Irish traditional ballad group The Kilkennys have proudly announced their tour to Germany in October. There is even a nice picture of the two flags, Irish and German, on their facebook page announcing the news, But hang on a second: there is a list of eight venues but none of the names seems German to me (apart from Bremen, the name of a theatre in Copenhagen). So my advice to the Kilkennys is: buy an atlas lads before you depart. Nul points for geography. For those interested, the list is as follows:

“If you are in Germany (sic) this coming October, be sure to check out The Kilkennys”:

The names of the countries in the second column have been added by myself and do not appear on the group’s website. But on another page of their website, they list them all as “German tour” and have both Esjberg and Copenhagen listed as being in Germany! Now I am all in favour of European integration but I think they are really pushing it a bit too far, especially as the Danes don’t particularly like the Germans. Interestingly, the abbreviation for the month (Okt) looks more like a German spelling (Oktober) so perhaps the group are dealing with an agent in Germany and their German dates have not yet been arranged. The first gig on the above list is scheduled for the small Dutch village of Blokker. If you google it, you will find that this is where the Beatles played in one of two concerts they gave in Holland in 1964. So perhaps we can expect greater things from the Kilkennys in the future, once they have got their geography right! I remember seeing them in concert in Dundrum, Dublin where they performed their Clancy Brothers show and it was an enjoyable night.

UPDATE: Following remarks on facebook by myself and a number of others, the website has now been amended with details of a EUROPEAN tour by the group. Go n-éiri an bóthar libh.