At any given time, diehard Phil Lynott fans can find good reason to visit Dublin, Ireland -- but recently the incentive to visit the late great Thin Lizzy singer's hometown has increased greatly due to the ongoing Philip Lynott Exhibition, an impressive, large scale and reverential expo dedicated to the iconic Irish rock figure.

Since his premature death 25 years ago Lizzy fanatics (and there are many) have been making pilgrimages to Lynott's grave in Saint Fintan’s Cemetery in Sutton (8 miles north of Dublin City centre on the Howth Peninsula) and placing flowers and sundry Thin Lizzy memorabilia by the singer's headstone which, fittingly, is designed by Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, whose traditional Celtic designs graced the covers of many Lizzy records such as Vagabonds of the Western World and Johnny The Fox.

Another major attraction in Dublin for Lynott/Lizzy fans is the life size bronze statue (above with temporary Amoeba sticker) of Lynott leaning on his guitar outside outside Bruxelles pub on Harry Street just off Grafton Street -- a high foot traffic Dublin city centre thoroughfare. Since it was erected six years ago the statue's draw has matched that of monuments and statues dedicated to key Irish historical figures. Similarly, Phil Lynott's figure at the Dublin Waxwork Museum is one of its most popular attractions. But it is the ongoing exhibit, which runs through next month, that has been the most rewarding shrine of all for the legions of visiting Lizzy/Lynott fanatics.

In keeping with the theme of Saint Patrick's Day for today's Amoeblog, I invited my good old friend, fellow Irishman and longtime fan of hip-hop and electronic music Paul Tarpey to be a guest Amoeblogger. For this post Paul, who is a Limerick-based DJ, photographer, & writer from that Irish city's Cheebah crew (who throw amazing parties and run the Cheebah and All That website), has sketched out a history of the Irish dance music club scene. Nowadays dance / electronic music and clubs are an integral part of the Irish music landscape. But it wasn't always that way; on the contrary. Long resistant to both hip-hop and electronic dance music, the homeland of U2 and countless other rock bands was for the longest time supportive of rock to the point of being discriminatory against disco and later dance/beat driven genres, something the guest Amoeblogger calls "rockist."

Tarpey said he felt compelled to research and write this piece when he "realised that the period before 1993 was overshadowed by the rockist history of the Irish music scene and that these early days merit some sort of record before memories fade and we forget about that scene’s pioneering activities." Here is what the Irish hip-hop/electronic music historian had to say:

Assemble any metropolitan club history, from the Paradise Garage in New York to The Hacienda in Manchester, and the same details are arrived at: innovative DJs within a specialised environment create their own rules to soundtrack a communal experience while being spurred on by a dedicated crowd. These classic night spots build slowly and peak after a few influential years, leaving behind them reputations and energy flashed memories. The Irish files to be dusted off from this period contain sections marked Flikkers and Sides. In remembering the history of these Dublin dance clubs, we consider the roots of an Irish dance movement that is as important in its own place as those overseas mythical dance palaces with their own associated cultural legacies.

For the third consecutive year, two excellent, true skool hip-hop festivals took place over the long Easter weekend in Ireland-- the DJ themed Community Skratch Games in Galway in the West of Ireland and the graffiti & b-boy themed 3rd Annual All City Tivoli Jam on the opposite coast in the country's capital, Dublin. Both were highly successful and relatively intimate-scale events, drawing a few hundred die-hard hip-hop heads between the two bi-coastal gatherings. Of course, having two similarly themed events taking place in a country as small as Ireland, where hip-hop happenings like this don't occur often, presents a dilemma for fans who are forced to choose one over the other since they happen at the exact same time on opposite coasts of Ireland. Hence, to properly cover this past weekend's two events for the Amoeblog, I hopped on a bus and headed cross country to Galway to attend the Community Skratch Games while my man, and frequent Amoeblog Irish reporter, Tall Paul Lowe, stayed in Dublin for the All City Tivoli Jam. 

Now in its fourth year, the aptly named Community Skratch Games (CSG), which features several DJ based showcases and a scratch DJ battle over the long weekend, is truly all about community with a genuine emphasis on fun & camaraderie rather than on competition & seriousness. In fact, the prize for the winner of the CSG's annual DJ battle is not a trophy (a la the famed DMC or ITF battles) but a big bag of Irish breakfast meats (rashers, sausages, black pudding etc., all supplied by the local butcher) that the winning DJ traditionally shares with the other participants in a big breakfast cookout on "Skratch Monday" after all events are over. At this year's DJ battle on Saturday night (dubbed the "Community Skratch Open Freestyle Battle Royale"), ten turntablists went head to head, scratching for 16 bars each. To help mark the end of each 16 bars, drummer Tony Higgins dramatically crashed two cymbals together to the obvious entertainment of the packed crowd.

Everyone knows a couple of things about leprechauns (aka lurachmain, lurican, leprechawn, lepracaun, leprechaun, lubberkin and lurgadhan). They’re small, tricky gingers that, if caught, will show you the money. One theory about the word’s origin is that it comes from luacharma'n (or luchorpán), the Irish word for “pygmy.” Another theory is that the word is derived from leath bhrogan, meaning “shoemaker.” Not as many people know but leprechauns usually find employment as cobblers or shoemakers. Presumably they make and repair the shoes of other faerie folk and Tuatha Dé Danann, because how else could they make money off each other if they all practice the same trade? And leprechauns make money. If you lay your eyes on one, don’t look away or they’ll vanish.

Although the Irish believe that leprechauns emigrated from the island of Fir Bolg, they’ve nonetheless become one of the most common stereotypical images of Eire, along with that Romano-British Englishman, Sanctus Patricius, whose saint day is (of course) today.