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.
Following the relative success of the Tier 2 nations in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, there were calls by Octavian Morariu, the president of Rugby Europe, to let Georgia and Romania join the Six Nations due to their consistent success in the European Nations Cup and ability to compete in the Rugby World Cup.
The tournament begins on the first weekend in February and culminates on the second or third Saturday in March. Each team plays every other team once (a total of 15 matches), with home ground advantage alternating from one year to the next. Before the 2017 tournament, two points were awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Unlike many other rugby union competitions, a bonus point system had not previously been used.
A bonus point system was first used in the 2017 Championship. The system is similar to the one used in most rugby championships (0 points for a loss, 2 for a draw, 4 for a win, 1 for scoring four or more tries in a match, and 1 for losing by 7 points or fewer). The only difference is that a team that wins all their games (a Grand Slam) are automatically awarded 3 extra points -to ensure they cannot be overtaken by a defeated team on bonus points.
Before 1994, teams equal on match points shared the championship. Since then, ties have been broken by considering the points difference (total points scored minus total points conceded) of the teams. The rules of the championship further provide that if teams tie on both match points and points difference, the team that scored the most tries wins the championship. Were this decider to be a tie, the tying teams would share the championship. To date, however, match points and points difference have been sufficient to decide the championship.
The Wooden Spoon is a metaphorical award given to the team that finishes in last place; a team which loses all their matches is said to have been whitewashed. Since the inaugural Six Nations tournament in 2000, only England and Ireland have avoided finishing last. Italy have finished last 18 times in the Six Nations era, and have lost all their matches in 12 tournaments.
Today, The Grandma has been reading some poetry. She loves it, and she has chosen Thomas Moore's poems, the Irish poet who was born on a day like today in 1852.
Thomas Moore (28 May 1779-25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricistcelebrated for his Irish Melodies.
Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish to English. Politically, Moore was recognised in England as a press, or squib, writer for the aristocratic Whigs; in Ireland he was accounted a Catholic patriot.
Married to a Protestant actress and hailed as Anacreon Moore after the classical Greek composer of drinking songs and erotic verse, Moore did not profess religious piety. Yet in the controversies that surrounded Catholic Emancipation Moore was seen to defend the tradition of the Church in Ireland against both evangelising Protestants and uncompromising lay Catholics.
Longer prose works reveal more radical sympathies. The Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald depicts the United Irish leader as a martyr in the cause of democratic reform.
Complementing Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent, Memoirs of Captain Rock is a saga, not of Anglo-Irish landowners, but of their exhausted tenants driven to the semi-insurrection of Whiteboyism.
Today, however, Moore is remembered almost alone either for his IrishMelodies, typically The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer or, less generously, for the role he is thought to have played in the loss of the memoirs of his friend Lord Byron.
Thomas Moore was born to Anastasia Codd from Wexford and John Moore from Kerry over his parents' grocery shop in Aungier Street, Dublin, He had two younger sisters, Kate and Ellen.
Moore showed an early interest in music and performance, staging musical plays with his friends and entertaining hope of being an actor.
In Dublin he attended Samuel Whyte's co-educational English grammar school, where he was schooled in Latin and Greek and became fluent in French and Italian. By age fourteen he had had one of his poems published in a new literary magazine called the Anthologia Hibernica, Irish Anthology.
Samuel Whyte had taught Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish playwright and English Whig politician, of whom Moore later was to write a biography.
In the early years of his career, Moore's work was largely generic, and had he died at this point he would likely not have been considered an Irish poet.
From 1806 to 1807, Moore dramatically changed his style of writing and focus. Following a request by the publishers James and William Power, he wrote lyrics to a series of Irish tunes in the manner of Haydn's settings of British folksongs, with Sir John Andrew Stevenson as arranger of the music.
The principal source for the tunes was Edward Bunting's A General Collection ofthe Ancient Irish Music (1797) to which Moore had been introduced at Trinity by Edward Hudson. The Melodies were published in ten volumes, together with a supplement, over 26 years between 1808 and 1834. The musical arrangements of the last volumes, following Stevenson's death in 1833, were by Henry Bishop.
The Melodies were an immediate success, The Last Rose of Summer, TheMinstrelBoy, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms and Oft in the Stilly Night becoming immensely popular. There were parodies in England, but translations into German, Italian, Hungarian, Czech, and French, and settings by Hector Berlioz guaranteed a large European audience. In the United States, The Last Rose of Summer alone sold more than a million copies.
