ITMA presents Drawing from the Well featuring Galway uilleann piper Pádraic Keane. Drawing from the Well connects artists with archival material to inspire new art.

In this 30 minute programme, Pádraic delves into the life and music of piper Michael Carney from Irishtown, one of the eminent musicians New York in the 1920’s. Keane gleans insights into Carney’s much celebrated piping through interviews with Seán McKiernan, Andrea Palandri, Denis Igoe and John Tuohy.

View other Drawing from the Well episodes here.

All donations help to support the preservation of Irish traditional music, song and dance. To find out more about donating to ITMA please follow this link.

ITMA presents singer, songwriter, musician Christy Moore in the first episode of a new series SAOITHE, featuring in-depth conversations with seven of Ireland’s leading tradition bearers.

An interview with the late Paddy Moloney (1938-2021) which was recorded in ITMA in April 2021. Uilleann piper, tin whistle player, composer, arranger and leader of The Chieftains, Paddy made an enormous contribution to Irish traditional music, song and dance.

Dolly McMahon was born and raised in East Galway into a house that was rich in folklore, history and music. Her father Martin had a stór of local songs and seanchas which he passed on to his daughter Dolly. After marrying Ciarán Mac Mathúna in the mid 1950s, she moved to Dublin and became a central figure in the traditional music and ballad revival in the 1960s. Her album on the Claddagh label ‘Dolly’ was a seminal release in 1966. Dolly’s style and repetoire has been an inspiration to younger singers including contemporary artiste Lisa Lambe. This interview opens a window to Dolly’s unique musical background in conversation with Lisa with whom she has developed a close relationship

As a solo artist and an integral part of The Chieftains since 1979, Matt Molloy stands apart as one of the country’s truly outstanding musicians.

By the time Matt moved from his home in Ballaghadereen Co. Roscommon in the mid 1960s he had already gained a reputation for his musical ability on the flute, amassing a string of successes at the Fleadh and Oireachtas competitions. Once in Dublin he quickly became a leading figure in the bourgeoning music scene. A founder member of The Bothy Band, Matt also spent a short period with Planxty. He has enjoyed enduring and powerful musical relationships with many musicians including Liam O’Flynn, Seán Keane, Paul Brady, Tommy Peoples, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, and Dónal Lunny.

Amhránaí ar an sean-nós í Sarah Ghriallais as Muiceanach i nGaeltacht Chonamara. Bhuaigh sí Corn Uí Riada ag Oireachtas na Gaeilge i 1984, agus bronnadh TG4 Gradam Ceoil Amhránaí uirthi i 2022. Le dhá thaifeadadh déanta aici, is amhranaí í a bhfuil an-mheas uirthi ar fud an domhain. Anocht tá sí caint le Síle Denvir sa sraith nua Saoithe ó ITMA.

Sarah Ghriallais is a sean nós singer from Muiceanach in the Connemara gaeltacht. Winner of Corn Uí Riada at the 1984 Oireachtas, she was awarded Gradam TG4 Singer of the Year in 2022. Tonight she is in conversation with Síle Denvir in the new ITMA series Saoithe.

ITMA is delighted to present Drawing from the Well 2021 Episode 4, a video featuring the Dublin singer and instrumentalist Daoirí Farrell exploring the life and songs of Kathleen Behan (1889–1984).

Best known as the mother of playwright Brendan Behan, and singer, song writer Dominic Behan, Kathleen Behan (née Kearney) came from a family rich in song, and the traditions of Dublin. She lived through the Easter Rising of 1916 and carried with her a vibrant spirit which she passed on to her children.

Frankie Gavin, the 2018 Gradam Ceoil TG4 Musician of the Year, joins Liam O’Connor for an in-depth interview – and tunes!

Flute player Catherine McEvoy was raised in Bermingham of Roscommon parents. Returning to Ireland in the 1970s, she soon came to prominence as one of the ground-breaking female flute players of her generation. In this in-depth interview with ITMA Director Liam O’Connor, the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year 2019, shares tunes and insights into a lifetime of playing, recording and teaching.

In the December episode of Drawing from the Well, Mayo harper Laoise Kelly presented the story of fellow Mayo native Hugh Higgins who played at the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792, and whose airs were documented by Edward Bunting.

For the November episode of Drawing from the Well singer Lisa O’Neill delves into the resources of the Irish Traditional Music Archive to research the life and songs of Arthur Griffith.

