A Gaelic toast, "to your very good health," pronounced "slawn-cha va."

Also, a high-energy, young band from Cape Breton that feature step dancing, bagpipes, electric guitar, piano and a heckuva a lot of fun. They have a website at http://www.slaintemhath.com that includes MP3 samples of their self-titled CD.

I saw them perform at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games on July 7, 2000 during the multi-band "Celtic Jam." The kids, whom no one had likely heard of before that night, would have blown the roof off the place had it been an indoor concert.

Their website includes a tour schedule (largely limited to Canadian locations through 2000). If you enjoy Celtic-derived modern music and would like to see a new band that is still surprised when they get a standing ovation, you should check them out soon. They gave one of the best live performances I have ever witnessed.

(Note that there is a German band of the same name with recordings available at MP3.com; these are not the droids you're looking for. Also a web search revealed another, older Canadian band with the same name.)

Slainte Mhath is the title of a Song from the rock band Marillion.

Its the 9th track on their 4th studio album titled "Clutching at Straws" which was their last album with the Scottish singer/songwriter Fish. It's basically about a man in a bar (Fish himself some say) drinking and telling about his problems.

Slainte Mhath
Lyrics: Fish
Music: Fish/Kelly/Mosley/Rothery/Trewavas

A hand held over a candle in angst fuelled bravado
A carbon trail scores a moist stretched palm
Trapped in the indecision of another fine menu
And you sit there and ask me to tell you the story so far
This is the story so far
Shuffling your memories dealing your doodles in margins
You scrawl out your poems across a beermat or two
And when you declare the point of grave creation
They turn round and you to tell them the story so far
This is the story so far

And you listen with a tear in you eye
To their hopes and betrayals and your only reply
Is Slŕinte Mhath

Princes in exile raising the standard Drambuie
Parading their anecdotes tired from old campaigns
Holding their own last orders commanding attention
We sit here and listen to all of the story so far
This is the story so far

Take it away, take it away, take it away
Take me away, take me away, take me away

From the dream on the barbed wire at Flanders and Bilston Glen
From a Clydeside that rusts from the tears of its broken men
From the realisation that we've been left behind
Is to stand like our fathers before us in the firing line

Waiting on the whistle to blow
We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow
They promised us miracles, and the whistle still blows
Broken promises but the whistle still blows
Waiting on the whistle to blow
We stand here waiting on the whistle to blow