Byron said he knew them all by rote and by heart; setting them above epics and Moore above all other poets for his peculiarity of talent, or rather talents, -poetry, music, voice, all his own-. They were also praised by Sir Walter Scott who conceded that neither he nor Byron could attain Moore's power of adapting words to music.
Moore was in no doubt that the Irish Melodies would be the only work of my pen […] whose fame, thanks to the sweet music in which it is embalmed, may boast a chance of prolonging its existence to a day much beyond our own.
The ultra-Tory The Anti-Jacobin Review, Monthly Political and Literary Censor discerned in Moore's Melodies something more than innocuous drawing-room ballads: several of them were composed in a very disordered state of society, if not in open rebellion. They are the melancholy ravings of the disappointed rebel, or his ill-educated offspring.
Moore was providing texts to what he described as our national music, and his lyrics did often reflect an unmistakable intimation of dispossession and loss in the music itself.
In the late 1840s, and as the catastrophe of the Great Famine overtook Ireland, Moore's powers began to fail. He was reduced ultimately to senility, which came suddenly in December 1849.
Moore died on February 25, 1852, preceded by all his children and by most of his friends and companions.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about DecimalDay, when the UK and Ireland decimalised its respective £sd currency on a day like today in 1971.
Decimal Day in the United Kingdomand in Ireland was Monday 15February 1971, the day on which each country decimalised its respective £sd currency of pounds, shillings, andpence.
Before this date in the United Kingdom,the British pound was made up of 20 shillings, each of which was made up of 12 pence, a total of 240 pence. With decimalisation, the pound kept its old value and name, and the only changes were in relation to the subunits. The shilling was abolished, and the pound was subdivided into 100 new pence (abbreviated p), each of which was worth 2.4 old pence (abbreviated d). In Ireland, the Irish pound had a similar £sd currency structure and similar decimalisation changes took place.
The Russian ruble was the first decimal currency to be used in Europe, dating to 1704, though China had been using a decimal system for at least 2000 years. Elsewhere, the Coinage Act of 1792 introduced decimal currency to the United States, the first English speaking country to adopt a decimalised currency. In France, the decimal French franc was introduced in 1795.
Before the 1970s, earlier efforts in the United Kingdom to introducedecimalised currency had failed; in 1824, the United Kingdom Parliament rejected Sir John Wrottesley's proposals to decimalise sterling, which were prompted by the introduction of the French franc three decades earlier.
Following this, little progress towards decimalisation was made in the UnitedKingdom for over a century, with the exception of the two shilling silver florin, first issued on 1849, worth 1/10 of a pound. A double florin or four shilling piece, introduced in 1887, was a further step towards decimalisation, but failed to gain acceptance and was struck only between 1887 and 1890.
Though little further progress was made, The Decimal Association, founded in 1841 to promote decimalisation and metrication, saw interest in both causes boosted by a growing national realisation of the importance of ease in international trade, following the 1851 Great Exhibition; it was as a result of the growing interest in decimalisation that the florin was issued. In a preliminary report issued by the in 1857, entitled the Royal Commission on DecimalCoinage, the benefits and drawbacks of decimalisation were considered, but the report failed to draw any conclusions on the adoption of a change in currency.
A final report in 1859 from the two remaining commissioners, Lord Overstone and Governor of the Bank of England John Hubbard, came out against the idea, claiming that it had few merits.
In 1862, the Select committee on Weights and Measures favoured the introduction of decimalisation to accompany the introduction of metric weights and measures.
The Royal Commission on Decimal Coinage (1918-1920), chaired by Lord Emmott, reported in 1920 that the only feasible scheme was to divide the pound into 1,000 mills (the pound and mill system, first proposed in 1824), but that it would be too inconvenient to introduce. A minority of four members said that the disruption would be worthwhile. A further three members recommended that the pound should be replaced by the royal, consisting of 100 halfpennies, with there then being 4.8 royals to the former pound.
In 1960, a report prepared jointly by the BritishAssociation for theAdvancement of Science and theAssociation of BritishChambers ofCommerce, followed by the success of decimalisation in South Africa, prompted the Government to set up the Committee of the Inquiry onDecimal Currency (HalsburyCommittee) in 1961, which reported in 1963. The adoption of the changes suggested in the report was announced on 1 March 1966. The Decimal Currency Board (DCB) was created to manage the transition, but the plans were not approved by Parliament until the DecimalCurrency Act of May 1969. The former Greater London Council leader Bill Fiske was named as the Chairman of the Decimal Currency Board.
