Several years ago, a few of us that play Irish music started gathering at Finnegan’s Pub on Thursday nights to have a pint and play a few tunes.  This got to be a habit and became our regular thing to do on Thursdays.  Occasionally, people would ask us to play for their (fill in the blank - wedding, party, wake, bar mitsvah, etc...) and we had to say ’Sorry, we don’t really do that kind of thing.’  Eventually, we thought ’Hey, maybe we ought to do that kind of thing.’ and SlipJig was born (OK, it wasn’t quite that easy, but you get the idea).  And while the SlipJiggers have made up the core of the Thursday session, there is a pretty good group of other talented players that regularly (or occasionally) drop in.  Every now and then we’ll have good players from other parts of the country drop in and join us.  Great fun!

Now, Mike Lyon (who clearly has too much time on his hands) informs us that, by his reckoning, we’re coming up on our 200th Thursday session at Finnegan’s.  He also reckons that by that time we will have consumed about 1600 pints of Guinness.  We just can’t let this kind of milestone pass without marking the occasion.  According to Mike, our 200th session will be Thursday, April 10, 2008.  Mark your calendar! 

We haven’t really decided just how we want to celebrate but we’re going to try to make this evening an extra special one.  Unfortunately, the things that make an average session into a great one seem to come down to circumstances, magic and just plain dumb luck.  I guess we all just need to bring four-leafed shamrocks.

Besides the five of us, here are some of the Finnegan’s Session regulars, semi-regulars and occasionals: Bob O’Shields (bodhran), Denny Cannon (guitar), David Boling (uilleann pipes), Al Trotter (flute), Larry Lynch (fiddle, bouzouki), Cindy Steine (whistle).  We’ll try to make sure that they’re all there and maybe a few others.