In the October edition of Drawing from the Well, Jesse Smith explores collections by P.W. Joyce, Francis O’Neill and Martin Mulvihill to bring a selection of little known tunes to life on the fiddle.

Drawing from the Well for September 2021, features the Hurley Sisters as they explore connections between tunes, songs and stories associated with the famed “Petticoat Loose” of Co. Waterford.

The premiere of “Petticoat Loose: A Wicked Woman of Irish Folklore, Music, and Song” took place Wednesday 15 September 2021. It is now available to view on:

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Our investigation of Petticoat Loose began when, after playing the tune together, a half-remembered fragment of a story came to mind. We searched the wonderful resource that is www.duchas.ie which houses the National Folklore Collection UCD Digitization Project, including the Schools Project. A search revealed multiple stories about Petticoat Loose – we read these voraciously and discovered a real woman often named as Mary Hannigan of Co. Waterford, who committed crimes of varying degrees of severity. A common theme is her death and subsequent return to haunt the locality, before being banished for all eternity to undertake a Sisyphean task, like weaving ropes from sand or emptying a lake with a thimble.

These various tales led us deeper into the world of folklore, finding motifs and symbols such as the spirit of Petticoat Loose crying “Pull the Knife and Stick it Again!” as she is stabbed with a black-handled knife – a phrase we know from the title of a jig played by Matt Molloy on his 1976 recording on the Mulligan Label. We located that tune in the Breandan Breathnach collection Ceol Rince na hÉireann Volume 3, the notes of which directed us to an interesting account by Eugene Ó Curry published by George Petrie in Ancient Music of Ireland (1855) of the Cailleach Bhéil Atha (the Hag of Balla) in Co. Clare.

Petrie’s sentiments match our own to some extent as we have deviated from music into folklore: “And although the subject may be considered as not strictly in accordance with the primary purpose of this work, I trust that few of my readers will object to my securing in this place remarks of so much interest”

The following are some excerpts from O’Curry’s account. There was a belief, strongly held at the time of writing, that the “Tuatha de Dananns…were in possession of a mortal immortality — and that they had the power to carry off from this visible world men and women in a living state, but sometimes under the semblance of death.”

Those taken from the living world were often infants, taken for the childless of the Tuatha de Danann, or else young men or women in their prime, often on their wedding days, to be given to an otherworldly lover, or in some cases, “fresh, well-looking nurses for their nurseries”.

The exchanges happened in different ways – in some cases, those taken were swapped for a sickly looking child, or old man or woman as the case may require. In others, the human subject died to all appearances, but people guessed it was not a real death and began to take steps to rescue their loved ones from the good people (i.e. the fairies). In yet more stories, the human is whipped off the brink of a river or lake, or out to sea by a gust of wind – but then taken down to a “noble mansion and plain, over which the water was but a transparent atmosphere”. It was generally believed at the time that “fairy captives are redeemable within a year and a day, but after that they are lost forever”.

“The black-hafted knife was the only formidable mortal weapon in fairy warfare – a single thrust or stab from it was fatal; but a second rendered the first one harmless.”

O’Curry recounts the story of the Cailleach Bhéil Atha (the Hag of Balla) who would watch from her seat in an old fort between Kilkee and Doonbeg, Co. Clare for a passing gentleman to capture. As she leapt onto the horse of one such candidate, the man plunged a black-handled knife into her left side. “Tarraing agus sáigh arís” – draw and plunge again – said the hag. But the man neither answered nor obeyed, and she immediately fell off the horse and disappeared. In the morning, the man returned to the spot with some neighbours, “where they found the black-hafted knife stuck in a small lump of jelly, resembling what the peasantry call a fallen star”.

This article also gives us an insight into O’Curry’s own beliefs, and those of his family – he tells the story of a priest who was drowned around 1812, and whose mother and brothers “who were sensible and well-informed men, continued not only for a year and a day but for seven years, to put in action the available anti-fairy force of the whole province of Munster for his recovery, and this with a confidence that was sickening to my father and mother, who were the only people I ever knew in that country who were total unbelievers in such doctrines. It is hardly necessary to say that poor Fr. Molony never came back”.

As we looked into the tune Petticoat Loose, we discovered printed versions of the tune from 1748 onwards, but one that we selected to play in our episode of Drawing from the Well comes from a collection by a piper named John Murphy, which was published in Edinburgh in 1809 – you can access the score in the archive of Na Píobairí Uilleann.