Consideration was given to introducing a new major unit of currency worth ten shillings in the old currency. Suggested names included the new pound, the royal and the noble. It would have resulted in the decimal penny being worth only slightly more than the old penny, an approach adopted in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s, adopting respectively the South African rand, Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar equal in value to 10 shillings. However, Halsbury decided that the pound sterling's importance as a reserve currency meant that the pound should remain unchanged.
Due to extensive preparations and the publicity campaigns organised by the British government, Decimal Day itself went smoothly. Some criticism -such as the fact that the new halfpenny coin was relatively small, and that some traders had taken advantage of the transition to raise their prices- were levelled, despite the fact that in the latter case, overall price adjustments slightly favoured the consumer.
Some used new pennies as sixpences in vending machines. After 15 February, shops continued to accept payment in old coins but always issued change in new coins. The old coins were then returned to banks, and so most of them were quickly taken out of circulation.
When the old £sd system (consisting of pounds, shillings, and pence) was in operation, the United Kingdom and Ireland operated within the Sterlingarea, effectively a single monetary area.
The Irish pound was created as a separate currency in 1927 with distinct coins and notes, but the terms of the Irish Currency Act obliged the Irish currency commissioners to redeem Irish pounds on a fixed 1:1 basis, and so day-to-day banking operations continued exactly as they had been before the creation of the Irish pound. The Irish pound was decimalised on 15 February 1971, the same date as the British pound.
This arrangement continued until 1979 when Irish obligations to the European Monetary System led to Ireland breaking the historic link with Sterling.
In Ireland, all pre-decimal coins, except the 1s, 2s and 10s coins, were called in during the initial process between 1969 and 1972; the ten shilling coin, which, as recently issued and in any event equivalent to 50p, was permitted to remain outstanding (though due to silver content, the coin did not circulate). The 1s and 2s were recalled in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Pre-decimal Irish coins may still be redeemed at their face value equivalent in euros at the Central Bank in Dublin.
Pre-decimal Irish coins and stamps' values were denoted with Irish language abbreviations (scilling (shilling, abbreviated s) and pingin (penny, abbreviated p)) rather than abbreviations derived from the Latin solidi and denarii used in other Sterling countries. Irish people and business otherwise used £sd just as in other countries. Thus, prior to decimalisation, coins were marked 1p, 3p... rather 1d and 3d as in Britain.
Low-value Irish postage stamps likewise used p rather than d; so a two-penny stamp was marked 2p in Ireland rather than 2d as in the UK. After decimalisation, while British stamps switched from d to p, Irish stamps (but not coins) printed the number with no accompanying letter; so a stamp worth 2 new pence was marked 2p in the UK and simply 2 in Ireland.
Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has been reading about Oíche na Gaoithe Móire, the powerfulEuropean windstorm that swept across what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on a day like today in 1839.
The Night of the Big Wind,in Irish Oíche na Gaoithe Móire, was a powerfulEuropean windstorm that swept across what was then the UnitedKingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, beginning on the afternoon of 6January 1839, causing severe damage to property and several hundred deaths; 20% to 25% of houses in north Dublin were damaged or destroyed, and 42 ships were wrecked.
The storm attained a very low barometric pressure of 918 hPa and trackedeastwards to the north of Ireland, with gusts of over 185 km/h, before moving across the north of England to continental Europe, where it eventually dissipated. At the time, it was the worst storm to hit Ireland for 300 years.
Liverpool also suffered severely, with many shipwrecks and structural damage resulting from strong winds. 120 people died as a result of such accidents in the city alone. Two major shipwrecks resulted in damage worth at least £500,000, equivalent to £52.2 million in 2020.
The storm developed after a period of unusual weather. Heavy snow, rare in Ireland, fell across the country on the night of 5 January, which was replaced onthe morning of 6 January by an Atlantic warm front, which brought a period of complete calm with dense, motionless, cloud cover. Through the day, temperatures rose well above their seasonal average, resulting in rapid melting of the snow.
Later on 6 January, a deep Atlantic depression began to move towards Ireland, forming a cold front when it collided with the warm air over land, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.
First reports of stormy weather came from western County Mayo around noon, and the storm moved very slowly across the island through the day, gathering strength as it moved.
By midnight the winds reached hurricane force. Contemporary accounts of damage indicate that the Night of the Big Wind was the most severe storm to affect Ireland for many centuries.
