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'Danny Boy' sung from space by Canadian astronaut on St. Patrick's Day - VIDEO

Irish loving Commander Chris Hadfield celebrates St Patrick’s Day in style

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Monday, March 18, 2013, 7:20 AM

Updated Monday, March 18, 2013, 9:22 AM

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International Space Station commander Chris Hadfield celebrates St. Patrick's Day in style

Photo by NASA

The St Patrick’s Day celebrations made it into space – thanks to the Canadian astronaut the Irish just love.

Commander Chris Hadfield strengthened his bond with the Irish when he sang ‘Danny Boy’ on the International Space Station.

Canada’s space age crooner broadcast the song back to earth as his own homage to Ireland’s national day.

The Irish Times reports that Hadfield posted his two minutes 56 seconds version of the timeless Irish classic onto Twitter.

He introduced it with a tweet that read: “From high above the world to the Irish everywhere. Happy St Patrick's Day”.

The report says Hadfield then tweeted: “Danny Boy strikes home with me, now more than ever. I've recorded a version for today in orbit. Hope you like it.”

The Canadian also posted a picture of himself wearing green on board the ISS which passed over Ireland on Monday morning and also added a picture of Tralee.

Well known to the Irish social media community, Hadfield first came to the attention of Irish people when he snapped a night-time photograph of Dublin with the words as gaeilge: “Tá Éire fíorálainn! Land of green hills dark beer. With Dublin glowing in the Irish night.”

The report adds that this is not the first Irish song that he recorded in space.

Just last month he collaborated with The Chieftains on the Van Morrison classic Moondance as they performed in Houston.

See more: Irish Entertainment , Irish Arts , Irish Music , St Patrick's Day

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bunkerhill | Mar 22, 2013, 06:09 PM EDT

What a beautiful tribute it is to a "tiny" island when an extraordinary person such as Canadian Astronaut Hadfield goes to the trouble of learning a few words in Gaelic and singing "Danny Boy." I am so impressed that Hadfield along with all the skills that enabled him to become an astronaut can also sing and play a guitar. God also blessed this man with kindness and affability. I think Irish Central should think about posting a clinical referral site for some of the posters on this site. Thank you so much Astronaut Hadfield.

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seanomelb | Mar 21, 2013, 06:57 PM EDT

wounded brain the racist bigot. Your stupidity and ignorance is legendary. I gave yuo the figures on Gaelic speakers and you chose to ignore the facts . Another case of denial of the obvious by a bitter little Yank.

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WoundedKnee | Mar 21, 2013, 11:54 AM EDT

Freeman: I see little point to any further exchanges with you. You lie when you speak of my " anti immigrant posts". I have never made an anti-immigrant post in my life--you're a liar and a fraud. I have of course posted on many occasions to discuss the economic and cultural catastrophe that Irish capitalists and corrupt politicians have visited on their country by promoting the importation of vast numbers of cheap labor and welfare sharks. But only a true moron would say as you do that I expected a settler in Ireland to speak Irish (that's the name of the language, you clown). Everyone, save for you and the other half of the dopey duo, seanomel, knows that foreign migrants in Ireland have made no attempt to learn the language or history of the country they are colonizing. They make as much effort to learn Irish ((that's still the name of the language, you clown) as your fellow bigot seanomel has made to learn any of the scores of aboriginal languages that settlers like him are killing off.

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Freeman | Mar 20, 2013, 07:31 PM EDT

Please,please wounded knee, why can you not respond to my question.In one of your many anti immigrant posts you said and I quote you. "the guy that came to fix the window in my room could not speak a word of English" unquote.You said that this was your turning point against the foreign immigrants.Why would you be so upset at a foreign immigrant not able to speak English?Why were you not more so upset, that he did not speak to you in your native Gaelic.?.Have you forgotten what you said in your posts because of your drinking inhibitions ,or are you just plain racist.I believe the latter is an appropriate assumption,because of your mixed emotional rantings on this subject and your attempt to justify your racism,by hiding behind a respected ancient culture and the respected language of that culture. Racism has no hiding place for you or your likes Woundedknee

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seanomelb | Mar 20, 2013, 07:28 PM EDT

Thats strange In Ireland we were thuught "Teanga na Gael" or "Gaelic" again woundedbrain what would you know you 're a yank. "An bhfuil aon Gaelic agat" would be the Question. Maybe wounded brain would say " An bhfuil aon Irish agat" LOL!!!

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WoundedKnee | Mar 20, 2013, 04:31 PM EDT

Freeman: It's disgraceful that you have hijacked a celebration of this astronaut's respect for the Irish language with your fantasies and lies. You truly have nothing worthwhile to offer here. I realize that readers have little interest in your inanities, but for the record I will state that the claims you make about my interaction with some foreign migrant in Ireland (I still don't understand whether you say this person spoke English, didn't speak English, spoke Irish, didn't speak Irish) are nonsensical creations of your own weird imagination. Worse, you show your hatred for the Irish language (the name of the language is Irish, you idiot) by your vulgar reference to speakers of the language being "paranoid". The paranoid is actually you, Freeman, go back to the medication you were told to take. As to jacersagain, though his tone is rational--unlike the utter nutter Freeman--he is wrong in several respects. I do not "call myself George Dillon". In fact I suspect jacers is posting from Cuckoo Land, since it is years since I saw any posts from that particular source. Jacers's claim that I don't "get my Irish right" is also erroneous and false. The ludicrous aspect is that jacers, like 95% of Irish people, is as utterly incompetent to judge anyone's Irish as I would be to assess his Tagalog or Urdu.

