[caption id="attachment_67957" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Peter Cunnah."]
Tens of thousands of Irish Americans gathered in Wisconsin during the summer just past for the annual Milwaukee Irish Fest which this year featured a special showcase on Derry and Donegal.
Derry, designated the first ever UK City of Culture, is now issuing a clarion call to its diaspora to come home and join in the celebrations which will take place throughout 2013. Here, chart-topping musician Peter Cunnah explains what makes his home town so "Legend-Derry."
For a city of just 100,000 people, Derry/Londonderry punches so far above its weight in cultural terms that, if it were a boxing match, the referee would stop the Rest of the World.
Among a very, very long line of greats in the world of literature, music, art, philosophy and politics, we can boast: two Nobel Prize winners, the poet Seamus Heaney and the peacemaker John Hume.
* Two Eurovision Song Contest winners, Phil Coulter who wrote "Puppet on a String" for Sandy Shaw which won in 1967 and Dana who sang "All Kinds of Everything" in 1970. Coulter also wrote "Congratulations" which came second for Cliff Richard in 1968 but it emerged later that Franco had rigged the voting for Spain and that Coulter and Cliff should have won!
*One Tony-winning playwright, Brian Friel, for his play "Dancing At Lughnasa," which won three Tonys and an Olivier award. It was later made into a film starring Meryl Streep. We also punch well above our weight in screen-writing. Dave Duggan got an Oscar nomination for "Dance Lexie Dance" while the animator John McCloskey and dramatist Joe Mahon have both received BAFTA nominations and have won a number of Celtic Film awards.
*A swathe of Number One singers including Nadine Coyle, the real talent in Girls Aloud, ex-Undertone Feargal Sharkey, Dana, Jimmy McShane (Baltimora) who topped the charts with "Tarzan Boy," Keith Harkin of Celtic Thunder, Damian McGinty of the Glee Project - and me!
*A parade of top international music-writers including Jane Ross and Denis O'Hampsey who wrote "Danny Boy," the hymn-writer Cecil Alexander ("All Things Bright and Beautiful" and 'Once in Royal David's City") Phil Coulter, who penned all the Bay City Rollers hits and the theme from "Spider Man," Undertones legend John O'Neill who wrote "Teenage Kicks," Paul Brady who writes for Tina Turner, Santana and Dave Edmonds, Johnny McDaid, whose song "Life is Beautiful" was in the U.S. top 40 for three months, Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy and Grammy nominee John Peppard, who collaborates with Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.
*An anthology-worth of writers including Nik Cohn, who wrote "Saturday Night Fever" and is regarded as the father of rock criticism, the philosopher George Berkeley, after whom the city in California is named, the restoration dramatist George Farquhar, Jennifer Johnson, who won the Whitbread Prize, and Seamus Deane who lifted the Guardian Fiction Prize. Both Johnson and Deane were also short listed for
the Booker Prize.
* A theatre-full of actors and actresses including "Touched by an Angel" actress Roma Downey who has twice been nominated for the Emmy awards and twice been nominated for Golden Globe awards. Eva Birthistle, who works frequently with Ken Loach, has won IFTA awards and BAFTA nominations. Amanda Burton, who has won three UK National Television awards and an IFTA for "Silent Witness," and Bronagh Gallagher, who starred in "Pulp Fiction" and "The Commitments."
*A stadium-full of sports stars including the former Glasgow Celtic manager Martin O'Neill, who also won league and European Cup medals as a player with Nottingham Forest, boxing champions John Duddy, Charlie Nash and Spider Kelly, the Republic of Ireland international Darren Gibson, who won a Premiership medal with Manchester United in 2011, and the Northern Ireland international Paddy McCourt, who won a Scottish Cup medal with Celtic.
I'm sure you're convinced by now that Derry is a very special place. We pride ourselves in being a city of saints, scholars, singers, dramatists and peacemakers. There really is a huge amount of talent here and an unending enthusiasm for the arts. In short, we are truly a
city of culture, so be sure and go off and tell all your friends from all over the world to come here and find out for themselves. Come to Derry in 2013. There are no strangers here, just new friends.
D:Ream front-man Peter Cunnah is an icon in the world of dance music.
His number one hit "Things Can Only Get Better" is rated the biggest club anthem of the 1990s.
