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Michael in Ireland [ Merged ]
- Thread starter Emerald
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2300jacksonst
Proud Member
please check out this site if you live in Ireland or can join us on June 25th in Dublin.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3891581&id=772244197#!/group.php?gid=106313366073459
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3891581&id=772244197#!/group.php?gid=106313366073459
Limonali
Proud Member
- Joined
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Where exactly are you gonna be, guys? 
Gottobethere
Proud Member
Hey, did anybody see the Sunday World, i usual wouldn't buy it because it's is full of tabliod trash but they four pages in it about Michael living in Ireland and abouyt a house that he was renovating so he could spent some of the year here, they are giving away a weekend in the house with full use of the facilities at grouse lodge, the weekend is the 26-28th june.
Gottobethere
Proud Member
And definately very rare for a tabloid as low as the sunday world, in fairness to everybody who met Michael in Ireland they all seemed to really love him, of all the people who gave interviews about meeting him when he was here there wasn't one bad word about him..
Has anyone here been to the new Waxwork Museum in Dublin. THey have got a new one of Michael and the owner also owns Grouse Lodge studios. They also have the studio Michael worked in while he was here. Its well worth a visit. Here is a pic of the waxwork. The guy in the back is Paddy Dunning Michael stayed in his place while he was in Ireland.
Here is the article about it:
Waxo J****
When Michael Jackson lived in Ireland for five months, it was in Paddy Dunning’s lodge in Westmeath. Now, his host unveils a model of the King of Pop and remembers his stay
‘I NEVER ASKED him to moondance, and I never asked him for a picture. Michael said that when he was leaving. He said, ‘Paddy, you’re the only person who I’ve met in my whole entire life who’s never asked me for a picture.”
Entrepreneur Paddy Dunning is talking about Michael Jackson, who, with his children, spent five months in 2006 living at Dunning’s recording studio complex at Grouse Lodge in Co Westmeath. The photograph that accompanies this article, and in which the two do finally appear together, is of a live Dunning and a brand-new waxwork of Jackson, which went on show yesterday at the National Wax Museum Plus; another of Dunning’s businesses.
Grouse Lodge is located some winding potholed miles from the village of Rosemount in Co Westmeath, among lovely countryside peppered with cairns and historic sites. It’s purposely unsigned, but that hasn’t stopped many famous names in the music industry finding it. Among those who have used the studios here, which opened in 2002, are Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, REM, Shirley Bassey, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, The Thrills and Westlife.
The studio’s most famous resident to date, however, was undoubtedly Michael Jackson. After the 2005 trial in California, when Jackson was acquitted of charges of child sexual abuse allegations, he spent very little time in the US. Five months of 2006 were spent in rural Westmeath. Rumours leaked out at the time of Jackson being sighted in Moate, Kilbeggan or Horseleap; locations that all seemed surreally unlikely places for the Prince of Pop to be wandering around.
Paddy Dunning sits over coffee in one of the converted stableblocks at the secluded Grouse Lodge, reminiscing about Jackson’s time there, together with his children Prince Michael Junior, Paris and Blanket, and their nanny and tutor. There are two recording studios and comfortable, but modest, accommodation in a variety of converted stone buildings in the complex. The all-in price for renting the studios, accommodation and food used to be €1,500 a day; now it is a “recession-friendly” €850 a day.
Across the road from Grouse Lodge is Coolatore House, a beautiful late Victorian mansion, which can also be rented by artists or the public. Jackson lived in the Grouse Lodge complex for a month, and at Coolatore for four. Seamus Heaney has also stayed there for a period. The weekend before I arrive, 14 gardaí had rented the house for a hen party.
“Michael had heard about the place through an agent; he had lots of agents,” Dunning relates. Once the family arrived, the gates were closed and the Jackson children settled down to a routine of lessons in a small room off one of the studios, playing with Dunning’s two children in the afternoons. Jackson made his own porridge in the mornings, favoured grilled chicken, fish and rice for dinner, went for walks, and read The Irish Times daily.
“He was very interested in how this country worked, and the boom that was on here at the time. He was an avid reader of The Irish Times ; he read it every day from start to finish.”
