Posts Tagged With: Tulla

Fleadh Cheoil na hÉirean. Ennis 2016

Posted on August 30, 2016 by singersong

I usually don’t do diary-type blogs. But for the Fleadh in Ennis I will make an exception. This is essentially a rehash of my daily posts on Facebook but many of my blog followers are not on Facebook so I am repeating it here for you. Apologies to those who have read it before.

August 13th 2016. Day 1

Just the beginning… The first night of the Fleadh for me was at PJ Kelly’s Pub. Mental. Pub was packed by 9:30 for the regular Saturday session with room for only half a dozen musicians. Great craic but I can only guess what it will be like later in the week.

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August 14th, 2016. Day 2

I’ve said this before, but what happens outside a festival can be as good as being there. This night was a completely different chilled out experience with songs and tunes at one of my favourite haunts, Cornerstone Bar Lahinch. With Eoin O’Neill, Brid O’Gorman, Willie Cummins, Noirin Lynch, Lorraine Battersby and Luka Bloom seeking respite from the mayhem.

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August 15th, 2016. Day 3

There is a great buzz in Ennis and today I felt it for the first time. It was a glorious sunny day and the town looked a treat. Streets adorned with bollards. Ha. No seriously; shops were painted, there were window displays everywhere, some pop-up shops selling music stuff and there were people on the street. I went to a concert in glor with Christy McNamara, Yvonne Casey and Eoin O’Neill. Great music. Narrowly missed Martin Hayes, doing a spot for FleadhTV, looked in at Knox’s, played some tunes at Cruises with Denis Liddy and family, Brid O’Gorman, Lorraine Battersby, Caoilfionn Mooorhead, Veronika von Ruden and Kathleen Bremer and listened to The Fiddle Case in the Sanctuary. In the process I wandered around town and caught a bit of the vibe. Like a street carnival.

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August 16th, 2016. Day 4

The sun beckoned; so today I ended up on Lahinch Beach with my Fleadh houseguests from Czech Republic (Iva and Tereza) and from Germany (Katherina). It was a very high tide and the sea was rough and smashed against the rocks. The red flag was flying so there were just a few mad surfers in the water. I now see why Lahinch brings the surfers. We found a patch of sand near the river mouth and I ended up in the water for my second swim of the summer. Hardly the sun bronzed Aussie but it was a perfect tonic. Eventually we ended up in town for Supermacs and to catch the last of the evening light. Crowds are bigger today and the buskers have hatched. They are everywhere. Then the rain came around 930 and scattered them and the pubs filled. It was tunes at Cruises again and then we ended the night with Los Paddys de las Pampas. Thanks Lorraine for dragging me onto the dance floor. I hope the bruises have recovered. There’s no doubt about where this Fleadh is being held. Ennis is writ large. Thanks to Tereza for the photos with me.

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August 17th 2016, Day 5.

Stayed away from Ennis today but not away from the music. My cottage was filled during the afternoon with the fiddle and pipes of house guests Haley Richardson and Keegan Loesel from New Jersey in the States practicing for their Competition spots. Keegan had entered eight! JC Talty would have been very pleased. And in the evening a very special session at Duggan’s at Spancil Hill where Haley and Keegan and I joined in with Yvonne Casey, John Weir, Christy McNamara and a few other lucky people. There were some some gorgeous songs and a sean nos dance from Kristen, another visitor from Boston. Back into the mayhem tomorrow.

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August 18th, 2016. Day 6

Every day is different, Today started with threatening weather and a battle with the Fleadh traffic. Eventually I found a park miraculously two minutes walk from town but it still took half an hour to get through the throng at 3.30 to the Tune Challenge organised byBoston-based Tommy McCarthy. We were supposed to play Humours of Tulla but we played some reels and barn dances and listened to some songs and then just as we were all ready to launch into it the rain came. Ten minutes later it was fine again. Oh well. This is Ireland. Then I had the most fabulous time dressing up in ridiculous clothes and rehearsing for the Chapel Gates Wren Boys gig (All Ireland Champions you know) and then on to the Gig Rig at 9pm for the absolute highlight for me, of the Festival. What a thrill playing in front of the jam packed street. Many thanks to all the wonderful people who allowed me to participate. Too many to thank but in particular Grainne Fennell and Joan Hanrahan. Thanks also tomy friend from Boston, Kristen, for grabbing my camera and taking some amazing shots. The street party continued until late in the night as the rain held off. Even the security guards were getting into the silent disco!

