Since I was 16 years old I have had one thing in my life that has been constant...an odd need to keep going, keep moving...keep travelling. My early years in Ireland were both troubled and dangerous, but as soon as I picked up a bass guitar from a bomb damaged music store in Belfast, the desire to go play the thing griped me. With the whole band packed into one car and a U Haul trailer for PA and backline, my travels began...mostly around Ireland, with occasional trips 'abroad' to England and Scotland.
          Within 5 years I had moved to Scotland, joined a new band and played around the country with men and women who were to become my lifelong friends. In Scotland in 88, I formed The Electrics with guitarist Paul Baird and within months we were playing in France and Portugal. The record deals came, and with them more travel. Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Channel Islands, Poland and the USA. Major festivals across the USA and Europe became our stomping grounds and our blend of Celtic Rock pleased the crowds everywhere we went. Beyond this a solo career took me further away. Long 12 week tours of the USA, Canada, Thailand and Australia became the norm. I found myself in places most of you will never see or visit. Wild places and dangerous places, calm places and loud places. 
          Today I sit in a large building in Canada. A place that I have agreed to spend about 9 months a year running multimedia events for young people. Art and music has delivered me to a new place that offered new challenges to my mind, body and spirit...yet within a day of being here I have been invited to head off to other places that I have never seen… perhaps Africa and South Africa wait for me in the coming 12 months... it seems to be the way of it… what I am built for and although I get weary, I never tire of the journey.
          Journey to the ancient Celts was a metaphor for life… travelling… moving on... don’t carry too much...rest at times always believing one destination is just a resting place until the next. I have learned much from these wise old saints. The journey is necessary, but for all the beauty and wildness and excitement, there is a cost. It is true that the traveler meets interesting and unusual people, but more often than not they are pleasant acquaintances, not close friends. The traveler never needs to deal with the trials of the long term relationship, because, for the most part they simply move on. The wanderer sees the world as a varied and complicated place, but rarely does he spend enough time in one place to actually have to deal with the difficulties. The drifter has beautiful insights into life and the greater world, a romantic spirit surrounds all he says, but a man who never stays still, misses much of what is right in front of him… because for him… it is easier to say goodbye than it is to say I am staying put.
          I have decided to stay put for a while, I am nervous about it, I like the look of that highway out there, but in the strangest of ways, even this decision has been met initially with 'will you go?' and 'We know you need to travel'... it is as if that greatest of Spirits is holding me... giving the best of both worlds. As if someone up there likes me, as if the one who cares for my soul has reminded me he cares for my body and my mind... for this old hobo singer, this flawed and broken one, this poor soul, it is good to know someone cares completely... and that should give you some hope too...for I am no more special than you are. 
          So, travel well, rest well, don’t carry heavy loads for too long and from time to time, if you are able, look skyward and whisper something like 'thanks for caring'


Peace
Sammy.