We also find a version of the tune in the Canon Goodman collections “Tunes of the Munster Pipers” – one in Volume 1 and another in Volume 2. The tune later published in O’Neill’s Waifs & Strays of Gaelic Melody (1922) is similar to the tune in Volume 1, and is another we selected to perform in our episode.

A completely unrelated tune entitled Petticoat Loose can be found in O’Neill’s 1001 Dance Tunes of Ireland – we enjoyed listening to Dermot & Joe McLoughlin playing this tune in this YouTube clip. This is similar to the tunes The Rooms of Dooagh, Brian O’Lynn, and The Maiden that Jigs it in Style; however, it’s the version of this tune that’s found in the P.W. Joyce Collection ‘Old Irish Folk Music and Songs’ under the name ‘The Banks of Glenoe’ that really struck a chord with us – the interactive score can be accessed on the ITMA website here.

We had a great chat with James Kelly about the origins of the title for the reel he calls Petticoat Loop on his 1989 recording Capel Street, a tune he says came from Johnny Doherty. That investigation proved inconclusive in terms of relationships with Mary Hannigan or any of the jigs we’ve previously discussed, but one thing we know is that there is a tune also called Petticoat Loop in the Grier Collection, also in 4/4 time.

More recent recordings of the tune we commonly think of as Petticoat Loose include Conal O’Gráda’s rendition on his 1990 album The Top of Coom – we enjoyed his sleeve notes in which he says “The tune is also known as Strop the Razor. I learned it from Séamus Glackin, a member of the fiddle playing family from Dublin, when we shared a caravan at the All Ireland Fleadh Ceoil in Ennis. This was long before either of us had use for a razor or any knowledge of petticoats, loose or otherwise.”

Further immersion in the many books in the ITMA Reading Room led us to uncover the mention of a song, along with the lyrics, in an article on Petticoat Loose by Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin in An Linn Buí, Iris Ghaeltacht na nDéise, Uimhir 5. The song was listed as being in manuscript 23 E 1 in the Royal Irish Academy from the James Hardiman collection – collected by an unnamed scribe for Hardiman, likely in 1834, but no earlier.

The lyrics of the song place it in Dromana, a few miles from Cappoquin, in County Waterford. It features many recognisable elements of the story from our earlier explorations of the Schools’ Collection. Petticoat Scaoilte is represented as a handsome, well-dressed pub landlady, with an appetite for drinking and dancing. Her ‘layabout’ husband sits at home, awaiting her return, and when he enquires as to her whereabouts for the night, she replies ‘I’ve been drinking and revelling, and I’ve paid the reckoning!” Our priest figure features here too, and we’re told that there isn’t a brother, priest or clergy in the land who wouldn’t dearly love to absolve Petticoat of her sins.

We were delighted to learn about this song, and even more so when we got access to the Royal Irish Academy to uncover a further manuscript which combined lyrics and printed music for ‘Peticóat Sgaoilte’. This revealed that the song was sang to a melody very similar to the tune first printed in London as Petticoat Loose in the mid 1700s. It is unclear whether the tune originated there, or was perhaps brought to London by travelling Irish musicians, but at the very least we can see that this melody of Petticoat Loose was conflated with the story of the wild, wicked Petticoat Loose in Co. Waterford by the early 1800s.

Over the course of our research, we noted the many parallels between the ways the tunes and folklore have varied over time and in different regions. While hugely indebted to those who worked to preserve our tradition, any understanding we can piece together today is also undoubtedly shaped by the influence of the collectors and scribes of our oral tradition.

We thought that a good place to end this reflection might be with some words from Micho Russell, found in the introduction to his book of tunes ‘The Piper’s Chair’:

“Anybody learning these tunes is free to play them their own way. I’ve given you what you call the bones of the tunes, but everybody is free to make up different versions. You can doctor it up yourself. Just be sure you use the correct time”.

Mairéad & Deirdre Hurley – September 2021

Click here to view a zine featuring Petticoat Loose, created by Mairéad Hurley, including illustrations by Ríona Ní Riagáin. 

Sisters Mairéad and Deirdre Hurley grew up in a musical household in Ballymote, Co. Sligo, and were immersed in the music of their locality from a young age.

Mairéad was the winner of the All-Ireland senior concertina title at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in 2006. She has performed on stages and taught concertina master classes in Ireland and the UK, as well as in various locations across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In 2014, she was the resident Irish music tutor at the Gaelic Club in Sydney, Australia. In 2016, Mairéad, John Blake and Nathan Gourley released a trio album entitled The Truckley Howl, the name coming from an enigmatic phrase uttered by legendary piper Séamus Ennis.

