DarrenByrne.com

I saw Delorentos in Greystones Theatre last year. Strictly speaking, I went to see Director, but Delorentos were playing support and trying out some new songs. The songs were among their best. They were far more impressive than Director on the night and they left me desperate to hear more from them.

Today, on Twitter, Ray Foley said that Delorentos were no more. Rapture Ponies emailed me some more details in the form of a statement from the band:

We’ve got some sad news.

It’s with a very heavy heart that we have to let you know that Ronan has decided to leave the band. He feels it’s best for him to move on and do other things. The three of us will still be making music and will let you know what happens next.

As our songs always came from the four of us playing together we’ve also decided that it wouldn’t feel right to continue “delorentos” without him.

We’re all very proud of the songs we’ve written over the last year, we feel they’re some of the best we’ve ever done, and as a result we’re determined not to discard them or let them go.

Next month, the four of us are going to record this album together and plan on making it something we’ll all be proud of. It’ll be our last collection of songs as delorentos, and we hope you’ll like them.

We want to thank everyone that’s supported us since we started, we’d never have gotten this far without you. We hope to play a gig or two to say goodbye.

We’ll be in touch soon with more details.

Ross, Níal and Kieran and Ro

I really look forward to the new album, but I’ll be sad to see the group disband.

My much better half, Lottie, has made it to the short list for Best Newcomer at the Irish Blog Awards for her site, The National Lottie. I couldn’t be more proud.

I am so lucky that when I first buried my head in the blogging world a year ago, she did not slag me off for being a nerd (okay, she did a bit) and she did not give out that I was spending too much time online. Instead, she held my hand and jumped in head first with me. In this past year, I have learned so much more about her, things I may never have discovered had she not had this wonderful creative outlet. Her words and thoughts have been inspiring and funny and I’ve loved reading it all.

Congratulations to Lottie and fingers crossed you’ll bring home the Best Newcomer Bloggie.