It is estimated that between 250 and 300 people lost their lives in the storm. Severe property damage was caused, particularly in Connacht, but also in Ulster and northern Leinster. Between a fifth and a quarter of all houses in Dublin suffered damage ranging from broken windows to complete destruction. Much of the inland damage was caused by a storm surge that drew large quantities of sea water inland, resulting in widespread flooding.
Even well-built buildings suffered structural damage, including new factories and military barracks. The newly constructed St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Derrytrasna was completely destroyed; one of the steeples of the Church of Ireland church in Castlebar was blown down, and a number of large country houses were unroofed. Among the poorly built homes of the poor, damage was more severe and many were completely destroyed.
A total of 42 ships, most along the less sheltered west coast, were wrecked while unsuccessfully trying to ride out the storm: a majority of the recorded casualties occurred at sea.
Stacks of hay and corn were widely destroyed, resulting in severe starvation among livestock in the following months.
The Night of the Big Wind became part of Irish folk tradition. Irish folklore held that Judgment Day would occur on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January.Such a severe storm led many to believe that the end of the world was at hand.
The Old-Age Pensions Act 1908 introduced pensions for over-70s, but many Irish Catholics prior to the Registration of Births and Deaths (Ireland) Act, 1863 had no birth registration. One of the questions used to establish proof of age was whether the applicant remembered the Night of the Big Wind.
A popular story holds that the storm inspired the Director of Armagh Observatory, the Reverend Romney Robinson, to develop the cup-anemometer, which remains the commonly used wind measuring device today.
Irish language poems about the event include Oíche na Gaoithe Móire by Micheál de Búrc (c.1800-1881) and Oíche Nollaig na mBan by Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916-1977). The latter's title means Night of Women's Christmas; Women's Christmas is observed in Ireland on the feast of the Epiphany (6 January). The first verse describes a storm on that date, 5 January, while the second recounts the poet's desire that his eventual death should coincide with a similar storm.
The novel The Big Wind by Beatrice Coogan uses the events of January 1839 as a historical backdrop.
Today, The Grandma has been relaxing at home. She has been reading about sports and she has paid attention about the commemoration of a great event. On a day like today in 1882, Wales and England contest the first HomeNations, now Six Nations, rugby union match.
The Six Nations Championship is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales.
The Six Nations is the successor to the Home Nations Championship (1883-1909 and 1932-39), played between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which was the first international rugby union tournament. With the addition of France, this became the Five Nations Championship (1910-31 and 1947-99), which in turn became the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.
England hold the record for outright wins with 29. Since the Six Nations era started in 2000, only Italy and Scotland have failed to win the Six Nations title.
The women's tournament started as the Women's Home Nations in the 1996 season.
The tournament was first played in 1883 as the Home Nations Championship among the four Home Nations -England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, England was excluded from the 1888 and 1889 tournaments due to their refusal to join the International Rugby Football Board.
The tournament then became the Five
Nations Championship in 1910 with the addition of France. The tournament
was expanded in 2000 to become the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.
Following the relative success of the Tier 2 nations in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, there were calls by Octavian Morariu, the president of Rugby Europe, to let Georgia and Romania join the Six Nations due to their consistent success in the European Nations Cup and ability to compete in the Rugby World Cup.
The winners of the Six Nations are presented with the Championship Trophy.This was originally conceived by the Earl of Westmorland, and was first presented to the winners of the 1993 championship, France. It is a sterling silver trophy, designed by James Brent-Ward and made by a team of eight silversmiths from the London firm William Comyns.
It has 15 side panels representing the 15 members of the team and with three handles to represent the three officials, referee and two touch judges. The cup has a capacity of 3.75 litres -sufficient for five bottles of champagne. Within the mahogany base is a concealed drawer which contains six alternative finials, each a silver replica of one of the team emblems, which can be screwed on the detachable lid.
A new trophy was introduced for the 2015 Championship. The new trophy was designed and crafted by Thomas Lyte silversmiths and replaces the 1993 edition, which is being retired as it represented the nations that took part in the Five Nations Championship. Ireland were the last team to win the old trophy, and coincidentally, the first team to win the new one.
Today, The Grandma has been talking with TheWatsons about Dana, the Irish singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest representing her country in 1970 singing All Kinds of Everything.
Ireland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 53 times since making its debut at the 1965 Contest in Naples, missing only two contests since then (1983 and 2002). The contest final is broadcast in Ireland on RTÉ One.