Deirdre has also performed extensively at home and abroad, including appearances in Áras an Uachtaráin, Liberty Hall and further afield in Switzerland, Lithuania and Slovakia. She appears on The Thursday Sessions album released by The Cobblestone Pub, where she has been a regular feature on the session scene for a number of years. She has also made appearances as a singer at NPU’s Session with the Pipers, as well as at the Frank Harte and Sean-Nós Cois Life festivals.

Both sisters have made numerous television appearances, and performed together as part of Slí na mBeaglaoich on TG4 in 2021.

Drawing from the Well is a monthly series connecting artists with archival material to inspire new art. It is supported by Bank Of Ireland Begin Together Arts Fund in partnership with Business to Arts.

Find information on artists who have featured in the series and upcoming artists https://www.itma.ie/drawingfromthewell

The Drawing from the Well series is supported by Bank of Ireland #Begintogetherarts fund in partnership with Business to Arts.

Every donation, no matter the amount, helps support the preservation of Irish traditional music, song and dance. If you would like to help, please click to support us https://www.itma.ie/contact/support

Award winning accordion player Conor Connolly joined Alan Morrisroe in the ITMA Reading Room for an evening of discussion and live music. The musicians who hail from Galway and Mayo respectively, delved into the early recorded history of Irish traditional music and some of the accordion players which have been a source of inspiration and intrigue to Conor along his own musical path.

Conor was awarded the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Ceoltóir Óg/Young Musician of the Year in 2019.

Aoife Granville explores the musical contribution and impact of the First Ladies of Traditional Flute: Teresa Gardiner, Deirdre Collis, Peig Ryan, Peg McGrath and Anne McAuliffe.

Join fiddle player Aoife Ní Bhriain in the latest episode of Drawing from the Well as she shares her continuing journey to transcribe and interpret the music and creativity of fellow Dublin fiddle icon Tommie Potts. The live stream event features Aoife in discussion with Martin Hayes and Liam O’Connor, archival recordings of Tommie Potts, and of course live performances from Aoife herself.

ITMA is delighted to present Drawing from the Well 2021 Episode 5, a video featuring Steve Cooney, Iarla Ó Lionáird and Odhrán Ó Casaide. The trio discuss, and reflect on the enduring legacy of the 19th century collector Canon James Goodman. James Goodman (1828−1896), a native of Dingle, Co. Kerry, canon of the Church of Ireland and Professor of Irish at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) compiled an exceptional 19th century music and song manuscript collection in the southwest of Ireland.

Drawing from the Well 2021 opens with singer/musician Radie Peat exploring some of the more dark and subversive themes found in her ballad repertoire.

Focusing on four songs, the half-hour video features powerful performances from the singer as well as giving us an insight into how she sources & interprets material from the tradition.

Darker and more devious than I thought it would be! Radie Peat on her Drawing from the Well journey, 2021

Radie is no stranger to the Irish Traditional Music Archive. In 2012/13 the critically acclaimed band Lankum, of which she is a member, recorded their first album Cold Old Fire in the ITMA Recording Studio.

But her visits over the years also took her to the Archive Reading room to delve into the extensve song collections in ITMA: sound recordings of older singers, unpublished recordings, & printed ballad collections. Drawing from the Well was an ideal opportunity to focus in more depth on this aspect of her relationship with archival material.

Over a number of months in the company of Alan Woods, ITMA Non-Commercial Media Officer & a singer himself, they went back to the drawing board to listen to singers, versions of songs, finding and filling mysterious gaps, and opening up the darker elements of interpretation that reach out from history in these songs.

What Put the Blood?

Also known as: Edward / My Son David

Song Indexes: Roud 200 ; Child 13

List of sound recordings: Mainly Norfolk

The version that Radie sings in Drawing from the Well and which appears in the Lankum album ‘Cold Old Fire’, is based on/inspired by the singing of Traveller singer Mary Delaney.

A lovely singer, mother of sixteen children and blind from birth, Mary has an enormous repertoire of outstanding songs and ballads that she has known since childhood, as well as a store of humorous yarns that gave us many hours of pleasure. From Puck to Appleby (Musical Traditions, 2003)

Recorded originally by Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie in London in 1977, the song can be heard on Topic Records The Voice of the People. Volume 17. It Fell on a Day a Bonny Summer’s Day.

