LAMBEG Drums in New York's St Patrick's Cathedral: whatever next? Last week, the Irish Echo hosted an evening of music and readings "celebrating the people of Northern Ireland" at the famed citadel of American Catholicism on Fifth Avenue.
Participants included the ubiquitous Phil Coulter and James Galway, actor Gregory Peck (who read from the works of Seamus Heaney and received two standing ovations), authors Frank McCourt and Edna O'Brien and the Different Drums of Ireland group - who played everything from the bodhran to two enormous Lambegs, one each side of the altar. The high point was Galway's rendition of The Sash My Father Wore on the flute, with loud Lambeg accompaniment.
Among the audience were the former US envoy Jean Kennedy Smith, the North's Security Minister Adam Ingram, Ulster Unionist Chris McGimpsey and UDP spokesman Gary McMichael. McMichael said later it was his first time in a Catholic church and it was the last place he expected to hear that familiar Lambeg sound. "I was looking around me to see if the pillars were going to crack," he quipped.