June 30th, 2026 It started in Dublin. Myself and Jessica (https://wordridden.com/) got there in the afternoon and I went straight to The Cobblestone (https://thesession.org/sessions/432) in Smithfield for some tunes. Then I went up the street to the headquarters of Na Píobairí Uilleann (https://pipers.ie/), a beautiful Georgian building on Henrietta Street. I was there to deliver my talk on the making of The Session (https://thesession.org/). There weren’t that many people there in person but quite a few people watched it live online. You can watch the video of the talk (https://vimeo.com/1202605127) if you want. I’m pretty pleased with it. The few times I played some tunes on my mandolin, the acoustics were lovely! The next day we took the train down to Cork and onwards to my home town of Cobh. The town was looking its best. The weather was nice and the Queen Anne (https://www.cunard.com/en-gb/cruise-ships/queen-anne/0) was docked at the deep water quay. We spent a lovely weekend hanging out with my mother, including a trip to Cork to see Michael Keegan Dolan’s latest dance piece, Naoi Déag Seachtó Cúig (https://teacdamsa.com/production/1975/). It was joyous! Normally I’d get irrated by someone in the seat behind me tapping their foot, but everyone was tapping along to the classic first album by The Bothy Band (https://thesession.org/recordings/293). On Monday morning Jessica flew back to Brighton, leaving me to spend the week at the inaugural Irish Mandolin Gathering (https://www.irishmandogathering.com/). When I saw that this event was going to be happening, I thought “I’m going! Wherever it’s going to be, I’ll make my way there.” Then I saw it was happening in Little Island and I couldn’t believe my luck! Little Island is halfway between Cobh and Cork, easily reachable on the local trainline. So I spent the week having a very pleasant commute. This was when the temperatures were getting dangerously high in England, but remained within reason in Ireland. Whenever anyone at the Mandolin gathering complained about the heat, I couldn’t help pointing out that we were actually in the coolest place in Europe for that week. The mandolin nerdery was excellent. Lots of deep dives into technique, lots of trying out other people’s instruments, and of course, lots of playing tunes. Seán (https://seankeegan.ie/), Macdara (https://macdaraofaolain.bandcamp.com/), and Marla (http://marlafibish.com/) did a fantastic job, especially considering that this was the very first one! The inaugural Irish Mandolin Gathering culminated with a concert at The White Horse in Ballincollig, which was excellent but every time it was mentioned, I had that John Spillane song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi7KUmmjhsE) in my head. Now I’m back home and feeling recharged from a thoroughly enjoyable week in Ireland. Next time I’ll be there will be for a week of learning Irish at Oideas Gael in Donegal (https://www.oideasgael.ie/en)—táim ar bís! Older » (https://adactio.com/journal/22619) Related posts Donegal to Galway to Clare (https://adactio.com/journal/22031) A journey down the west coast of Ireland. Gleann Cholm Cille (https://adactio.com/journal/22026) My week in Donegal. Irish odyssey (https://adactio.com/journal/21990) Rolling with the travel punches. Trad time (https://adactio.com/journal/15513) From the west coast of Clare to the World Wide Web. 100 words 084 (https://adactio.com/journal/9113) Day eighty four. Related links In The Name of Willie Clancy « Arbutus Yarns (http://arbutusyarns.net/2012/07/25/in-the-name-of-willie-clancy/) A really nice short film about the Willie Clancy Summer School. It makes me want to get back to Miltown Malbay this July. Sunday, May 5th, 2013 11:00am (https://adactio.com/links/6222) Tagged with video (https://adactio.com/links/tags/video)documentary (https://adactio.com/links/tags/documentary)irish (https://adactio.com/links/tags/irish)traditional (https://adactio.com/links/tags/traditional)music (https://adactio.com/links/tags/music)willieclancy (https://adactio.com/links/tags/willieclancy)summerschool (https://adactio.com/links/tags/summerschool)clare (https://adactio.com/links/tags/clare)ireland (https://adactio.com/links/tags/ireland) help.net : Invitation to AJAX Presentation - Dublin - The Clarence Hotel - May 8th (http://weblogs.asp.net/pleloup/archive/2007/04/12/invitation-to-ajax-presentation-dublin-the-clarence-hotel-may-8th.aspx) If you're in Dublin on the evening of the 8th of May, come 'round to Bono's hotel to hear me natter on about Ajax. Thursday, April 12th, 2007 6:45pm (https://adactio.com/links/3564) Tagged