Arranmore is an island off the north west coast of Ireland, three miles from Burtonport off the Donegal coast. There are about 400 people living on the island year-round. My mother was born and raised on Arranmore, and although I grew up in Carlow, we spent our school holidays on the island. My parents moved back to the island permanently a few years ago, and my sister Fiona has since moved there with her three girls and her husband Jesse.

Singing is and always has been an integral part of Arranmore life and identity. Unaccompanied singing was hugely popular on the island in the past, especially in the days of the teach earnáil – or the rambling home as it was known. People would gather in each other’s houses and pass the time with stories, dances and songs, spinning yarns and having the craic. These days, you’re likely to hear songs accompanied by guitar, accordion and percussion in the bars on the island, but there are also plenty of amazing unaccompanied singers. People dance a lot on Arranmore too in the way that Donegal people often do – they jive and waltz to anything that’s the right pace.

Luckily, plenty of singers have been recorded on the island over the years. The biggest single collection of Arranmore recordings was made by Hugh and Lisa Shields in 1977.

Hugh & Lisa Shields Recordings 1977

I first heard and discovered these recordings while on work experience in the ITMA in 2010. I was put to work in a room alongside Lisa Shields, who got chatting to me about music and my family. By an unbelievable stroke of luck, it turned out that Lisa had recorded and remembered my grandfather and great-grandmother, who she had spent a fair bit of time with on that trip.

I got to hear recordings of my family, of my ancestors that I hadn’t met. I think that moment changed the course of my life.

There was something strangely familiar about hearing the voice of my grandfather. At the time I had only just started to sing a few traditional songs but finding those recordings ignited my interest in the singing of Arranmore, the songs that my grandfather had, and the other songs people sang that weren’t recorded.

Róise Bean Mhic Grianna – Róise na nAmhrán

I soon became interested in the singing of Róise Bean Mhic Grianna, also known as Róise Rua or Róise na nAmhrán, who my sister Aoife had done extensive research on and introduced me to. I remember the first time I heard her singing. I was in another room and thought it was an old American blues singer. The character of her voice is unique, and she had a large and diverse repertoire of songs. Róise is the most recorded and documented singer from Arranmore, and her recordings have become quite influential on traditional singing all over Ireland.

I could write a lot about Róise Rua from stories that I’ve been told about her, singers I’ve heard speak about her, and songs of hers that I’ve researched. There’s a fantastic Siúlach Scéalach programme about her available online, made by Raidió na Gaeltachta a few years ago that I highly recommend listening to. There’s also a great book about her life called Róise Rua: An Island Memoir, written by Padraig Ua Cnáimhsí and translated by JJ Keaveny (Mercier Press, 2009).

Most of what I know about Róise came from my sister Aoife, from Andrew Early and from one or two other people on the island who knew her. She is fondly remembered by those who knew her as a kind, humble woman, who would often have visitors to her home in Screag a tSeabhac where she lived with her husband Séamie. Róise was a remarkable singer, but it’s thanks to Padraig Ua Cnáimhsí, a former schoolmaster on the island, that she was noticed, and her songs documented and recorded.

Róise was recorded in 1953 by RTÉ and the Irish Folklore Commission. In the early 90s, Cathal Goan went looking for the tapes, planning a radio programme about her for RTÉ, and eventually found them on the roof of the General Post Office (GPO). Audio storage at the time was all physical and bulky, so RTÉ had to make space at some stage in their archives. The recordings had been transferred onto acetate disks and then left on the roof of the GPO on O’Connell Street in Dublin. Some of the recordings were irreparably damaged and some bits of songs were missing, but there was still enough in those tapes to compile a full CD which was released in 1994 by RTÉ – Róise na nAmhrán: songs of a Donegal woman / Róise na nAmhrán [Róise Mhic Grianna] (RTÉ CD178).

When Róise’s recordings surfaced in the early 90s, her singing became quite influential. The kind, humble woman from Arranmore became an important and valuable source of North-West Donegal singing. Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh really championed Róise’s songs, reconstructing some of them using manuscripts and other versions of songs she heard from local singers around Gaoth Dobhair.

One of my favourites of these is ‘Ceol a’ Phíobaire’. In this song, a piper tries to convince his darling to elope with him. He warns her against all other men, the ones with craft and farm jobs, and assures her that she’d be much better off with him and the sweet tones of his music. I found another version of this song in the book Filíocht na nGael, with a verse I hadn’t heard at the end. As I soon found out, the same verse was also recorded by Albert Fry on his album Tráthnóna beag aréir (Gael Linn, 1972; CD reissue 2008)

Wherever Róise learned the song, she had a few verses that she may well have made up herself. She sang the words ‘A mhuirnín dhílis, éalaigh ó” or “my sweet darling, escape-o” as opposed to “is fhaoileann óg’ – meaning fair young maiden. Róise told Seán Ó hEochaidh that it was about a woman who was marrying someone she didn’t want to marry, and that the piper was trying to get her to escape with him instead.

