Irish Arts Are Smiling

On St. Patrick's Day, I thought I would take a minute to salute some of our Irish blogging friends. Ireland, and Dublin especially, have a vibrant arts scene, in large part due to their annuity scheme for artists of all types. The wealth generated by the "Celtic Tiger" has also been a boon to artists as more people can afford to buy art.
One of my favourite Irish bloggers is the wonderful Nathalie who writes Design Undercover. I stumbled on DU many months ago, right as she had put out a call for someone to design her blog header, which I volunteered to do. Nathalie is Italian, but is living in Dublin, so she's got a unique perspective on design.
Another fun blog is Design in Dublin? (her question mark, not mine). She's an American ex-pat living in Dublin who's suffering from sticker shock at the high prices and is trying to find good design on a budget.
I've been looking at Homebug for almost a year now, and she's got a great eye for lots of creative areas including fabrics, furniture and mid-century modern. Through her, I found the hysterical Grey Area, the "dark diary of Dublin's most negligible bachelor".

Of course, there are zillions of Irish bands that you can find on You Tube, including everyone's favourite, Bono. Here he is in 1988,doing a really bad lip-synch job with Clannad (forward to about 2:00).

Local Irish band, O'Malley's March, fronted by Baltimore's former Mayor and Maryland's current Governor, Martin O'Malley, is a huge attraction, although they're not playing much anymore, due to more pressing obligations.Does your Governor look this good?