At the time of his death last summer, Jackson was reported to be taking an extensive range of drugs on a regular basis. However, Dunning says he saw no evidence of this. “Not that I saw and he was here, or around, all the time. We’d go for walks, and he was fit. Michael could move really quickly; I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly. He was like a ballet dancer.”
The staff working at Grouse Lodge did not even tell their partners who the studio’s current resident was, although Dunning himself cracked. “I eventually told my mam,” he confesses. “And then my mam was saying prayers for Michael. And then Michael rang his mother and told her that my mother was saying prayers for him, and then she was saying prayers for my mother, so I went back to my mother and told her ‘Michael Jackson’s mother is saying prayers for you, Mam’. My mother is a small little lady up in Walkinstown and it’s just mad to think that Michael Jackson’s mother was saying prayers for her.”
Jackson, one of the world’s most recognisable faces, sometimes left the estate to explore other parts of Ireland, usually accompanied by Dunning. How was it that nobody in Ireland appeared to notice him?
“Sometimes they did,” Dunning replies simply. “Sometimes I’d drive him to Dublin and we’d pull up a red light and Michael would look out the window, because he’d be sitting up front with me, and a person would not believe their eyes. They would go into semi-shock at the sight, not knowing what to believe – is this Michael Jackson that’s pulled up alongside me on Dame Street or wherever?”
The pair of them sang in the car as they drove around the country. “Although I’m a crap musician, I can say I’ve played with Michael Jackson,” Dunning laughs. “I played drums with him. And I sang with Michael. We’d be singing in the car. We sang that song, The Girl Is Mine , that Michael recorded with Paul McCartney. He did Paul McCartney’s part, and I did Michael Jackson.”
One of the places that Dunning took Jackson was to the nearby Hill of Úisneach, a historic site associated with the High Kings of Ireland. “He loved history and mythology,” says Dunning, who is developing a Mayday festival around Úisneach – the Festival of the Fires – which will, he hopes, eventually radiate out across Ireland.
A fire will be lit on Úisneach on the evening of May 1st, where there will be music, craft, a market, and talks about the history and mythology of the area. Sharon Shannon, Mundy, Kíla and others are scheduled to play. Landowners with hills in surrounding areas are being invited to light their own hilltop fires at dusk, and gather their communities to celebrate Mayday.
Dunning’s dream is to develop it into a 32-county festival that will attract the diaspora back to their local regions, and bring in seasonal revenue. “We want to send a global invitation to all the diaspora to come back to their home county in May to celebrate the ancient festival of Bealtaine.” He doesn’t like talking about the possibility of rain on the evening.
Although staff, neighbours, the shopkeepers at Rosemount – and Dunning’s small children – kept quiet about the fact Michael Jackson was in residence, in the end, a US reporter eventually revealed his whereabouts. One Billy Bush, nephew of George Bush senior, first cousin of George Bush junior and presenter of Access Hollywood , a syndicated cable entertainment-news show, arrived to interview Jackson in Westmeath. He went into nearby Moate straight after filming and told the men, women, children and dogs in the street where Jackson was. “Stupid man,” Dunning says mournfully, but really, could any other result have been reasonably expected?
Jackson departed the midlands soon afterwards, to attend the funeral of soul icon, James Brown. He left the Dunnings his television; toys that had been bought for Prince Michael Junior, Paris and Blanket; various hats; a signed piece of wood (all visitors sign a slice of tree trunk); and a page of scrawled signature in the Visitors’ Book. “He was a very generous man,” says Dunning.
Jackson had agreed, in theory, to open Dunning’s Wax Museum last summer. “We’d told him about the museum. He was always interested in wax museums. He said, ‘If I’m around, I’ll launch it for you’. He was due to be in England at the time to do the shows at O2, and we were going to be going over to the shows and all of that. It was a massive shock when we heard he was dead.”
Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0407/1224267823030.html
Here is the article about it:
Waxo J****
When Michael Jackson lived in Ireland for five months, it was in Paddy Dunning’s lodge in Westmeath. Now, his host unveils a model of the King of Pop and remembers his stay
‘I NEVER ASKED him to moondance, and I never asked him for a picture. Michael said that when he was leaving. He said, ‘Paddy, you’re the only person who I’ve met in my whole entire life who’s never asked me for a picture.”