I love thinking about the process that these songs have gone through over the past few hundred years – like a long game of Chinese whispers with plenty of imagination involved. It’s easy to see how the words ‘is fhaoileann óg’ would have morphed into éalaigh-ó, and how that changes the sentiment of the song. The words éalaigh-ó just sing very well too.

I’ve recorded and filmed a song for this project that I learned from Róise’s recordings – it’s a song called ‘Máire Bhán’. ‘Máire Ní Ghríofa’ is the Connemara version of the same song, but this version morphed to be more Arranmore-relevant at some stage along the way, and mentions Oileán Árainn in the first line. There’s a much longer version of the song sung by Teresa McClafferty out on Tory Island too available to listen to on TG4 Cartlann Sean Nóis.

It’s a typical old romantic Irish song and Róise’s version includes all the best tropes – the protagonist tells Máire Bhán that he wouldn’t even ask for any cows with her, such is his true love, then he gets lost in a foggy place, and by the end of the song he’s sick and in need of care from her.

It was specially recorded for this podcast and is the first time I’ve released it.

Other great Arranmore singers and central characters

Biddy Joe O’Donnell, Charlie Rua McColl, Joe Phil Bhig Rogers, Dónal Phaidí Hiudan, Packie Boner, Barney Beag Gallagher & Andrew Early

As you can imagine. Róise wasn’t the only singer on the island at the time, but there were and still are plenty of great singers and songs on Arranmore.

One song that I was told Róise sang a unique version of is ‘Tiocfaidh an Samhradh is Fásfaidh an Féar.’ While Róise’s version wasn’t recorded, others on the island were, including Biddy Joe O’Donnell. Biddy Joe was a professional singer in her day apparently and even sang at funerals as a keener. Something happened at some stage in her life that turned her off singing, however, and she never sang much after that. Even when these songs were recorded, you can hear her saying in one of the recordings that she was worried the other people in the room would laugh at her singing. I think she’s an amazing singer, and I’m so glad that she was recorded.

I love the unusual melody she has for ‘Once I Loved’, and another song she sings – ‘Pleoid Ort a Neidí gan Seanadh’ was another very local song, and mentions a few local placenames like Poll a Mhadaigh.

Popular songs & their place in the community

One of the things I’m always curious to find out about are what songs were popular on Arranmore and where they might have circulated from before the radio came to the island. Some old songs like ‘Níl Sé ‘na Lá’, ‘Tiocfaidh an Samhradh’, ‘Buachaill Ón Éirne’ & ‘Siún Ní Dhuibhir’ were sung by a lot of people, but there were also plenty of songs in English sung on the island.

I was told that the dancehall on the island was run by Phil Neily, a man who was a renowned fiddle player all over Donegal and beyond. The first building at the new pier on Arranmore is where that dancehall was – in the old mill building. Néillidh Boyle was a regular there, as were Mickey and Johnny Doherty, and the door charge would be increased when either of them were in. I was told that at some stage in the night they’d pause the dance and step dancers or singers would be called on to perform.

‘The Factory Girl’, ‘The Flower of Sweet Strabane’, ‘The Maid of Culmore’, ‘The Lowlands of Holland’ and any songs about the Enniskillen Dragoons were big hits apparently. The songs were given their own moment in the night, a good chance to sing to an attentive crowd, and maybe even to be noticed by someone you fancied or to get a sing-along going. By the sounds of things, having a good song was hugely valuable, and occasions like these highlight the role that ballads would have had at gatherings on the island. At the time on Arranmore, a lot of people learned songs from ballad sheets, or just ballads as they were known.

Charlie describes the process people went through when learning songs from ballads in the way he did with that song. There’s another great version of that song from the singing of Mary Connors, a traveller recorded in Belfast in 1952 by Peter Kennedy. Judging by her singing of the song, it seems as though Charlie and herself sang the same lyrics – so Charlie’s memory of them was intact, but he just made up a melody of his own. Having sung and heard enough songs, he imagined the song for himself.

