Farewell: Ending the Raking Life

In the summer of 2006, Texas Longhorns blogger (and unbeknownst to him, future Domer) Peter Bean took notice of my old site where I dabbled in writing about the Irish (along with summer movies, The OC and the NBA draft).   He reached out and asked if I was interesting in running a Notre Dame site for SBNation.  My friend Rob and I had been discussing starting an Irish-only blog and loved the name "Rakes of Mallow," the title of the Irish jig played during Notre Dame games that has some truly noble lyrics:

Beauing, belling, dancing, drinking,

Breaking windows, cursing, sinking

Every raking, never thinking,

Live the Rakes of Mallow,

Spending faster than it comes,

Beating waiter's bailiffs, duns,

Bacchus' true begotten sons,

Live the Rakes of Mallow.

One time naught but claret drinking,

Then like politicians, thinking

To raise the sinking funds when sinking.

Live the Rakes of Mallow.

When at home, with da-da dying,

Still for mellow water crying,

But, where there's good claret plying

Live the Rakes of Mallow.

When at home with dadda dying,

Still for Mallow-water crying,

But where there is good claret plying

Live the rakes of Mallow.

Living short but merry lives,

Going where the devil drives,

Having sweethearts, but no wives,

Live the rakes of Mallow.

Racking tenants stewards teasing,

Swiftly spending, slowly raising,

Wishing to spend all their days in

Raking as at Mallow.

Then to end this raking life,

They get sober, take a wife,

Ever after live in strife,

And wish again for Mallow.

I jumped at the opportunity, and the SBNation team has been great to me ever since.  On the other hand, I've been less than great to them, as you'll notice the lulls in writing that occurred when the real world got the best of me (Rob Thomas is sort of a prophet when you think about it).  Peter and I were talking about ways of improving the quality and frequency of the posting here to get it up to the standards of the other SBNation ventures, as I'm transitioning into a new role at my real job and will have even less time to work on this site.  After the tossing around of some ideas, the powers that be decided that instead of merging the sites after SBNation purchased the FanTake Network, they were going to just rebrand the Notre Dame presence on SBNation with the fine folks over at One Foot Down.  I'm going to stick around, essaying about football and taking point on basketball coverage, but as far as new posts on Rakes go, this is the final one.

This doesn't actually change that much, other than the URL you need to go to, which will be www.onefootdown.com as soon as the engineers flip the switch.  I'll still be on Twitter (@rakesofmallow), the fine folks at SBNation are footing the bill to keep this site around so all of the archives remain, you can always reach me on e-mail and I'll still be writing about the Irish, just in different places.

I want to thank everyone at SBNation for giving me this chance, and also everyone who has taken the time to write a comment, FanPost or FanShot on this blog.  It still amazes me the reach this site has had covering Weis, Kelly, Brey and the other tremendous programs at Notre Dame, whether it be a friend of a friend thanking me for a post at a random tailgate or seeing someone logged in on the DeBartolo quick access computers checking Rakes between classes.  I've gotten some tremendous feedback, had some fun feuds and got to cover a whole lot of Irish heroics and heartbreak over the last four-plus years.

We've been through some tough times as Notre Dame fans, and while we are mocked - justly, most of the time- for saying the future looks bright, it genuinely feels like things are moving in a very positive direction under Coach Kelly.  I was a big supporter of his hiring and it seems like, just maybe, those of us who thought Kelly-to-ND was a good idea might be right about something. 

So again, thank you all, and please go over and register at One Foot Down as soon as it's live on the SBNation servers.  This blog is departing into the blue, gray sky, but there are still plenty of great places to get your Irish fix on the internet.  And as long as there are insane voices out there clamoring for three fullbacks in at all times (so, you know, forever), I'll do my best to try and provide a slighter calmer version of things.

Less than eighty days until kickoff.  Go Irish, Beat Bulls.