What's suitable music for a St. Patricks gig ? Almost anything goes ... Consider St. Patrick himself ... from writings of Terence Sheehy ... "A Roman Briton born in Caerwent, coast of Wales between 385 & 390 AD.The son of a deacon and grandson of a priest. He was captured in a massive slave raid by pagen Irishmen (406 AD). Spent his adolescence as a slave tending flocks for his Celtic master Miliuce... praying literally day & night and escaped to Britain c. 412. He then trained as a priest with St. Germanus of Auxerre France, at the monk Abby of Lerins . With his command of the Irish tongue and understanding of their ways (worship of nature & respect of tribal law), he dreamed that the Irish people begged him to return and convert them. He returned to the Isle in 432 as a bishop and spent some thirty years bringing Christianity to the Irish tribes. He founded his See at Armaugh in 444 and died in Saul in 461" ... reaching well into his 70's ... astounding in those times. He was known to work "from the top down" overcoming the sorcery of the Druid holymen with Christian mysticism, going head to head in tales with the all powerful bardic poets, and influencing the Irish Kings who's wives and daughters were usually the first to embrace his Christianity.

So, St. Patrick was not an Irishman but a son of Wales trained formally in France. He could be termed in todays language a man of wanderlust and must have possed skills in charm and chatter far above average. Can you imagine the scrapes he got himself out of! He'd love all the songs from the muddy banks of the Shannon to Tin Pan Ally... (but I think the Unicorn ditty would have silenced him like most of us who make a few bucks in Greensong season.)

My best-felt song that our band's doing this year is P.Maloney's adaptation of his grandmother's Little Maid From Malabar ... a la the Chieftain's Coast of Malabar ... and it's all about lovin' in India! Wanderlust is a good thing still.