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THE TÁNAISTE HAS said he will discuss the possibility of the State purchasing the guitar of legendary blues guitarist Rory Gallagher with Arts Minister Catherine Martin.
The Fender Stratocaster, which Gallagher purchased on credit for £100 in Crowley’s Music Store in Cork in 1963, will be up for auction at Bonham’s auction house in London later this year. It’s estimated value is between £700,000 and £1 million.
Speaking over the weekend, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said: “It would be lovely if we could get that guitar back on the Leeside”
He said he will raise the matter with Minister for Arts Catherine Martin.
Gallagher was an inspiration to musicians in Ireland and across the world, selling more than 30 million copies worldwide during his 30 year career.
So today we’re asking: Should the State buy Rory Gallagher’s guitar?
Poll Results:
Yes (6863)
No (4942)
Unsure (695)
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Absolutely! In an interview with Rolling Stone, Jimi Hendrix was asked, “How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world?” He is believed to have answered, “I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher.”
@Athena: Hendrix was before Gallagher’s time, it is used for a multitude of guitarists saying that other guitarists were the greatest ever. Hard to know if it was ever said by any great guitarist about another.
@Jessie Pinkman: ah yes foreign cultural enrichment by foreigner people over our own culture and people…when are people going to recognise that mass immigration is a burden on the irish people…send the 80% of the foreigners home including eu foreigners, reimburse them for any investment like property and what not, facilate their departure…keep those that’s needed, then bam theirs no more housing crisis in fact houses will become affordable again to buy no need to rent anymore…the hospitals no longer burdened, our carbon emissions will be cut drastically meeting all our targets (greens should really be on board with this) all in all…majority of the foreign population is a burden not an asset…its also time to end the asylum process the world isn’t what it once was…
@Éamonn OKane: we can and should pull out of that treaty, with migration much easier because of mass transportation people are not fleeing wars anymore once they reach a safe country their choosing economically prosperous country’s now…the ones that arrive here are economic migrants not refugees, same with the Ukrainians they were never refugees to begin with especially by the 1951 convention so the eu made a special exception to flood the eu and Ireland with Ukrainians…
@Jessie Pinkman: yea I got you were being scarstic lol I was just elaborating further on your sarcasm, but yea it’s not about us being actually far right…those that identify as left today are fascists, their seeking to take control of the state and the states monopoly on violence…then they want to enact their social and political ideologies through enforcement by the state and imprison those that reject them…like what we seen in the pandemic and Enoch Burke…this is about control and fascism the establishment wants to implement and is using the useful idiots of the culture war on the left to consolidate this control and power…what was during the pandemic was just a dry run…
@William Slevin: Since when have refugees stopped you from learning your own language, poetry, mythology? From playing GAA? From learning Irish dancing or Irish music? Immigration is an issue that needs to be dealt with for sure, but away with you with this cultural warmongering nonsense. You sound like a Brexiteer.
Ní fhéadfá dhá abairt a chur le chéile i nGaeilge.
@David Guiney: failure of a response, please try harder, where did I say any if what you just claimed…just misinformation about me by you…and what cultural warmongering? foreigners are not our culture…as a whole they have become a burden on our nation and only benefit the few establishment rich not the irish nation…the country is in a shambles and foreigners by their mere presence of sheer numbers has now imploded our entire infrastructure…
@William Slevin: The hospitals are staffed by a lot of the people you want to exclude. As they found in the UK, farmers and fishermen rely on that labour too.
Are some of them a burden yes they are but you take the good with the bad.
Strange to hear this from a country that emigrated so much and remember the bad days of “No Dogs, No Irish”
@William Slevin: Calling left wingers fascist, makes me think you do not understand the word at all.
Right wing excludes people, rejects people due to colour, class or creed.
You want to exclude people.
The pandemic was a worldwide virus that killed millions.
@Gary Kearney: not strange at all to hear this from the irish that didn’t emigrate and stayed that should be something obvious to you…by the way if we send most of the foreigners home not because xenophobia or bigotry but because our nation can’t sustain them is not the same as no dogs no irish, that if we reduce the population this way by a million we won’t need up to a quarter of the doctors and nurses and will free up the bed spaces on wards…same for housing…the foreign population is a burden not an asset to our nation…its only the establishment rich that benefit having such numbers of foreigners at the expense of the irish people…
I don’t say foreigners should go home because I think their bad…its because our nation can’t sustain the influx…we need to stop immigration, reverse it before its to late and just have a one for one trade of migrants between Ireland and other nations…having this imbalance of migration is moronic
@Gary Kearney: OK your last post is all over the place…one, fascism is any group of ideological driven people that take control of the state decides what’s good for the people and enforces this through authoritarianism and the monopoly of violence the state has they do all this through the state…those in the left has clearly stated they want to do this…your point on right wing is nonsense I’m not looking for foreigners to go home to exclude them, foreigners who have no irish citizenship don’t have an automatic right to be here and we can vote for them to leave us the irish who have Constitutional rights foreigners don’t…what’s your point about the pandemic got to do with anything? you need to elaborate.