with presentation (https://adactio.com/links/tags/presentation)dublin (https://adactio.com/links/tags/dublin)ireland (https://adactio.com/links/tags/ireland)ajax (https://adactio.com/links/tags/ajax)speaking (https://adactio.com/links/tags/speaking) Talking about talking CSS (https://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/talking-about-talking-css/#%F0%9F%8E%B9) I had the great pleasure of finally meeting Hui Jing when Mozilla invited me along to Singapore to speak at their developer roadshow. Hui Jing is speaking at each one of the events on the roadshow, and documenting the journey here. She’s being very modest about her talk: it was superb! Entertaining and informative in equal measure, delivered with gusto. Seriously, frontend conference organisers, try to get Hui Jing to speak about CSS at your event—you won’t regret it. Thursday, September 21st, 2017 3:10pm (https://adactio.com/links/12863) Tagged with speaking (https://adactio.com/links/tags/speaking)talks (https://adactio.com/links/tags/talks)talking (https://adactio.com/links/tags/talking)conferences (https://adactio.com/links/tags/conferences)events (https://adactio.com/links/tags/events)community (https://adactio.com/links/tags/community)mozilla (https://adactio.com/links/tags/mozilla)roadshow (https://adactio.com/links/tags/roadshow)travel (https://adactio.com/links/tags/travel)css (https://adactio.com/links/tags/css)presentation (https://adactio.com/links/tags/presentation)frontend (https://adactio.com/links/tags/frontend)development (https://adactio.com/links/tags/development) reboot10 - Jeremy Keith talks about the Transmission of Tradition (http://www.reboot.dk/artefact-6226-en.html) Here's the video of my talk from this year's Reboot conference in Copenhagen. I had a lot of fun talking about (and playing) Irish music here. Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 1:24am (https://adactio.com/links/2771) Tagged with video (https://adactio.com/links/tags/video)reboot (https://adactio.com/links/tags/reboot)jeremy_keith (https://adactio.com/links/tags/jeremy_keith)irish (https://adactio.com/links/tags/irish)music (https://adactio.com/links/tags/music)tradition (https://adactio.com/links/tags/tradition)mandolin (https://adactio.com/links/tags/mandolin) Belfast TradFest | Traditional Music Belfast (https://www.belfasttraditionalmusic.com/news/session-talk) Belfast TradFest have republished this blog post of mine (https://adactio.com/journal/22080) and I must say, I really like the photo (https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58da46ee15d5db0567e7ca1c/c7584ca5-36d7-470b-835b-258acbd9a5ed/Masterclasses_BelfastTradFest_2024_ClaireLoughran-26.jpg?format=1000w) they’ve used—doesn’t my mandolin look lovely! Friday, November 28th, 2025 11:26am (https://adactio.com/links/22274) Tagged with thesession (https://adactio.com/links/tags/thesession)talk (https://adactio.com/links/tags/talk)presentation (https://adactio.com/links/tags/presentation)belfast (https://adactio.com/links/tags/belfast)tradfest (https://adactio.com/links/tags/tradfest)speaking (https://adactio.com/links/tags/speaking)irish (https://adactio.com/links/tags/irish)music (https://adactio.com/links/tags/music) Previously on this day 1 year ago I wrote Irish odyssey (https://adactio.com/journal/21990) Rolling with the travel punches. 4 years ago I wrote Negative (https://adactio.com/journal/19230) Have negative result, will travel. 11 years ago I wrote 100 words 100 (https://adactio.com/journal/9201) Day one hundred. 11 years ago I wrote Edge words (https://adactio.com/journal/9195) Talking about progressive enhancement without talking about progressive enhancement. 14 years ago I wrote Cables (https://adactio.com/journal/5565) Hacker tourism. 18 years ago I wrote The Copenhagen Report (https://adactio.com/journal/1485) Another successful Reboot. 19 years ago I wrote Feed reading (https://adactio.com/journal/1313) Trying to find the sweet spot for RSS. 22 years ago I wrote Good evening, Portland! (https://adactio.com/journal/838) I’m back from the wilds of Dorset. As I suspected, the weather wasn’t entirely conducive to camping outdoors so my nights were spent tucked away in a warm bed between four walls under a roof. 24 years ago I wrote Donnie Darko (https://adactio.com/journal/323) It’s not often that I’ll watch a movie because of a website but that’s exactly what I did after visiting the Donnie Darko website. 24 years ago I wrote .org is a public trust (https://adactio.com/journal/322) Be sure to add your support to the proposal to run the .org domain registry as a public trust.