Irish Rover

Dara O’Briain is on tour and last night he graced Kendal Leisure Centre with his presence. Or “Kendal Sports Hall Gym Thing” as he called it when making his introduction, having forgotten what it was actually called!
A good couple of hours of anecdotes and banter with the front row of the audience, with much laughter from the audience.
But, unlike previous gigs, he introduced a more serious element into last nights show. He always knew he was adopted but had not made any effort to trace his birth parents until reaching his late forties, when he realised he ought to do something before it was too late. He then described the Irish adoption system and how mind bogglingly difficult it is to find anything out. Factor in the scandal of the mother and baby homes and the illegal sale of babies to the USA and a picture emerged of a Catholic Church and State determined to ensure these children would never find their birth parents.
Sounds very sombre and serious - and it was - but there were enough light quips and comments along the way to stop the story becoming maudlin. There was a happy ending in that he did eventually meet his birth mother and her family, and the laws have very recently been changed in Ireland to make the whole process a lot easier and more transparent.
After letting all that sink in, he returned to lighter themes to wrap up the show. But his parting comment hit home - “I hope you’ve enjoyed the last two hours in my company. That’s exactly the same amount of time my birth mother had with me before I was taken from her”.
Certainly gives you food for thought, and it definitely made the evening more interesting and emotional as a result. I really enjoyed it and the fact that I can remember all of that story but only bits of the lighter anecdotes, speaks for itself.
A change of pace tonight as we’ve relocated to Leeds where we are going to see Joe Bonamassa in concert at the Arena. It’s only 10 minutes walk from our hotel so we’re just having a breather and a bite to eat now. I need to recover from trying to find the car park - a slow sat nav, roadworks, inadequate signage and new bus lanes all meant the last couple of miles of our journey were a nightmare, continually circling where we wanted to be without seeing any - legal - way of reaching it. Finally spotted a tiny sign and a narrow side street which actually led to the car park entrance. Let’s hope getting out of Leeds in the morning will be a bit easier!