Entrepreneur Paddy Dunning is talking about Michael Jackson, who, with his children, spent five months in 2006 living at Dunning’s recording studio complex at Grouse Lodge in Co Westmeath. The photograph that accompanies this article, and in which the two do finally appear together, is of a live Dunning and a brand-new waxwork of Jackson, which went on show yesterday at the National Wax Museum Plus; another of Dunning’s businesses.
Grouse Lodge is located some winding potholed miles from the village of Rosemount in Co Westmeath, among lovely countryside peppered with cairns and historic sites. It’s purposely unsigned, but that hasn’t stopped many famous names in the music industry finding it. Among those who have used the studios here, which opened in 2002, are Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, REM, Shirley Bassey, Stereophonics, Manic Street Preachers, The Thrills and Westlife.
The studio’s most famous resident to date, however, was undoubtedly Michael Jackson. After the 2005 trial in California, when Jackson was acquitted of charges of child sexual abuse allegations, he spent very little time in the US. Five months of 2006 were spent in rural Westmeath. Rumours leaked out at the time of Jackson being sighted in Moate, Kilbeggan or Horseleap; locations that all seemed surreally unlikely places for the Prince of Pop to be wandering around.
Paddy Dunning sits over coffee in one of the converted stableblocks at the secluded Grouse Lodge, reminiscing about Jackson’s time there, together with his children Prince Michael Junior, Paris and Blanket, and their nanny and tutor. There are two recording studios and comfortable, but modest, accommodation in a variety of converted stone buildings in the complex. The all-in price for renting the studios, accommodation and food used to be €1,500 a day; now it is a “recession-friendly” €850 a day.
Across the road from Grouse Lodge is Coolatore House, a beautiful late Victorian mansion, which can also be rented by artists or the public. Jackson lived in the Grouse Lodge complex for a month, and at Coolatore for four. Seamus Heaney has also stayed there for a period. The weekend before I arrive, 14 gardaí had rented the house for a hen party.
“Michael had heard about the place through an agent; he had lots of agents,” Dunning relates. Once the family arrived, the gates were closed and the Jackson children settled down to a routine of lessons in a small room off one of the studios, playing with Dunning’s two children in the afternoons. Jackson made his own porridge in the mornings, favoured grilled chicken, fish and rice for dinner, went for walks, and read The Irish Times daily.
“He was very interested in how this country worked, and the boom that was on here at the time. He was an avid reader of The Irish Times ; he read it every day from start to finish.”
At the time of his death last summer, Jackson was reported to be taking an extensive range of drugs on a regular basis. However, Dunning says he saw no evidence of this. “Not that I saw and he was here, or around, all the time. We’d go for walks, and he was fit. Michael could move really quickly; I’ve never seen anyone move so quickly. He was like a ballet dancer.”
The staff working at Grouse Lodge did not even tell their partners who the studio’s current resident was, although Dunning himself cracked. “I eventually told my mam,” he confesses. “And then my mam was saying prayers for Michael. And then Michael rang his mother and told her that my mother was saying prayers for him, and then she was saying prayers for my mother, so I went back to my mother and told her ‘Michael Jackson’s mother is saying prayers for you, Mam’. My mother is a small little lady up in Walkinstown and it’s just mad to think that Michael Jackson’s mother was saying prayers for her.”
Jackson, one of the world’s most recognisable faces, sometimes left the estate to explore other parts of Ireland, usually accompanied by Dunning. How was it that nobody in Ireland appeared to notice him?
“Sometimes they did,” Dunning replies simply. “Sometimes I’d drive him to Dublin and we’d pull up a red light and Michael would look out the window, because he’d be sitting up front with me, and a person would not believe their eyes. They would go into semi-shock at the sight, not knowing what to believe – is this Michael Jackson that’s pulled up alongside me on Dame Street or wherever?”
The pair of them sang in the car as they drove around the country. “Although I’m a crap musician, I can say I’ve played with Michael Jackson,” Dunning laughs. “I played drums with him. And I sang with Michael. We’d be singing in the car. We sang that song, The Girl Is Mine , that Michael recorded with Paul McCartney. He did Paul McCartney’s part, and I did Michael Jackson.”
One of the places that Dunning took Jackson was to the nearby Hill of Úisneach, a historic site associated with the High Kings of Ireland. “He loved history and mythology,” says Dunning, who is developing a Mayday festival around Úisneach – the Festival of the Fires – which will, he hopes, eventually radiate out across Ireland.
