Ireland and Irish music

Jane and Brendan have just come back from a visit to Ireland: they enjoyed lots of traditional music and some stunning coastal scenery

Hello, I’m Jane at DailyStep English and welcome to our Audio Blog.

Brendan and I are back in London now after our holiday in Ireland, so you can see our video below. It was a wonderful trip – and we even had some sunshine, even though Ireland is a famously rainy country. 

So, come with us now for a visit to Ireland!

A Trip to Ireland (by Brendan and Jane at DailyStep.com)

Ireland is a small island to the west of Great Britain. It’s famous[1] for its music and nightlife.

On our trip[2], first we went to Ennis in County Clare, where Brendan was playing in a traditional Irish music festival.

This concert[3], as you can see, was performed[4] on a stage[5]but most of the music at the festival was in the pubs and bars in town.

This was one of our favourite music sessions in one of the local pubs. These young people were not part of the festival.

They were just playing together as part of their regular night out. Many local people and visitors like ourselves came to the pub to listen to them play.

In Galway City, where we also went, there were lots of buskers[6]. Here you can see a girl doing some traditional Irish dancing. These two guys are playing the Irish pipes[7], which are a bit like the Scottish bagpipes but a bit smaller.

We loved these little kids[8], who we saw busking a couple of times in Galway. You can see that Irish music is not in danger of dyingout[9] because these children were really good musicians[10], even the cute[11] little one wearing the red dress and playing the drum.

After Galway, we hired a car[12] and drove around the far west coast of Ireland. I had always wanted to come here because it is a place I had heard about when I was a little girl.

We went to the massive Cliffs[13] of Moher, some of the tallest in Europe and later we went to a place called Doolin, where we saw these huge Atlantic waves.

Around the beautiful, wild landscape of Connemara there were lots of deserted[14] villages. The inhabitants had left or died during the terrible potato famine[15] of the 1840s.

Many of them went to America. It was heartbreaking[16] to see these ruined villages[17] . Later we climbed a mountain and here is the view from the top. It was pretty scary!

Then we went back to [18] the pub for another session and of course for a pint of Guinness[19].

 

 

Here is Audio Word Study #070 on DailyStep.com

Here are some useful expressions from our video blog, “A Trip to Ireland”. To help you remember the phrases in this Word Study, try speaking along with my audio recording.

1. famous = well known / known by everybody

2. trip = journey / holiday

3. concert = performance by musicians in front of an audience

4. performed = played on the stage

5. stage = raised area on which musicians or actors perform

6. buskers = street performers / people who entertain on the street for money

7. the Irish pipes = a traditional Irish instrument also known as the uilleann pipes

8. kids = children

9. dying out (phrasal verb) = disappearing / becoming extinct

10. musicians = people who play music

11. cute = sweet / charming

12. we hired a car = we rented a car

13. cliffs = areas of high land that fall very steeply to areas of lower land or sea

14. deserted = empty / abandoned

15. the potato famine = the time in Ireland when many people died of starvation

16. heartbreaking = extremely sad

17. ruined villages = abandoned small towns in which the buildings have fallen down

18. we went back to (phrasal verb) = we returned to

19. a pint of Guinness = a large glass of Guinness (Guinness is the typical Irish black beer)

 

Now, how many of these can you remember? Watch the video again, read the script and try to find all these words and phrases. That’s all for Audio Word Study #070 on DailyStep.com.

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