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IrelandNorth | Mar 20, 2013, 04:31 PM EDT

WoundedKnee! Gó ráibh maith agát faoí dó teachtaracht féin síos. Ró dheacharacht é a fhreaghracht, mar atá alán céisteanna faoin an ceist mór. Gách lá, san nuachtán na tuarscirt Éireann - The Irish News/Án Núachtán Éireannach, bhí bileóg abhain as Gaeilge, sé lá gach séachtain. Agús san The Irish Times/Ná Ammana Eireannach gach Dé Ceadaoin, bhí bileof mór as Gaeilge chomh maith. Focaíl amhain gách lá is seacht fócail gách séachtain. Seacht focail gách séachtain is timpeall triocha focail gach mhí. Agús tríocha fócail gach mhí is séasca cúig is trí ceád fócail gach blían.

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jacersagain | Mar 20, 2013, 03:56 PM EDT

(...more for Freeman and now for others too) While we native Irish living in the Republic of Ireland would like to say to the foreign immigrants “Thanks for helping out during the boom years when we needed you to help with our exploding economy but now we would kindlyask (instead of ferociously shouting our heads off at you, which we should really do), would you please go back home?” I’m sick of seeing people sending my tax-payments out of my country back to their familes in their own countries. I can’t go into a supermarket these days or my local grocery store, never mind a hotel or a McDonald’s, without hearing foreign assistants working in these places speaking bad stilted English, never mind trying to sing ‘Danny Boy’ or learn to speak Irish as well as Georgie Boy writes it.

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jacersagain | Mar 20, 2013, 03:49 PM EDT

(...more for Freeman) Georgie Boy, our ICentral “pet” name for Wou’knee (though some ppl have degenerated themselves with their choices of new ‘pet’ names for Georgie) - rightly complains of the overload of foreign immigrants who stayed on here in Ireland after the boom, mostly to avail of the exceptionally generous Social Welfare (SW) payments that they’re entitled to as unemployed EU citizens but the costs of that to the comparatively tiny Irish Exchequer is phenomenal. Many East Europeans are also defrauding the Irish Exchequer with SW claims... When air flights over Europe were stopped for a few weeks because of the volcanic eruption in Iceland, 45,000 fewer SW claims were made in each of the weeks of the flight stoppage; the fraudsters would fly into Ireland using cheap Ryanair flights from their countries to collect the SW payments and fly home the same day with Irish taxpayer’s cash in their pockets. (BTW – a lot of ‘Norn’ Irish also defrauded our Welfare system until they were caught by cross-border checks. Many still do manage to defraud us... (more...)

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jacersagain | Mar 20, 2013, 03:34 PM EDT

@ Freeman – Wounded Knee is an American who also calls himself George Dillon on IrishCentral who visits Ireland often, has Irish roots and Irish relations in Ireland and has bothered to learn how to speak and write Ireland’s native language. He doesn’t always get his Irish right but certainly right enough to be understood by those of us Irish natives still with a lot of Irish in us despite lack of practice and our failure to use it as our national vernacular. During the Celtic Boom years in Ireland, many foreign people came to work here, mostly Polish people (250,000 still resident here), Latvians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Brazilians and a whack load of Muslim people from different countries, especially from Britain, Pakistan and some African countries. (More...)

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seanomelb | Mar 19, 2013, 06:09 PM EDT

Woundebrain this is the 120th anniversary of the "modern Irish language and the official figures are 1.7 million for 26 counties and .2 million fot the 6 counties and a breakdown region is availble. You sit in your trailer and pontificate about matters on which you are ill-informed. AS for the demise of most(not all) of all Koori languages. Please do not refer to Australians first people as Aboriginal thye proper term is "Koori".It's akin to refering to an Irish person as a PADDY or usingthe "N" word.I don't expect an insular yank like you to know this.

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Freeman | Mar 19, 2013, 05:15 PM EDT

Woundedknee, please read my post.You stated that you were disappointed that the immigrant worker DID NOT respond to you in the English language and this incident set you on your anti immigrant course.Why would you be so mad at an immigrant worker not conversing with you in English,rather than the Gaelic language that you are profoundly paranoid about.That,s all. You need to clarify if you are of English or Irish heritage,you cannot be both, especially by someone like you, of intense cultural rationale

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WoundedKnee | Mar 19, 2013, 05:04 PM EDT

IrelandNorth: Tá mé ag ceapadh nár thuig tú i gceart an méid a bhí á rá agam faoin Ghaeilge. Ní dhearna mé tagairt ar bith do mhuintir na hÉireann agus mé ag caint faoi dhaoine i dtíortha eile a bhfuil cumas Gaeilge acu. An rud suimiúl, dar liom, ná go bhfuil daoine sa tSeapáin, sa Rúis, san Airgintín agus go deimhin anseo i SAM a bfhuil Gaeilge acu. Ach níl aon fhianaise ann, agus dar ndóigh ní raibh mo dhuine seanomel in ann fianaise dá laghad a chur ar fáil, chun a theaspáint go bhfuil suim ag lucht inimirce in Éirinn sa teanga nó go bhfuil siad á foghlaim. Is cuma liom faoi sin, sin a rogha féin. An rud nach dtaitníonn liom ná an fhimínteacht a bhíonn ar siúl ag na hEireannaigh faoin cheist seo. Cén fáth go mbeadh spéis ag na heachtrannaigh sa teanga, nuair nach bhfuil puinn suime ag na Gaeil féin inti?

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antoman | Mar 19, 2013, 04:51 PM EDT

Wounded knee my ar*se. Wounded in the head more like.

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WoundedKnee | Mar 19, 2013, 04:48 PM EDT

Freeman--What are you smoking? Sounds like you're hallucinating. I objected to a migrant worker speaking English to me? What, I wanted him to speak Russian or Urdu? You sound like a complete fool.

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