So, I knew this was in St. Botolph's Church, on the east side of the City. Turns out, mind you, that there are four St. Botolph's churches, and I had the wrong one. The one I wanted was St. Botolph Without Bishopsgate, which simply means the one at Bishopsgate. Fortunately, I discovered my mistake in time.
After quite a long Tube journey, I alighted at Liverpool Street Tube station. Now, St. Botolph's website is quite helpful about how to get there. It says to take the Bishopsgate exit from the station, and turn right at the top of the escalator. Still, I was lucky I'd been there before and had an idea of the exit they were talking about - the only directions from the Tube station were towards Broad Street and to the mainline station. I figured, correctly, that the main station was the way to go, but had I not been there before, I doubt I'd have got it right. Anyway, I eventually made my way to the main station, found the Bishopsgate exit and the escalator, and was on my way down the street. And, may I say, for two buildings so close together - the station and the church - each is really well hidden from the other. You have to go on faith that your destination is just a few more steps along the road. Even though you can't see a thing that looks like it.
So, I found the church. And the main doors were closed, and no indication of where to go for this event. Luckily, I guessed right and headed for the gardens, where I discovered an open door with a City of London Festival official in front of it. Who informed me that the "concert" (oh, that's what we're calling it!) was in the hall, over there. Not in the main church. And so I came at last to my destination.
Now, The Return Flight of the Earls was a "concert" involving, firstly, free wine. Goodee. That was my first port of call. Suitably supplied with wine, I found a seat - seating was unreserved - near the back, as it was quite full at this stage, although not completely. First impression, which proved the most enduring - it was way too hot. There was no air-conditioning in this room, which was quite full of people, and it was stifling. Also, quite hard to see anything from the back. The evening was to consist of Hugo O' Neill, known as "The O' Neill", head of the O' Neill clan, telling us the history of the O' Neills, with musical accompaniment. The music was performed by a trio on piano and violin, and a baritone, who all turned out to be from Northern Ireland, and the occasion was in association with St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. So this was all a sort of crash-course on Irish history.
The first thing we saw was a flip-chart, with summary details of the O' Neill family timeline, as it relates to the country as a whole. You'd have had to stand up really, to read it properly. And then our host (also a Northerner) introduced us to Hugo, who started telling us about the history of the O' Neills prior to the Flight of the Earls in 1607. This was when Hugh O' Neill and Rory O' Donnell, the High Kings of Ulster, known as earls in Britain, decided to flee the country to seek help from Spain to rebel against the British. Unfortunately, the help was not forthcoming and they never returned. That was the end of Gaelic aristocracy in the North and left the way clear for their confiscated lands to be given to British, mostly Scottish, planters. In turn, this led to a loyalist majority in the north of Ireland, and eventually to the creation of the political entity of Northern Ireland.
Hugo obviously has a great knowledge of, and passion for, Irish history. He's not really a great orator, but it was interesting. The thing that struck me most about this was - most of it is familiar to me from school, although I may have forgotten much of the detail. But they don't actually learn about this at all in Northern Ireland. The host explained to us what a revelation all this was to her, because Irish history is not taught in Northern Irish schools. Yes, local area history, and modern history - but not Irish history pre-partition. And that reminded me of a conference I was at once in Northern Ireland, where one of the delegates was an Englishman who was so excited, because he'd never been in Ireland before. And he was at our table at the conference dinner. Unfortunately, his attempt to make conversation led him to explain that he'd never learned a thing about Ireland in school, or about how British rule was in Ireland. And then he decided he'd ask us what we, as Irish people, were taught in school about what British rule was like. Now there was a conversation-killer..
Hugo got through his bit in about half an hour, and it was time for music. And that's when my cough decided to reappear. I don't know what it is about this cough - maybe it doesn't like music. Same thing happened on Monday - I was absolutely fine until the first song started. At least tonight it was less violent, and I managed to control it with water and mints. It also helped that there was applause after each song, during which I could happily cough my throat out, unlike Monday's concert, where there was dead silence until the end of the night. The music, by the way, was excellent, and I did love that they played the Coulin, which has always been one of my favourite pieces. And the baritone was stunning.
There was a five-minute interval, during which the doors were opened and some fresh air circulated, and they offered us another glass of wine if we wanted! Now there's value for money.. some people left at the interval, which meant I had a better view in the second half. Hugo told us about the history of the O' Neills post-Flight of the Earls, and there was some more music, including some Irish poems that Beethoven, of all people, set to music. As I say, an interesting evening. I wanted to eat before going home, but choices were limited and I ended up in KFC again. Where the food was underheated and the chicken salty. The chips were cold before I was halfway through my meal. Might skip that branch in future.
Thinking of going to the pictures on Friday, maybe tomorrow (Thursday) as well, I'll see what happens. For Friday, there'll be a whole new list of films, so I need to do some more research on that.. If I go on Thursday, the film of choice is Stories We Tell, a documentary about storytellers, which is getting rave reviews.
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