Greetings all!
I’m going to be off to university at Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario, soon and was wondering if anyone else is in that area. If so maybe you could tell me about pubs that hold sessions or whistle shops or things of that nature.
Thanks!
Snuh
Try Tir na 'nog which is located at the Prince George Hotel down by the waterfront: Ontario Street and Brock Street next to City Hall. It is a fair walk from the University.
The sessions are every Tuesday night at 8 or 9 pm. The repertoir there is very different from the stuff I hear in the States. There is a whistle player there. The session is heavy on fiddles (a good thing). It is a fairly welcoming croud, you may want to ask someone there about session behaviors, I couldn’t quite get it.
There is a real nice farmers market behind the pub during the growing season. Just watch the fiddleheads: we had some with a healthy amount of E. coli. I show up about every two years around the beginning of June; so what do I know, eh.
Mark,
What’s a fiddlehead?
I’m happy you said that you are attending Queen’s University in Kingston, and not that there any C&F’ers doing time in the prison there.
How much time would you get to play and practice the whistle in prison before either inmates or the guards killed you. I suspect the whistles would have to be PVC.
MarkB
On 2002-07-16 11:12, Cees wrote:
Mark,
What’s a fiddlehead?
It is a fern sprout. The start rolled up and resemble the head of a fiddle. They taste really nice sauted with onions. When they grow in pastures, the cowpies contaminate your produce with E. coli.
I was a guest lecturer at Queens U about 3 weeks ago, and was at Tir Na Nog (pardon misspelling) on a Wednesday. There was very good East Coast band that played from about 9pm on, much of your tourist-type celtic sing along stuff; but up till they got on the stage, there was a little group of musicians “sessiuning” around the fireplace. I observed a book of sheet music across the knees of one whistler, being shared by a fiddler who was also playing “off the sheets”. It was fairly simple & slow tunes being played, I can only remember hearing South Wind while my wife and I were enjoying the irish Stew & a pint of Guiness. The food was very decent pub fare, although not as good as the pub food in Ireland her fine self.
Tir Na Nog, and the other Irish pub downtown, both have websites detailing their entertainment. You can easily find the websites by going through the City of Kingston website under entertainment category.
Just before I travelled to Kingston, I had posted this same question, and there were I recall a few replies with information you might wish to have. If you do a keyword search on “Kingston”, I’m sure you’ll find it.
[ This Message was edited by: bob baksi on 2002-07-16 14:07 ]
[ This Message was edited by: bob baksi on 2002-07-16 14:22 ]
Hey! I grew up in Kingston and the University plays a much more central role in the life of the city than the prisons do. There’s also a military college, a pretty stong theatre and arts scene, a decent symphony orchestra, lots of sailing, some major manufacturing and some interesting architecture. It’s a city with many faces. But my Irish mother was recently disparaging about the Irish music there. However, she doesn’t really spend any time in pubs.