@David Guiney: that is what I said but that’s not what you tried to say of what I said was it now…. misinformationist and disinformationist, your usual tactic…
@William Slevin: But not the bankers who destroyed our economy, got bailed out by the State and the EU, and then passed the cost back on to the taxpayers of the future, ie. our kids. But racists like you want to blame people fleeing war zones. You’re not just wrong – you are boring and wrong.
@William Slevin: Go to any hospital in Ireland, the foreigners are not the ones seeking treatment, they are the ones providing it. And before you say they are taking our jobs – STOP! We need foreigners for our services and infrastructure to survive. So stop with your xenophobia – it’s disgusting. I was an immigrant once, as were many other Irish people. DON’T FORGET THAT!
@LuxLad: this is Ireland and the irish nation you know, the ones that didn’t leave…by the way the irish were not a burden, the irish rebuilt England after ww2, built huge parts of USA in its vast county, same in Canada, irish were taken as prisoners to oz, slaves to the Americas during Cromwells era and so on would you cop onto yourself…
@LuxLad: send one million foreigners home we won’t need as much hospital staff…the majority of foreigners are a burden not an asset to Ireland…their sheer numbers only benefit the wealthy establishment not the irish people DON’T FORGET THAT! Our infrastructure is collapsing because their here it won’t survive if they stay, same with the housing crisis…also were did I say their stealing our jobs…the establishment is creating jobs we don’t need for foreigners to make the wealthy even richer at our expense…I don’t care if you were an immigrant or not, I was too when I lived abroad and travelled but I don’t let that cloud .you judgement unlike establishment loyalists like you do…
Considering ffg are doing everything they can to gift as much of the states infrastructure to a few at the expense of the many ,I wouldn’t hold my breath
@Jessie Pinkman: people calling FG left wing really don’t understand that paradigm. Not that it even exists anymore but yeah… So edgy. Tell us who you’d vote for then and maybe a rundown on their housing policy or something? All you’re doing is name calling and it’s cringe af
@Jessie Pinkman: iam a bit further left then the social dems , and if you think I would blink an eye when faced with a homophonic, racist religious bigots, you would be in for a shock , what anyone chooses there sexuality to be is nobody’s business put there’s , and keep your religious shit to yourself
@Jessie Pinkman: That is not a surprise but calling parties left wing who would recoil at the very thought of them being left wing!
I mean FG are still referred to by people as “The Blue Shirts”, Google it! It is like calling left wingers fascists! Makes no sense.
Ireland has always been a right of center country, with some center left influences.
@William Slevin: considering the majority of men would shag a woman at the drop of a had now ask yourself if men could gey pregnant would abortion be legal, if you answered no I suggest your a lying coward
@Robert Halvey: you proved my point that abortion is misogynistic, many men want abortion to get out of the responsibility of being a father…many men are also against abortion…your last comment is nonsense lol as theirs women who do get pregnant and are against abortion just as many of the men that are also against abortion, so with that said yes if men where to get pregnant some would get abortions and many wouldn’t just as is with women currently…failed again on your whataboutery arguments lol
@William Slevin: Billy boy are you getting a few quid to spout your anti woman byle from the Bible belt money that’s been flowing into ireland for decades
National Museum had a display of guitars including this one about 20 years. Fabulous to see it. Be a pity if it gets bought by an investor and ends up touring Hard Rock Cafes across the world. It is part of our cultural heritage.
When touring in the US Rory would regularly check the pawn shops for unique guitars and other instruments. He built up an enviable collection this way. A lot of which were displayed at that exhibition.
Crowleys Music Centre in Cork have a go fund me campaign to buy it. Sheena Crowley’s father sold that guitar to Rory in 1963. https://gofund.me/58755d24
On previous occasions the State has been slow to intervene to secure historical artifacts – In 2003 at an auction in London the Polar Medal which was awarded Kerry native Tom Crean was bought by a private collector from abroad for 25,300 pounds sterling.
Tom Crean completed three expeditions to Antarctica and the government should have purchased that historically significant medal for the National Museum. Ironically Tom Crean received more recognition from other countries than in his own country of Ireland.
Apart from the medals he was awards by British Royals in more recent time’s
Norwegian Airways had his image on the tail section of one of their jets.
@Chaotic State: Tom Crean was and always will be a legend. What he did with Scott and Shackleton was phenomenal. An inspiration to sailors and explorers.
If 2 million can be spent on a lovely printer for Christmas cards and posters for Leinster house, then 700k for the guitar of the greatest guitarist that ever lived is a no brainer.
Dear Friends in Music,
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I’m looking for your help in building a bigger following on Spotify.
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In an economic climate where people in full-time employment live in squats and tents because of the housing crisis, how can spending nearly three quarters of a milion euros on a souvenir be anything other than criminal?
No, let it go to someone who will appreciate it. Irish government always trying to cash in, horrible bunch of bloated bureaucrats. Should it be in a museum or cared for collection? Absolutely, but it should be privately owned. They want to control everything, destroying our heritage after wrecking our culture. Ask any 20 something year old what it means to be Irish, what characterizations from our past to we bear forward? You will be disappointed though as their answer will fall into the Ireland Inc category.
The monuments and artifact story from a few days ago should be an eye opener, if we’re not ‘allowed’ look in our own back yards for our ancestors story then what does that say? It screams suppression, the U.K have a great system for amateur finds why not have similar here? unless you’re hiding the truth.
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