A fire will be lit on Úisneach on the evening of May 1st, where there will be music, craft, a market, and talks about the history and mythology of the area. Sharon Shannon, Mundy, Kíla and others are scheduled to play. Landowners with hills in surrounding areas are being invited to light their own hilltop fires at dusk, and gather their communities to celebrate Mayday.
Dunning’s dream is to develop it into a 32-county festival that will attract the diaspora back to their local regions, and bring in seasonal revenue. “We want to send a global invitation to all the diaspora to come back to their home county in May to celebrate the ancient festival of Bealtaine.” He doesn’t like talking about the possibility of rain on the evening.
Although staff, neighbours, the shopkeepers at Rosemount – and Dunning’s small children – kept quiet about the fact Michael Jackson was in residence, in the end, a US reporter eventually revealed his whereabouts. One Billy Bush, nephew of George Bush senior, first cousin of George Bush junior and presenter of Access Hollywood , a syndicated cable entertainment-news show, arrived to interview Jackson in Westmeath. He went into nearby Moate straight after filming and told the men, women, children and dogs in the street where Jackson was. “Stupid man,” Dunning says mournfully, but really, could any other result have been reasonably expected?
Jackson departed the midlands soon afterwards, to attend the funeral of soul icon, James Brown. He left the Dunnings his television; toys that had been bought for Prince Michael Junior, Paris and Blanket; various hats; a signed piece of wood (all visitors sign a slice of tree trunk); and a page of scrawled signature in the Visitors’ Book. “He was a very generous man,” says Dunning.
Jackson had agreed, in theory, to open Dunning’s Wax Museum last summer. “We’d told him about the museum. He was always interested in wax museums. He said, ‘If I’m around, I’ll launch it for you’. He was due to be in England at the time to do the shows at O2, and we were going to be going over to the shows and all of that. It was a massive shock when we heard he was dead.”
Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0407/1224267823030.html
Gottobethere
Proud Member
I haven't been yet but i do plan on making a visit, i read that article when it was released, from the pictures i seen it doesn't appear to be a great wax impression.
Just to let all the fellow Irish fans know, RTE 1, next Friday at 9.35: "Michael Jackson: Gone Too Soon." I haven't seen any ads yet, so no word as to whether it's a tribute or tabloidy disaster...
And News of the World had a big ad in work today about a Michael Jackson tribute magazine special in tomorrow's Sunday paper... again, no word if it's tabloidy, but I won't hold my breath for this particular one...
And News of the World had a big ad in work today about a Michael Jackson tribute magazine special in tomorrow's Sunday paper... again, no word if it's tabloidy, but I won't hold my breath for this particular one...
Gottobethere
Proud Member
I'll check out Gone too soon but i could never bring myself to buy News of the World, it has to be the trashiest paper in Ireland.
I got the mag from the NOTW in work for free and I'm surpirsed! It's actually a really nice magazine, nothing to write home about exclusive-wise or in depth-wise, but it's a simple tribute to the high points in Michael's career and life
Gottobethere
Proud Member
I got the mag from the NOTW in work for free and I'm surpirsed! It's actually a really nice magazine, nothing to write home about exclusive-wise or in depth-wise, but it's a simple tribute to the high points in Michael's career and life
But is it worth contributing money to the News of the World, they have hardly been a nice paper to Michael, they are the Sun on a Sunday aren't they?
Gottobethere
Proud Member
Naw didn't see it. RTE have one this friday.
Did anyone watch the programme on TV3 yesterday evening? It was on from eight to nine.
I can't believe it's almost a year.
Yeah, that was The Michael Jackson Story, I didn't even know it was on, I switched just at it started and was like COOL! I was impressed, I thought it was very respectful, albeit a bit dated, it really only went to the March announcements and then had text telling the end....
Christ, I'm still in shock it's a year. It seems like decades ago Michael was at his happiest on our soil...
Oh, not at all. It's fitting, perfect actually. It's just that they had to cut the title a lil' bit: "Gone Too Soon...how am I gonna make money now?"
You disgust me Halperin.
Ahem, sorry for the rant. I like this thread!
