EVER a good night, Robert Burns (Rabbie Burns to those who prefer the colloquial) night is celebrated at Bobby Byrne’s Bar this year on Thursday January 24. Organised by a loyal coterie headed up by literary buffs Michael Potter and Noel Flannery, an evening of pipes, poetry and storytelling opens out from 7.30pm onwards. The wearing of tartan is admired. The fun and frivolity – you’re nothing if you can’t recite at least one Burns ditty to this company – is backed by aromatics. Not, not the purple heather but that of ‘neaps and haggis piled high. Michael and Noel treat the Rabbie Burns party annually to such grub, courtesy of publican Robert Byrne’s kitchen on site.
According to Noel Flannery, himself a man of letters, Burns is not to be diminished as a man “for the glass and the lass”: “There are two town in the US named after Burns and his anti-authoriarianism is part of the American culture. He was a lowland Scot, a salad bowl society, racially and culturally mixed. Burns spoke four different languages and dialects.
“He is known as a cultural synthesiser. In his writings he used Gaelic, Lowland Scottish and two kinds of English. He used the airs of Russian songs he heard and is celebrated in Russia”.
Burns, the rebel, believed in universal brotherhood, detested religious hypocrisy and the killing of others for the love of God. Even his love for women went beyond the obvious of quantity, penning a poem ‘Rights of Women’ with the then off-centre view that it is neither clothes nor title that make a lady, but how she is treated and what rights she enjoys.
And we too will enjoy ourselves as this unique Limerick gathering ensures on an annual basis. To Burns at Byrne’s on Thursday 24, O’Connell Avenue.