Ireland is the most successful country in the contest, with a record totalof seven wins, and is the only country to have won three times consecutively.
Before talking about Dana, The Grandma has offered a new CambridgeKey English Test A2 Example to The Watsons.
Dana Rosemary Scallon (born Rosemary Brown on 30 August 1951), known professionally as Dana, is an Irish singer and former politician who servedasMember of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004.
While still a schoolgirl she won the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest with All Kinds of Everything. It became a worldwide million-seller and launched her music career.
She entered politics in 1997, as Dana Rosemary Scallon, running unsuccessfully in the Irish presidential election, but later being elected as an MEP for Connacht–Ulster in 1999.
Scallon was again an independent candidate in the Irish 2011 presidential election, but was eliminated on the first count. In 2019, Dana announced she was back in the studio and was recording a brand new album, her first in many years. My Time was released 1 November 2019.
Dana won Eurovision in 1970
Scallon was born in FredericaStreet, Islington, North London,to Robert and Sheila Brown. Her father worked as a porter at nearby King's Cross station.
Her parents were musical -her father played the trumpet in his own dance band, The Imperial All Stars, and her mother was their guest pianist. They had seven children in all: three sons and four daughters, including their third-born child Grace who died at eight months from a penicillin allergy.
In 1965, the now solo Rosemary Brown took part in a local talent contest at the Embassy Ballroom, where she won first prize -a chance to record a demo tape. Tony Johnston, a headmaster and part-time promoter who sponsored the competition, took her under his wing while she continued with her studies at Thornhill College, the Roman Catholic grammar school for girls she joined in 1963.
After gaining seven good grades in her GCE O-level exams, Rex Records (Decca) in Dublin received her demo and manager Michael Geoghegan signed her up. Her debut single was Sixteen, written by Tony Johnston, while the B-side, Little Girl Blue, was her own composition.
It came out on 17
November 1967, but failed to take off, though local TV and radio began
to show an interest in her. It was at this time that she adopted the
professional name of Dana, which had been her school nickname.
Now studying A-level music and English, she became popular in Dublin'scabaret and folk clubs at weekends, and was crowned Queen of Cabaret at Clontarf Castle in 1968.
Rex Records' secretary Phil Mitton suggested she audition for the IrishNational Song Contest, due to take place in February 1969 -a victory would see her represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. With mixed feelings due to nerves she made it through to the final in Dublin where she sang Look Around by Michael Reade, later released as her fourth single. Shown live on Irishtelevision, Scallon came second to Muriel Day and Wages of Love, also written by Reade.
In December 1969 Tom McGrath, producer of the Irish National SongContest, invited Scallon to try again next year, feeling that one of the entered songs, the ballad All Kinds of Everything, would suit her. Her second attempt to win the Irish contest was a success.
Then on Saturday 21 March 1970, the eighteen-year-old schoolgirl performed the song at the Eurovision finals held in the Amsterdam RAI ExhibitionandConvention Centre, before an estimated viewing audience of two hundred million.
Dana won Eurovision in 1970
Perched on a stool while wearing an embroidered white mini-dress, she was the last of twelve contestants to perform that night.
After the voting had finished she was declared the winner with 32 points, beating the favourite, UK's Mary Hopkin, with 26 and Germany's Katja Ebstein with 12. Spain's Julio Iglesias came equal fourth with Guy Bonnet of France and Henri Dès of Switzerland. This was Ireland's first of a record seven successes in the contest.
The winning song was composed by two Dublin printworkers, Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith. The single was produced by Ray Horricks and arranged by Phil Coulter. Released on 14 March, it shot to #1 in the Irish singles chart before the contest began and stayed there for nine weeks.
It also spent two weeks at the top of the UK singles chart on 18 and 25 April. It was also successful in Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. The song went on to sell more than two million units.
Scallon's debut album All Kinds of Everything, recorded at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London, on the weekend of 25 April 1970, was released in June and included four tracks co-written by the singer, as well as a new recording of the album's title track.
In June 1997, she received a letter from the Christian Community Centre in Ireland suggesting she run for the Irish presidency. Having no interest in politics at the time, and never having heard of that organisation, she threw the incredible proposal in the bin. But they persisted and similar mail arrived from other people.
She was granted US citizenship in 1999, requiring her to swear an oath renouncing allegiance to any other state. That same year she again stood as an independent, this time winning a seat in the European Parliament, representing Connacht–Ulster.