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August 19th, 2016. Day 7.

At the heart of the Fleadh is the All Ireland Competition. It’s why Comhaltas started the whole thing back in the 1950s. Today I went to the Fiddle Competition. I watched extraordinarily talented kids perform with aplomb in the Under 15s, with my house guest from South Jersey in the US, Haley Richardson coming in second. And then second again in the Slow Air. Congratulations Haley. Amazing playing. There were sessions everywhere like at Nora Culligan’s with Claire Egan, Jack Talty and Paraic Mac Donnchadhna and Friends but try finding a seat! Dodging the showers I settled in for the night at PJ Kelly’s with Eileen O’Brien and Deirdre Mc Sherry etc. Great tunes in a great pub. The picture of the lad with the massive trophy is of William who had just won the U15 Mouth Organ!

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August 20th, 2016. Day 8.

No tunes for me today. Just caught the end of the Under 15 Ceili Band Competition. Absolutely jam packed tent. Congratulations to winners Tulóg Ceili Band from Tulla. Up the Banner! Another showery day but the music continued in the pubs and on the street, in tents, in a caravan at the back of the Old Ground Hotel and even in the shops where I stumbled on the Toyota Ceili Band from Japan. The ferrets were captivated. The crowds were a real challenge and by 9pm many pubs had closed their doors and just weren’t letting anyone else in. So I settled into a corner of Cruises with some new friends and enjoyed the party until the small hours. A quiet day tomorrow? Maybe!

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August 21st, 2016. Day 9.

Wet, wet, wet. So not a lot of time on the streets today. I spent the afternoon checking out the merchandise tent (been there, done that, got the t-shirt) and catching some of the sean nos dance competition. Class. The evening I headed to Miltown Malbay in the pouring rain for a concert by the Tulla Ceili Band. Except it wasn’t a concert it was a mini-ceili. With a few guest acts. This was such a wonderful contrast to the streets of Ennis and very few of the Fleadh visitors made the trek. This was real. No need for the whoop-whoop of FleadhTV. I even got up and danced the Siege of Ennis (appropriate?) A first for me. Then a mighty session at Friels Lynch’s with Joanie Madden and couple of the other Cherished Ladies and Haley Richardson. I like to think of this Fleadh as a Plum Pudding. A great big blob of delicious sweetness but with explosive surprises dotted through it. This was one of those plump little raisins……..

Thanks to Kristen and an anonymous punter for the last two photos.

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August 22nd, 2016. Day 10

The Final Fling!

Monday was such a glorious day of sunshine I didn’t make it in to Ennis until 6.00pm. After saying goodbye to my Fleadh houseguests, Donn and Haley and Lynette and and Keegan, the afternoon was spent on the shoreline at Caherush but I needed just one final fling. So I headed to town. It was quieter on the streets but the pubs were still doing a roaring trade until the rain returned and Ennis regained some semblance of normality. I played a bit in Nora Culligan’s before doing a final wander and returning home well sated.

Some final words. There is something different about a Fleadh in your own home town. I enjoyed it so much more than Sligo. This was a truly unique week. OK I didnt play much and I went to very few concerts but just being part of something like this was enough. Despite the occasional cold and wet there was warmth and welcomes everywhere. It didn’t matter that you couldn’t move in the pubs or get a seat. Everyone was here to enjoy themselves and they did. This is the natural home of the Fleadh.

See you next year. And 2018?

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Categories: Festivals, Sessions, Stories, Trad Irish Music | Tags: All Ireland, Clare, concert, Ennis, Eoin O'Neill, Festival, Fleadh, Fleadh Cheoil, Haley Richardson, Ireland, Irish music, Miltown Malbay, music, photography, Sessions, traditional music, travel, Tulla, Yvonne Casey | Leave a comment

Feakle Matters

Posted on August 14, 2015 by singersong

Since I last posted on Willie Week I have been to schools and festivals at Tubbercurry, Drumshanbo, Achill and Feakle. So I have a bit of catching up to do. I will start with Feakle and post on the other festivals as I have time.

