HERE, they come, those Riverdance feet. Skipping and jumping and gliding and clattering and clumping. Those crazy Riverdance feet filling up the screen. Here it comes, the pounding of the bodhran. Deep and low band resonant, heralding the whistles and the pipes and the big synthesiser chords of the Irish Renaissance which keep those crazy Riverdance feet moving. This is the soundtrack for Riverdance feet and Riverdance arms too.
But this is not the Eurovision Song Contest, when we all leapt out of our seats with the audience at the Point and punched the air along with Gerry Ryan because it was so shagging marvellous. This is an IRA mortar attack on a British Army patrol somewhere in Northern Ireland, in Terry George's film Some Mother's Son with a soundtrack by Riverdance composer Bill Whelan.
Those crazy Riverdance feet are inter cut with the car drawing up to prepare for the attack, the mortar being fired and the Army patrol taking a direct hit on the Land Rover. There it goes, that well aimed missile scurrying over the fields as the pipes weigh in with the melody. Up it goes in flames with a huge hit on the bodhran. There they go, those shards of metal flying from the burning vehicle.
There go the bits of human remains too, severed and bleeding, as those crazy Riverdance feet dance. Bits of lung and sinew and hair and fingers, flying over the hedges as the big synthesiser chords kick in.
Except now is the time for the Riverdance feet to stop, because the force of the blast is about to hit the room where they are dancing. No owners of the Riverdance feet will be hit or hurt, although all have long curly red hair and will be knocked to the floor by the blast amongst splinters of glass from the windows which have just been broken in slow motion. And the owners of the Riverdance feet will be hurried out of the room and taken into the town for shelter and they will be harassed by a soldier because the owner of one pair of Riverdance feet refuses to get out of the way of a Saracen which is on its way to pick up the pieces of his ex-colleague.
But we will never see him or the pieces of his body, we will only hear the whistles of the new Celtic Dawn ushering its children over the hill of history into a new world of pipes and bodhrans and, above all, big synthesiser chords. For this is Irish Hollywood.
THERE'S a boat at the end of the film which the beautiful actress watches across a misty lough as the selected female Irish singer laments over a bed of synthesiser chords and droning pipes. On that boat is another spirit of Irish music, lost and drifting. Generous and whole. The Gaelic mist envelops the rolling hills of the horizon and a huge British person appears from out of the clouds. He is a yuppie in a suit, wielding enormous and absolute power. He wants to turn the new Celtic dawn into a twilight zone of curfew and continuing discrimination and centuries more hatred.
We must hate him, for he was ever thus. And we must remember how he will always be there, and if he ever should meet some nice understanding British person he will fire him forthwith. There are soldiers who can save a car stranded on a beach from the oncoming tide, for they are human after all. But not as human as those, who walk and talk and kill with a soundtrack behind them.
Those crazy Riverdance feet cannot rest. They keep on skipping and jumping and gliding and clattering and clumping. But now it is not the Eurovision Song Contest. It is not even a film in a cinema. It is, The Late Late Show," where the blessings of the nation shall be stowed once more upon those, clacking metal tipped soles. There they go again, and there goes the mortar one more time. Soaring over the hedges as the pipes take up the melody the bodhran beating in time with the impact on the Land Rover. `Bang!' it goes, and the flames leap up while the Riverdance feet are still thumping the resonating wooden floor.
Just then, the Celtic chords tell the Riverdance feet to stop and the beautiful actress hits the deck with the glass splintering all around her. By now the burning flesh must have been blown out of the Land Rover, the big synthesiser swells and tells us we can return to the studio to see the beautiful actress in person.
What do you do after those film clips. Why, clap, of course. Clap the clip. Clap those Riverdance feet and their long curly red haired owners. Clap the scurrying missile. Clap the bang. Clap the clapping which you heard in the Eurovision. We clap the clip. Thus the new Celtic dawn ushers its children over the hill of history into a new world of pipes and bodhrans and, above all, big synthesiser chords. For this is Irish Hollywood, where to walk and talk and kill you've got a ready made soundtrack.
