Tonight's music

This is Danny O'Flaherty performing Angels in Twilight, from the CD "Listen to the Wind".

Danny used to operate O’Flaherty’s Irish Channel Pub in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina damaged the building too badly to be repaired and so the pub had to be closed. During its time it was the center of everything Celtic in Louisiana hosting acts such as Clandestine (now sadly no more), The Willow Band, Celtic Soul (also sadly no more), The Rogues and Danny himself.

In addition to being a great venue for Celtic music it was also a damn fine pub in its own right. You just had to learn a few rules (sort of like the ones Kenny Kramer posted outside the International Soup Kitchen in Manhattan, giving birth to the "Soup Nazi" legend). Really there were two things you did not do in his place.

One was talking loudly or raising any kind of commotion while he was singing, this would cause you to be asked to leave. The other was saying anything positive about David Duke, this would get you physically thrown out. Well, a third thing was actually being David Duke. This would get you physically thrown out amid profanities, ribald speculation on your mother's morals and threats upon your life.

O'Flaherty's was located in a large Spanish Colonial house complete with courtyard and fountain. I was in New Orleans a few months before Katrina and was privileged to take a behind the scenes tour of the building. We got to go to the top floors and go out on the balcony overlooking the street. It pains me to think of such a beautiful building going to waste and to think of all the work and TLC that Danny put into the pub being ruined.

However such is life. If only Dick Cheny and Karl Rove hadn't blown up the levees. . .