As I write this, the sun is shining and the Quilty coastline looks stunningly gorgeous outside my study window. I should be out there and I will but first I need to say a few words about Feakle before it becomes too distant a memory. Does Feakle matter? (well I thought it was funny at the time – last year in a Guinness-fuelled creative frenzy the idea of a local newspaper with the name Feakle Matters popped up so it seemed logical as the heading for this blog) The answer: yes.

Feakle is an otherwise sleepy village with the four pubs and a fifth, the famous Peppers, about half a mile down the road. It is legendary as the home of PJ Hayes and his illustrious son Martin, and the surrounding villages are the home of many musicians, now and in the past, some of them icons of Irish music. On this weekend it is a one lane street choked with musical pilgrims visiting the spiritual home of East Clare music and the Tulla Ceili Band.

Feakle markets itself as an International Festival. That ‘international’ flavour comes from the hoards of overseas visitors who come specially, though there was one international act ‘The London Lasses’. The music however is pure Irish. I won’t say pure Clare, because visitors from Kerry and Sligo and Galway and elsewhere see to that, but the influence of Mary MacNamara, Martin Hayes and the legacy of Paddy Canny and PJ Hayes shines through everywhere.

There are many highlights and I can’t begin to list them. You could have done a lot worse than to just grab a seat in Peppers and stay there for the full four days. You would have heard Seamus Begley, Martin Hayes, Cliare Egan Paraig Mac Donagh, Derek Hickey Gerry Harrington, Conal O’Grada, Benny Macarthy, Andrew MacNamara, The London Lasses, Pat O’Connor, Mark Donnelan, Cormac Begley, Anne-Marie McCormack, Eileen O’Brien, Dave Sheridan, Charlie Harris, Joan Hanrahan, Brid O’Gorman, Conor Keane, Joe Fitzgerald and the rest. What separates Feakle from the other summer schools and festivals is that people here come for the music. Yes they come for the craic and the Guinness but there is a reverence here that I didn’t find everywhere and often the music was so good that the pub was stunned into silence without the need for a chorus of ssshhhsshh’s. Peppers is one of the best places to listen to Irish music. It is intimate but there is room for both the listener and the player and there is room for the occasional set dance. Sessions at Festivals can be a mixed bag and there are always some that disappoint (I will talk about this in another blog) but here at Feakle the quality is so high that whether you play or listen you can’t fail to be satisfied.

For me. Two days of workshops with Martin Hayes and a day from an equally impressive Yvonne Casey was a major highlight. Martin spoke at length of his approach to playing and there was much wisdom. We were also treated during his class to an impromptu concert from Martin and Mary MacNamara. Wow. Yvonne’s workshop complemented this beautifully and I came away inspired just as a School should. Best of all there was a tutor’s session where a privileged few of us had the opportunity to play for two hours in PJ’s Corner with Martin and his nieces Aiofe and Ciara. It was 4pm so the pub was quiet and it was sublime, respectful and not just a highlight of the festival but of my stay in Ireland.

I was also very lucky to catch up with Joe Fitzgerald. Joe lives in Melbourne with his brothers and is at the centre of the session scene there. He was making a rare visit back to his home near Feakle and I was surprised with the reverence he was held in here. We had a great chat and it turned out he was a sometime prospector and had worked the area around Kookynie in the WA goldfields where I cut my gold exploration teeth in the early 80s. TG4 were filming him for a documentary and afterwards he joined in a session in Peppers. This session was memorable as it had Aiofe and Ciara Hayes and Amy and Sarah Donnelan and other young Feakle/Tulla musicians and amply demonstrated the continuity of the musical tradition in this part of the world. Almost like a handing over of the baton from Joe to the new custodians of this great tradition.

While on the young players, there was a tremendous opening concert with groups of local young musicians, many of whom are County and Provincial champions and will no doubt come home from Sligo as All Ireland champions. Mary MacNamara and Eileen O’Brien and all the others who put so much time into ensuring the young inherit the strong local tradition of quality dance music, with the characteristic bounce and ensure that it is played with honesty, passion and heart are to be commended and thanked.

