Irish star Mary Black has revealed that she missed out on having a number one hit in America as she didn’t want to spend too much time away from her family.
Back in the early nineties, she was offered a chance to record with American country music icon Hal Ketchum.
An Irish girl got up on stage and delivered a hilarious monologue about her First Holy Communion, which had her audience in stitches.
A video of young Emmie O’Neill’s performance at the Helix, Dublin, was posted online in 2019.
The youngster, from Cabra, arrived on the stage wearing her First Holy Communion dress.
The audience was enthralled by Emmie from the start as she said: “I was making my Holy Communion as you can probably guess – that’s why I look like a wedding cake in this brutal dress.”
Her stand up routine was in the form of a poem, which got funnier and funnier with each line.
No one was safe as Emmie’s comedic targets included her teacher, her classmates and family members.
The audience adored her and she got a huge cheer as she left the stage.
Emmie’s mother told the Irish Independent: “Emmie’s stage school teacher, Sonya Johnson from Gotta Dance Stage School, gave me the sketch in January and asked me what did I think of it for Emmie.”
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“I seriously had my reservations because she’s never done any acting, just dancing and singing.
“Myself and Philip couldn’t get over her show in the Helix, she got such an amazing reaction from the crowd. She had them in the palm of her hands and she loved every minute of it.”
The video has been a huge success, first locally among family and friends, and has now been picked up by the media and is getting viewed all over the world.
Emmie’s mother continued: “We can’t thank everybody, but all their comments put a huge smile on Emmie’s face. She’s making her Communion on Sunday and this has made this week even more special.”
An Irishman had the last laugh at his own funeral when he could be heard shouting for help from inside his coffin.
When 63-year-old Shay Bradley knew he didn’t have long left he hatched a plan with his son that allowed him to revel in a touch of dark Irish humour for one last time.
The Voice of Ireland judge Kian Egan got a shock back in 2016, when he turned his chair around and saw the contestant singing for him was one of his old friends.
The former Westlife star was impressed by the female singer’s rendition of ACDC’s rock classic Highway to Hell, and span his chair to see the performer was Kelesa Mulcahy – who he grew up with in Co Sligo.
Irish children born out of wedlock in the 1950s and 60s were often sold to American couples by the Catholic Church, according to a television documentary by the author of the Philomena story.
In the BBC programme, Martin Sixsmith says that the system was a ‘lottery’ for the children as the Church did little to ensure the adoptive parents would be suitable.
Sixsmith is the author of the book Philomena, which was made into an Oscar nominated film starring Dame Judy Dench and Steve Coogan.
Cathy Deasy was sold to American parents – photo copyright BBC
Philomena tells the story of an Irish woman who wants to track down her son decades after she was forced to give him away by the church.
Sixsmith’s 2014 documentary, Ireland’s Lost Babies, continues to look into the subject. He speaks to several people who were adopted by American parents.
Many suffered abuse in their new families as the Catholic Welfare Bureau in the US failed to perform adequate checks on potential adoptive parents.
The harp and the shamrock are such common symbols of Ireland that you might be forgiven for thinking that any old Tom, Dick or Harry could stick them on their logo when setting up a new business.
Not so, the Irish government is very keen to protect them and has a department devoted to ensuring they are not abused.