An Bacach Siúl – John Martin

I got chatting one evening to Dr. Johnny Duffy, an Arranmore man in his late 80s who has an incredibly memory – a wealth of knowledge and history. Johnny had been trying to think of a translation for the word vagabond, and he got talking about people who used to visit the island when he was a small boy. He said that there were people who would travel around on their own, calling into houses, maybe begging or selling things, who would often sing songs and tell stories. He said these people weren’t necessarily travellers – as in the ethnic group we have in Ireland, but they were known as bacaigh siúil or a bacach siúil. The word bacach, as in the song bacach síol andaí, means tramp or a lame person, but not in a derogatory way. These people weren’t lame, but some of them were physically disabled in some way that may have prevented them from working at manual labour.

The best known bacach siúl when Johnny Duffy was growing up, he said, was a man named John Martin. John Martin used to travel around selling ballad sheets and singing songs in public, often through a horn that he used to amplify his voice, and could be heard all over the island. He sold ballad sheets printed by the Three Candles Press in Dublin, and he used to sing in the schools sometimes. People would often take him in, and he would always be given food and a bed for the night by anyone he called in to.

I was intrigued by the story of John Martin, and I did a little digging that evening. I searched the ITMA catalogue, and saw a reference to him having been recorded by Séamus Ennis at the cattle fair in Gortahork, in Donegal, in 1954. The archive had a copy of this recording and I was sent it the next morning. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard it first.

Séamus Ennis was working for the BBC at the time. It’s an amazing recording of the entire scene. John Martin was recorded singing through the horn. There are cows mooing, people chatting and laughing, and you can hear that he turned as he sang in different directions. At the end you can hear him laughing a bit. Séamus Ennis interviewed him too, but he didn’t take Séamus Ennis or any of his questions too seriously and he sounded like a real character. The song is the ‘Turfman From Ardee’.

I was delighted to find that these recordings of John Martin existed, but I had a notion that morning to contact Michael Fortune – a brilliant folklorist from Wexford, to see if he might have seen any pictures of him, or if he might know anything about the bacach siúl. The story then took an unbelievable twist.

As it turned out, Michael not only knew about John Martin, but he knew where he was buried and even where the horn was.

In the late 50s John Martin spent a lot of time in Wexford, cycling between villages, selling ballads, singing at fairs or in schools, and sleeping in people’s barns. One morning in the early 60s he was found dead in someone’s barn, so the local community collected the money to bury him, in the corner of a graveyard where they buried unknown sailors who washed up on the shore. He was a loved by all in the community in Wexford, and is fondly remembered by those who knew him. Michael sent me some photos of the grave, which he visited a few years ago. His cousins put the cross on it, and local people still place flowers on bacach siúl’s grave.

These wandering vagabonds, the bacaigh siúl, didn’t just pass around old ballads, as I discovered.

The bards – songwriters & poets of Arranmore

Peadar Breathnach, was a travelling tailor and a prolific songwriter from Glenfin in Donegal who lived from 1825-1870. ‘Amhrán Pheadar Bhreathnaigh’ is a song that he wrote about something that happened to him on Arranmore, and actually took place in the pub in Leabgarrow which is now Jerry Early’s bar. My grandfather sang this song and it seems as though it was recorded by Hugh Shields in 1977, but that the recording was lost from the tapes at some stage. What we still have is a recording of him telling the story of the song, and recordings of some other singers singing it.

From what I can tell, it seems like Arranmore has always had a strong tradition of song writers, and a strong connection with poets and writers from the mainland. My mam remembers Seán Bán Mac Grianna coming in to visit her dad on a regular basis, bringing a few notebooks and a bottle of whiskey with him to go through some of his new songs with Barney.

Songwriting in a traditional form is still going on on Arranmore, whether or not the songwriters are aware of it. The song ‘I’ll Go’, written by Jerry Early and John Gallagher a few years ago, was written about a heroic lifeboat rescue off the coast of Donegal in 1940, when eight fishermen from Arranmore rescued 18 dutch sailors from their ship in the middle of a hurricane. I’ve written a few songs on the same story, and I made a radio ballad about it earlier this year.

To my ears, ‘I’ll Go’ follows similar form and structure to that of a seafaring ballad – maybe along the lines of ‘We’ll Go to Sea No More’. Whether or not Jerry and John knew it at the time, I consider their song to be part of this old tradition of songwriting on the island. After it was written, the song was recorded and produced in a modern style, but if it’s stripped back to the bare bones, it’s a lot closer to a traditional ballad.