Feakle is a great meeting place and if the weather is good there is no better place to spend time than on the benches outside Peppers. May this continue well into the future.

There’s plenty more I could say and should but I’ll just put a few pics up. I was so busy playing that I left the camera behind on a number of occasions so I haven’t caught everyone or every great moment but I think you’ll get the picture.

Categories: Festivals, Trad Irish Music | Tags: Clare, concert, dancing, Feakle, Festival, Ireland, Irish music, joe fitzgerald, Martin Hayes, music, Pepper's, Peppers Feakle, photography, Seamus Begley, Sessions, traditional music, travel, Tulla, Yvonne Casey | 3 Comments

Super Sunday

Posted on May 4, 2015 by singersong

What a Sunday.

After a very late night at the Cuckoo Fleadh in Kinvara in Galway I was slow to get started but discovered the perfect antidote at Byrnes Restaurant in Ennistymon. Yvonne Casey and Jon O’Connell. This was as close to pure as you could hope for. It was a sublime combination of music and place. Outside after the night’s heavy rain the Ennistymon falls were gushing. Inside a fiddle and guitar melted together in the hands of two world class players. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t all Irish. At times the small but appreciative audience were mesmerised. I came away enervated but and itching to play.

So off to Kinvara again for the Cuckoo Fleadh. There were sessions everywhere by the time I arrived. The highlight for the day was a session with Brid Harper and eight fiddles. At least until the noise from the local lads became too much. Hope I dont offend anyone but I am a fiddler, and for a change to hear eight of them with only a whistle, flute and concertina was heaven. Great to catch up for tunes with with Moya and Sandra in the back bar of Connollys and with Bridge and Siofra. On top of 11 hours of music the previous day (including a madcap session with Andrew MacNamara and Eileen O’Brien and meeting and playing with Eilish O’Connor again, after 33 years!) I was well satisfied

Then off for a session at the Blacksticks Pub at O’Callaghan’s Mills. It lies somewhere between Feakle and Tulla and is one of those rare gems of pubs. It only has music on holiday Sundays and the session in the kitchen, led by Pat O’Connor and John Canny and attended by locals from Feakle and Tulla was a real little window into East Clare. I will talk more about this in another place but I got home at 3.30am, after pretty much circumnavigating Clare, tired and satisfied.

Categories: Festivals, Sessions, Trad Irish Music | Tags: Blacksticks, Byrne's Restaurant, Clare, Cuckoo Fleadh, Ennistymon, Feakle, Festival, fiddle, Galway, Ireland, Irish music, Jon O'Connell, Kinvara, music, O'Callaghan's Mills, photography, Sessions, traditional music, travel, Tulla, Yvonne Casey | Leave a comment

Burren Backroom Series Concert Ennis

Posted on March 3, 2015 by singersong

A concert of traditional Irish music was held in Ennis on Thursday 26^th February at the Queens Hotel, not a usual venue for this style of music but those who braved the cold February night were well rewarded.

The concert was staged by Tommy McCarthy, from Galway and Boston, in aid of the Walk in my Shoes campaign to support the St Patrick’s Mental Health Foundation. This Foundation helps vulnerable young adults with a need for mental health services. This is one of a series of concerts which Tommy has staged under the banner ‘Burren Backdoor Series’ and it follows on from an earlier successful Facebook campaign involving traditional musicians in Ireland and the US.

Tommy gathered together an extraordinary array of talent mostly from Clare but with a few welcome blow-ins from places such as Donegal, Galway and Tipperary, all who generously gave their services to the cause. What a night.

The evening was very ably hosted by Paula Carroll, one of the presenters on Clare FM’s West Wind programme (which by the way is unquestionably the best nightly Irish traditional music show in the world and a showcase for music from Clare and elsewhere). The show began with the Tulla Junior Ceili Band, all aged between 11 and 14 and displaying a maturity way beyond this. They certainly captured that Tulla sound and this augurs well for the senior band in years to come. Their act had plenty of variety with a shortened brush dance and a delightful recitation from young seanchaí (shanachie), Naois O’Sullivan entitled ‘The Restaurant’. Great to see this fading tradition being handed down from her grandfather, who is also a shanachie. This well and truly set the scene.