On 19 September 2011, at the Fitzwilliam Hotel on St Stephen's Green, Scallon announced she would be seeking a nomination to enter the following month's Irish presidential election. Carlow County Council was the first to nominate her. She was then nominated by other county councils thus becoming a candidate. There were seven candidates in total, five men and two women.
Dana & Mary Hopkin in Eurovision, 1970
All Kinds of Everything is a song written by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith; as performed by Dana, it wonthe Eurovision Song Contest1970.
All Kinds of Everythingrepresented a return to the ballad form from the more energetic performances which had dominated Eurovision the previous years.
Dana sings about all the things which remind her of her sweetheart, such as wishing-wells, wedding bells and an early morning dew, with the admission at the end of every verse that all kinds of everything remind me of you. The recording by Dana became an international hit.
Dana had competed in the 1969 Irish National Song Contest -she was a resident of Northern Ireland and citizen of the United Kingdom but it was decided that year to have the Irish entry in Eurovision represent the island of Ireland in its entirety rather than just the Republic of Ireland.
Although in 1970 the Irish Eurovision entry reverted to representing the Republic of Ireland only, Dana had made such a favorable impression in the previous year's Irish National Song Contest -her performance of Look Around had come second- that the contest's producer Tom McGrath invited her to participate again singing All Kinds of Everything, a composition by Derry Lindsay and Jackie Smith, two twenty-eight-year-old amateur songwriters who worked as compositors for a Dublin newspaper.
Scottish songwriter Bill Martin, who was responsible for the winning song's publishing, has on numerous subsequent occasions claimed that he and his song writing partner Phil Coulter, the team behind both Puppet on a String and Congratulations, actually wrote the song themselves, but were prevented from using their names on the credit. Coulter has never repeated the claim.
Derry Lindsay set the record straight in an interview with Irish Times Arts Correspondent Tony Clayton-Lea in May 2016, in an article entitled, The Greatest injustice in Irish Eurovision history?. The greatest injustice in Irish Eurovision history?. Derry Lindsay is now retired and living in Skerries, Co. Dublin with his wife.
All Kinds of Everything was the first Eurovision win for the Republic of Ireland; six subsequent victories have made that nation Eurovision's most successful entrant.
The entry was politically sensitive as Dana came from Derry in Northern Ireland, yet was representing Ireland, not the United Kingdom. At this time The Troubles in Northern Ireland were erupting, and some people found political symbolism of a Northern Irishwoman representing the Republic.
Following her victory Dana returned to Derry and sang her victorious song to a crowd of cheering wellwishers from a balcony in the city.
Seagulls and aeroplanes Things of the sky Winds that go howlin' Breezes that sigh City sights Neon lights Grey skies or blue All kinds of everything remind me of you.
Today, The Grandma has been talking with TheWatsons about LindaMartin, the Irish singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest representing their country in 1992 and singing Why Me.
Ireland first entered the EurovisionSong Contest in 1965. The country famously won 4 out of 5 contests in the 1990s and became the first country to win 3 times in a row.
Ireland has won the Eurovision Song Contest a record 7 times in total.
Before talking about Linda Martin, The Grandma has offered a new CambridgeKey English Test A2 Example to The Watsons.
Linda Martin (born 27 March 1952) is a singer and television presenter from Northern Ireland.
She is best known in Europe as the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 1992 with the song Why Me, and in Ireland as a member of the 1970s/1980s band, Chips.
Martin is of Irish, Scottish and Italian ancestry. Her family's surname was originally Martini. Her paternal great-grandfather Francis Martini was born in Dublin to immigrants from Saronno near Milan, Italy.
Martin's maternal great-grandparents, William Green and Elizabeth Nangle had a coal-mining background; they had transferred to Belfast from Larkhall, Scotland.
Martin started off her musical career when she joined the band Chips in Omagh in 1969. They quickly became one of the top bands in Ireland on the live circuit and released hit singles Love Matters, Twice a Week and Goodbye Goodbye during the mid to late 1970s.
In 1972, Martin broke away from Chips to be a vocalist with new band Lyttle People, but rejoined Chips the following year.
Johnny Logan & Linda Martin
The group appeared on Opportunity Knocks in 1974 and appeared a number of times on British television promoting their singles, but never scored a UK hit. With multiple entries to the Irish National finals of the Eurovision Song Contest,the band carried on into the 1980s.
