Irish Visit 2008

Warrington Male Voice Choir Mark The Tenth Anniversary Of The Good Friday Agreement.

From personal notes of this highly successful tour provided by Angus Thorburn, Vice-President of the Warrington Male Voice Choir.

The choir made a very early start on this most auspicious of visits to Ireland and Northern Ireland, by setting out from the Alford Hall, the choir's rehearsal base, at 05.30 last Wednesday 26th March 2008 for a 07.00 flight to Belfast. As usual coaches, drivers and flights were wonderfully organised and the arrangements ran like clockwork. The early outward flight was unfortunate, but unavoidable. It did mean that we arrived at our hotel at 09.00 and that many rooms were unavailable before mid-afternoon, but the plus side was that we had a full day to enjoy Belfast, with many taking in the open top bus tour of the City. Once ensconced in the Hotel, we realised that it would prove to be a good base, although a little away from our Cathedral venue for those who did not enjoy the walk.

Thursday proved a most interesting day, and the group enjoyed a memorable visit to Stormont, complete with a guided tour of the building in the morning. The tour had been sponsored by Sir Reg Empey, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and Mark Durkan, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. This was followed by a short rehearsal at the Cathedral, and followed by the evening concert at 8.00pm. With guests of the calibre of Strabane Brass, Shirley Keane and Terry Waite and the Choir singing as well as I have heard them, a packed audience were, not surprisingly, calling for more at the close of a very memorable event.

The choir takes singing seriously, but, on occasion, enjoys the funny side.......

On the Friday morning, the choir set off for Markethill for what proved, for me, to be the highlight concert of the Tour. Like all 'minor events' in small townships where the choir has performed, when we sing for ordinary folk we are received like Royalty. The SAVER/NAVER group met us on arrival and, once the Choir packed into the small front of the Church, we lifted the roof with our singing, and Terry delivered one of his most profound and moving addresses of the tour. That this small group should be building a memorial garden and a wall that will be inscribed with the names of some sixteen hundred victims of the Troubles made us all feel humbly privileged and honoured to have played a small part in the fund-raising activity. We enjoyed great hospitality afterwards, and each of us received a book entitled A LEGACY OF TEARS before bidding a sad farewell.

We arrived in Dublin in the late afternoon on Friday. On Saturday, a very short rehearsal in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral at 14.00, in readiness for the evening's concert, enabled most of us to enjoy the open topped tour of the city beforehand, and learn something of Dublin's history and culture.

The concert in the evening was stunning. The Garda Band, Shirley Keane and Terry Waite were in top form before a packed audience. The concert raised €1400.00 for the Irish Peace Institute, a very worthwhile effort.

After the concert, the evening's jollity was cut short, by the need to prepare for an early start the following day. Matters were made worse by the clocks moving forward one hour before we had to leave for the RTE TV Studio on Sunday morning for a live performance. We were scheduled to sing six items, and with voices strained, the idea was not welcomed by many choristers. Imagine my horror when I realised that a full scale rehearsal was intended, which meant we did twelve items -and all big sings. The choir, however, was at its very best, and we arrived back to a packed and cheering hotel foyer by all those who had watched the show live.

Nothing left now, but to throw everything in the buses and to rush to the Airport. We left almost one hour late, and got back to Manchester Airport, where the buses were waiting to take us to Alford Hall. We arrived there at 5.30pm

One of the great pleasures of the tour, was to meet up again with many old friends and guests. Needless to say, Susan McHugh, Bill McCarthy and Dorothy Cantrell were high on the list, and to have distinguished guests like the Lord Mayors of Belfast and Dublin, and the Mayor of Armagh greeting our own Mayor and her consort was really special. Sir Reg Empey was in the audience in Belfast, and the American Ambassador's representative was with us in Dublin. We were also pleased to see in attendance, many equally distinguished people from other organisations and walks of life .

As a footnote, we had the pleasure of a roving reporter/recording accompanying us for two days. She was gathering material for five fifteen minute programmes on five choirs “with a story to tell” which will be on the radio in May, hopefully, We have been chosen as the subject for one of these programmes. She seemed amazed at what we were about, and taken aback by the profile of the tour, our welcome, and the guests that we attracted.

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Have a look at some of the images of the tour taken by Dave and Joy Knight. Click on one of the links on the left hand side - pages 1 - 6.