There were too many acts and too many wonderful musicians to describe individually. So what were the highlights? A good mix of songs from Mullagh’s own PJ Murrihy and, the internationally renowned Sean Tyrell singing of his native Galway and at the end of the evening a beautiful rendition of Beeswing, but the night belonged to traditional instrumental music. There was a group of local musicians led by Siobhan Peoples who called themselves simply “The Ennis Trad Musicians”, with that energetic sound that regulars at Faffas or Dan O’Connell’s would be very familiar with and there were delicious counterpoints from groups such as the Boruma Trio (Andrew MacNamara, Eileen O’Brien and Geraldine Cotter) with their self-deprecating description of the band as the ‘RTE Light Orchestra’ (though they showed they could pump it out too with a rousing rendition of the Bucks, Rakish Paddy and the High Reel to finish their set!) and the sweet combination of the harp and concertina of Eimear Coughlan and Francis Cunningham. In between we had the McCarthy family Tommy, Louise, daughter Rose and from Miltown, Tommy’s sister Bernadette, a group from Lissycasey, who call themselves ‘In Tune’ (and they were!), which spanned the generation gap, and I have to say my favourite of the night, some gorgeous fiddle playing from Yvonne Casey with tasteful bouzouki from Eoin O’Neill. There was a group called Moher (another ensemble of Clare musicians), some strong representation from Miltown Malbay with regulars from Friel’s Pub and the incomparable Frankie Gavin for good measure. Frankie was worth the 20 euros alone and it was great to see him with just Geraldine Cotter’s piano and without the distraction of other instruments. His effortless bowing and vivacious playing, though definitely not “Clare-style”, was undeniably music from the top drawer and the product of a musician who has been at the top of his game for over forty years.

For those lucky enough to attend, despite the cold inside and out, which even with numerous layers left me with cold knees and toes throughout (God knows how they could play in t-shirts!!), it was a memorable evening with well over four hours of class music.

Another reminder why so many of us call Clare home!

Well done Tommy.

Categories: Concerts, Trad Irish Music | Tags: Burren Backroom Series, concert, Ennis, Frankie Gavin, Ireland, Irish music, photography, Queen's Hotel, Siobhan Peoples, Tommy McCarthy, traditional music, travel, Tulla, Yvonne Casey | 1 Comment

McArthur’s Bar Tulla

Posted on August 29, 2014 by singersong

I mentioned McArthur’s Bar in my recent blog on Tulla. I want to say a few more words on it. This place deserved to be in the late Peter McCarthy’s wonderful book McCarthy’s Bar even though he would have had to stretch the qualifications a bit (If you haven’t read this book it is a must; it is one of the best travel books written on Ireland). I saw the pub during the day and it looked to be just another abandoned building. A peek through the window failed to see any sign of life or even recent use and the weeds growing behind the front window did not look promising. But walking past it at midnight there was a glow of lights through the drawn shades and blurry shadows through the frosted window pane. And the door was just slightly ajar. A familiar murmur came from behind the door. The quiet hum you get from a pub pretending to be shut. I went through the door into the narrowest of rooms and it was jam-packed. With my fiddle on my back I could hardly squeeze through the door and then past the throng. I could hear music and I stood there momentarily until someone seeing my fiddle nodded his head towards the back saying “it’s in there”. I made my way through another narrow door into another crowded room. I couldn’t help but notice the floor as I walked up a distinct concrete slope. One can only imagine this being a huge advantage when they hose it out at the end of the day.

The music was getting louder as I reached the back room. It was coming from a bunch of kids most of whom looked under 15. By now it was midnight. Their parents were watching and lemonades in hand they were producing magic music. I felt like an intruder but was invited to sit in. It was as good a session as any I had been to in Ireland.

This experience showed to me a window into the ‘real’ Ireland. A country that has gone through centuries of struggle and subjugation, indeed attempts to eliminate the Irish music and language, was here thumbing its collective nose at petty authority that says children can’t be in a pub after 9pm. Wonderful.

I said in an earlier post that one needs to “go with the flow” in Ireland. After this experience I should add “if you see an open door go through it”.