They scored a final Irish hit in 1982 with David's Song, after which Martin broke away when she won the Castlebar Song Contest with Edge of the Universe in 1983. From this point she concentrated on a solo career as well as occasional live appearances with Chips until they recruited a new lead singer (Valerie Roe) in the late 1980s.
She participated in the National Song Contest four times as a member of Chips, however they did not score successfully. She participated another four times in the contest as a soloist and once more as part of the group Linda Martin and Friends.
With nine participations, she has been the most frequent entrant in the National Song Contest's history. She won the contest twice, going on to represent Ireland twice at the Eurovision Song Contest.
The first of these victories was in 1984 with the song Terminal 3, written by Johnny Logan, under his real name Séan Sherrard. The song came 2nd in the final, being beaten by 8 points. Terminal 3 reached No.7 in the Irish charts.
The second victory was in 1992 when her song Why Me, also written by Logan, went on to win the final in Sweden. This became Ireland's 4th victory in the Eurovision Song Contest and the song reached No.1 in the Irish charts as well as becoming a hit in many European countries.
Martin was, at the time, one of only three artists to finish both first and second at Eurovision, behind Lys Assia and Gigliola Cinquetti. Since then, only Elisabeth Andreassen and Dima Bilan have achieved this, raising the number to five. Martin was the first of the three artists to finish second first and first second, matched only later by Bilan.
She has presented the RTÉ quiz show The Lyrics Board, one of the broadcaster's more popular formats. She served as one of Louis Walsh's behind-the-scenes team on the first series of ITV's The X Factor.
Linda Martin
She also served as a judge on the first, second and fourth seasons of RTÉ's You're a Star and on CharityYou're a Star in Summer 2005 and Summer 2006.
She was dismissed from the 2007 season, however, speaking on Saturday Night with Miriam on RTÉ television on 28 July 2007, she insisted that she was open to being invited back on to the show.
Martin has not ruled out a return to Eurovision following Ireland's dismal performance in the 2007 contest finishing last with only five points. She was a guest performer at Congratulations, the 50th anniversary Eurovision concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, in October 2005.
Martin was also the Irish spokesperson for Eurovision Song Contest 2007 and was one of the five judges for Eurosong 2009 (Irish Selection for Eurovision). In 2012, she was the mentor for Jedward in the Irish Eurovision final Eurosong 2012.
During the interval of Eurovision 2013 the host Petra Mede presented a light hearted history of the contest, during which she explained to viewers that Johnny Logan had won the competition three times, in 1980, 1987 and 1992.
Appearing alongside Linda Martin in some vintage footage she joked that he had won the third time disguised as a woman, saying, I recognise a drag queen when I see one. The joke proved controversial, particularly in the Irish media.
However, on 1 June 2013, during an appearance on RTÉ's The Saturday Night ShowMartin claimed that she had actually benefited from all the publicity. On the same show she performed a cover of the song Get Lucky by Daft Punk.
Martin has also appeared in pantomime, in Dublin. She starred in Cinderella as the Wicked Stepmother, Snow White as the Evil Queen and Robin Hood as herself, at the Olympia Theatre.
She toured Menopause the Musical with Irish entertainer Twink. While on tour, Twink described Martin as a cunt during a tirade in May 2010. The two had been friends for 30 years but both said afterwards that they had no plans to speak to each other again.
Today, TheGrandma has been talking with TheWatsons.They continue isolated and working in Rennette Watson'scandidature to EurovisionSong Contest, although they do not know anything about the new date.
The Grandma has explained some curiosities about Johnny Logan, the only singer that has won this Contest twice in 1980 and in 1987 representing Ireland. He also helped to win another Contest for Ireland in 1992 as composer.
Johnny Logan became one of the most popular singers during the 80's thanks to his participations and triomphs in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Before talking about Johnny Logan, The Grandma has offered a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example to The Watsons, their first Listening.
Johnny Logan (born 13 May 1954) is an Australian-born Irish singer and composer.
He is known as being the only performer to have won the Eurovision Song Contest twice, in 1980 and 1987. He also composed the winning song in 1992.
Logan first won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980, with the song What's Another Year written by Shay Healy. In 1984, Logan composed the song Terminal 3 which placed second at Eurovision, performed by Linda Martin.
He won the contest for a second time in 1987 with Hold Me Now, which he also wrote himself. His third win came in 1992, as composer of Linda Martin's winning entry Why Me?.
