I’m excited to announce the upcoming convergence of two of my favorite things: Gaelic culture and Johnny’s Gone Fishing, the iconic Carrboro coffeehouse! On November 1st, which is the approximate start of the Celtic New Year, Johnny’s will be hosting a celebration of Gaelic music, language and dance.
I’ll be starting things off with a Gaelic song session: a free mini-workshop for anyone who’d like to try some Gaelic singing. We’ll learn the choruses to a few simple work songs, and I’ll stick around and chat with anyone who’s interested in getting more involved with Gaelic singing in the Triangle.
Next will be a session with Dr. Michael Newton, who will teach participants short Gaelic phrases, some of which will be taken from his latest book, The Naughty Little Book of Gaelic: All the Scottish Gaelic You Need to Curse, Swear, Drink, Smoke, and Fool Around. Even Alex Salmond, the Scottish Prime Minister, owns a copy, and Diana Gabaldon, author of the best-selling Outlander series, has been tweeting about what a great resource it is!
We’ll round off the night with a session of Scottish and Cape Breton music, led by Alison Arnold (of the NCSU Irish Session), Patricia Hornick, and Tyler Johnson, author of Tales from the Red Book of Tunes. I will give a Cape Breton dance demo, and I’m hoping a few other dancers may show up to join in with their own steps. Bring an instrument and come play some tunes!
The festivities will start around 5:00 pm, and there will be lots of yummy food and drinks available, including the ethnically unrelated but still delicious Capp’s APizza truck. Hope to see you there!
StepGael 
I’ll mark it down how fun