TG4 are showing Moonwalker at 9.15pm on Saturday 26th this would be a much better show the the others that were mentioned. Personally I would prefer to watch this or his music videos rather then something negative. Also if you go to there website they have a pic of Michael in the tv listings page for Saturday also there is a programme on at 8.10pm Michael Jackson Na Videos
this would be a much better show the the others that were mentioned. Personally I would prefer to watch this or his music videos rather then something negative. Also if you go to there website they have a pic of Michael in the tv listings page for Saturday also there is a programme on at 8.10pm Michael Jackson Na Videoshttp://www.tg4.ie/bearla/scei/scei.asp?Dt=2010-6-26Michael Jackson Na Videos
Eoghan Mac Diarmada who presents POP 4 said ‘I am the biggest Michael Jackson fan’. This special programme features the videos for Thriller, Billie Jean, Rock With You, Man in the Mirror, Smooth Criminal, Beat it, Bad, Heal the World, The Way You Make Me Feel and many more marking the anniversary of Michael Jacksons death just over a year ago.
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Okay, I've researched a bit online, that Gone Too Soon appears to be one of the most tabloidy, make-a-quick-buck shows out there. Definitely not watching, I've emailed complaints@rte.ie but I doubt they'll listen...
Limonali
Proud Member
- Joined
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Vanity Fair with Landis memories of working on Thriller is available in shops (July copy).
It's slightly different than US one, but it has Mike inside. Just got my copy this morning.
It's slightly different than US one, but it has Mike inside. Just got my copy this morning.
Sorry I never saw your post Gottobethere! I work part-time in Dunnes Stores, I just grabbed one of the mags and brought it up to the office with me!
Gottobethere
Proud Member
Sorry I never saw your post Gottobethere! I work part-time in Dunnes Stores, I just grabbed one of the mags and brought it up to the office with me!
Good enough. I like it.
Yeah it was really respectful! It was badly edited though. When they were talking about the Bad tour they showed shots from the Dangerous tour etc, all a bit mish-mashed.
Did anyone watch it? I didn't think it was bad. I mean he said some really dumb things like Omer Bhatti is the biological father of Blanket?!!!? Wasn't he like 16 when Blanket was born? Emm no Ian, no. But on the whole Michael was not portrayed in a bad light. He even admitted he had changed his mind about the Chandler and Arvizo cases.
Was anyone listening to 2FM on Thursday evening? Someone rang in and asked them to play Stranger in Moscow and they did so! One of my fave MJ songs on the radio
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Yeah it was really respectful! It was badly edited though. When they were talking about the Bad tour they showed shots from the Dangerous tour etc, all a bit mish-mashed.
Did anyone watch it? I didn't think it was bad. I mean he said some really dumb things like Omer Bhatti is the biological father of Blanket?!!!? Wasn't he like 16 when Blanket was born? Emm no Ian, no. But on the whole Michael was not portrayed in a bad light. He even admitted he had changed his mind about the Chandler and Arvizo cases.
Was anyone listening to 2FM on Thursday evening? Someone rang in and asked them to play Stranger in Moscow and they did so! One of my fave MJ songs on the radio
My Dad was watching because he watched the news before, so I heard bits... some seemed okay, but I seen some journalist woman call him a "sexual predator" who befriended children's parents to get to them... needless to say, off went RTE1 then.
Gottobethere
Proud Member
I seen most of it and it appeared to be fairly positive, they went out of their way to let people know Michael could never do what he was accused of which can only be a good thing but it would be unfair to comment on this and not be objective as i would if it was anti- Michael. For at start we all know Halpernin is a scumbag who only decided Michael was innocent when he realised there was so much support out there for him so he reckoned the pro-Michael market was the bigger market, in the docu he alway appears sitting behind his laptop in a dark room which i reckon kind of suits his persona. I have to admit too that it was full of talking heads, clinical pyscologists, lifstyle magazine writers, showbiz magazine editors, friends of the family, friends of familys friends and friends of the their friends, okay maybe it didn't go that far but most of the people talking only knew Michael from what they read in the papers so i can't just take their word when i know if they were negative about him i would argue that they don't even know him. Overall for the person who knows nothing about Michael outside of what is written in the tabliods it is great that they get to hear a postive Michael peice for once but for us the fans it is just more tabliod trash only difference is this time it's pro Michael.