Johnny Logan won Eurovision in 1980
Johnny Logan was born on May 13, 1954 as SeánPatrick Michael Sherrard in
Frankston, Australia.
Logan's father Charles Alphonsus
Sherrard was a Derry-born Irish tenor known by the artistic name Patrick
O'Hagan. The family moved back to Ireland when Logan was three years
old. He learnt the guitar and began composing his own songs by the age
of thirteen.
On leaving school he
apprenticed as an electrician, while performing in pubs and cabaret. His
earliest claim to fame was starring as Adam in the 1977 Irish musical
Adam and Eve and Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat.
Logan adopted the stage name Johnny Logan after the main character of the film Johnny Guitar and released his first single in 1978. He first attempted to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1979, when he placed third in the Irish National Final with the song Angie. Readers of The Connaught Telegraph in Ireland voted Logan as Best New Male Artist.
In 1980, Logan again entered the Irish National selection for the EurovisionSong Contest with the Shay Healy song What's Another Year, winning the Irish final on 9 March in Dublin. Representing Ireland in the Netherlands, Logan won the Eurovision Song Contest on 19 April. The song became a hit all over Europe and reached number one in the UK.
In
London was released in June and Save Me shortly after. With
confusion by radio stations over which to play, both singles flopped.
Another single released in late 1980, a cover of a recent Cliff Richard
song, Give A Little Bit More was a more concerted effort and although
it narrowly missed the chart.
Logan blames his lack of success in the UK on poor management and his inexperience.
In
early 1983, Logan attempted a comeback in the UK with the song Becoming Electric with a new sound and image and promotional push, but
the failed to chart.
In
1985, Logan released his third studio album Straight From The Heart
which failed to chart. He also collaborated on the charity single You'll Never Walk Alone in aid of the Bradford City Disaster Fund.
In 1986, Logan rebranded himself as Logan with the song Stab in the Back, which also failed to chart.
In 1987, Logan made another attempt at Eurovision and with his self-penned song, Hold Me Now, he represented Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgium. The song won the contest and Logan became the first person to win the contest twice.
Hold Me Now became a major European hit and reached number two in the UK. Logan released a cover of the 10cc song I'm Not in Love, produced by Paul Hardcastle as a follow-up, and an album Hold Me Now.
In 1988, Logan released Heartland which became a hit in the Irish charts and from then on, concentrated on his career in Ireland and Europe.
In 1990, Logan recorded a
country version of Miss You Nights with Elvis Presley's backing band
The Jordanaires. He also wrote and sung the theme song Angels Don't Hide
for the German television show Blue Blood.
Having composed the
Irish Eurovision Song Contest 1984 entry for Linda Martin, Terminal 3,
which finished in second place, Logan repeated the collaboration in
1992 when he gave Martin another of his songs, Why Me.
Johnny Logan won Eurovision in 1987
The song became the Irish entry at the finals in Sweden. The song took the title and cemented Logan as the most successful artist in Eurovision history with three wins.
Author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor notes in his book TheEurovision Song Contest - The Official History that Logan is the only lead singer to have sung two winning entries and one of only five authors/composers to have written/composed two winning songs.
On 16 April 1997 Logan left his handprints in concrete on the Walk of Fame in Rotterdam; The largest Star Boulevard in Europe.
Logan continues to perform and write songs. He is sometimes referred to as Mister Eurovision by fans of the contest and the media at large. He has continued his love of participating in musical theatre, having toured Norway with Which Witch, an opera-musical originating in that country.
In October 2005, Hold Me Now was voted as the third most popular song in Eurovision history at the 50th anniversary concert in Copenhagen, Denmark. What's Another Year was also nominated amongst the 14 finalists. Logan has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. Hold Me Now is also a global million-seller.
Logan has continued to have success, particularly in the Scandinavian countries. His 2007 album, The Irish Connection went platinum in Denmark, twice platinum in Norway and gold in Sweden.
In 2009 and 2010, he performed in the Celtic rock opera Excalibur, and continued to do so in 2011.
Logan was one of the recording artists that appeared in the Irish TV series The Hit going against Duke Special. He shortlisted the song Prayin' by Alan Earls and Jamie Wilson's Rain from the pitching rooms. He chose to release Prayin' for the chart battle against Special who chose a song called 1969 by Aaron Hackett.
Logan won the chart battle with his song charting at number three in the charts while Special's charted at number five. Logan returned for the final where he performed Prayin' with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and was runner-up to Finbar Furey.
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