Andrew was recorded singing that by Hugh Shields in the Glen Hotel in 1977, in the same place where Róise was recorded 24 years earlier.

Pete Sweeney went to school with my granddad but didn’t continue his education into second and third level. Instead, he turned his intelligence and talent to writing. He was a very prolific poet and wrote a lot of songs, often very quickly. He wrote the lyrics first, I’m told, and would attach a melody afterwards, but would write in rhythmic structures that worked well with old traditional melodies. His songs are absolutely traditional as far as I’m concerned. He wrote songs for other people to sing, and I think that’s a really interesting aspect of songwriting within a community tradition like the one on Arranmore. I think of tradition as a creative process that exists within communities and a community’s shared memory, and Pete was a talented and important channel of that tradition, in my eyes.

Pete was over and back to Chicago a lot throughout his life, alongside many Arranmore people, and he wrote a few songs on the topic of emigration – like ‘Má Théann Tú Go hÉirinn’, as sung beautifully by Domhnaill Phaidí Hiudan, recorded by Hugh Shields.

Unrecorded songs

One of my main interests while doing this work is to find songs on the island that haven’t been documented or recorded either on the island or anywhere else.

There are two songs that I have recorded on the island that were learned by the singers from Róise Rua, but that weren’t recorded from Róise. Who knows why they weren’t recorded – it’s possible that the folklorists thought that one of them was a more modern country song, or that they weren’t interested in English language songs since she had such a unique repertoire of songs in Irish.

The first of these songs is one called ‘The Harp Without the Crown’. I recorded this song two years ago in Early’s bar on Arranmore sung by Madge Green. Madge told me that she learned this song from Róise when she was a small girl. When Róise’s husband would go to Scotland to work as a scythe’s man, she would stay with Madge’s family so that she wouldn’t be at home on her own. Madge told me that Róise would sing all English songs when she would be staying with them and this is one of those songs.

The recording is from a classic night in Early’s bar, on the 26^th of December 2018. Sadly, Madge passed away only a few months after this was recorded. She was larger than life, a great singer and a constant dancer and she’s hugely missed by her family and the community on the island.

The song is probably a fragment of a longer song, but there’s enough in this recording to start the trail of research. I’m only scratching the surface at the moment, but from what I can tell, it’s a distinct and unrecorded song. There are a few songs which refer to a ship which bore the flag of the harp without the crown, but they haven’t got much else in common with this one. The melody is almost exactly that of the ‘Star of Phillipstown’, another song Róise used to sing, which was recorded from her.

This recording of this song was made by Steve O’Connor, a friend of mine who was up on the island to help Myles O’Reilly capture footage of Féile Róise Rua. It was recorded in the bar of the Glen Hotel on the 17^th of May 2019 – 66 years after Andrew sat around the same room when Róise was recorded there in 1953, and 42 years after he was recorded singing there by Hugh Shields in 1977.

I thought that Andrew’s was the only version of that song recorded on Arranmore, until last week when a recording surfaced – on a cassette tape from the mid 70s recorded by Colm Toland from Inishowen, made while visiting Dermot & Mary Toland who were living on the island. The singer is Joe Phil Bhig, who was recorded a lot by Hugh Shields in ‘77, and who had a unique version of ‘No One to Welcome Me Home’ with a very different melody.

When Andrew was recorded in the Glen Hotel that night in 2019, I was sat beneath him on the ground. The energy in the room that night was electric and I’m so glad that moment was captured.

Andrew was one of the strongest living links to Róise Rua. He knew her well as a young boy, and used to call into her a lot. Himself and his friends would call in to her and Séamie, but mostly to act the blackguard, and have the craic, rather than listening to Róise’s songs or stories. He regretted that a bit, but the stories are brilliant.

Róise took an interest in Andrew though, and must have known he could sing, so when everyone would be leaving for home Róise used to get Andrew to stay with her, and she’d sing a few songs to him. She’d sing the ‘Star of Phillipstown’, ‘No One to Welcome Me Home’, ‘Glencoe’, and any of her songs in Irish.

When it would be time for Andrew to leave, it would be dark outside, and the lane down from Róise’s house was narrow and rocky. She’d stick a fork into a hot coal in the fire, take it outside and blow on it til it went alight, and give that to Andrew to light his way home. Andrew would hold his torch high into the wind as he walked down the path, and the wind would keep the coal glowing until he got close to home. He’d leave the fork in the ditch and bring it back up to Róise again the next morning.

Andrew told me that story many times. What a powerful symbol that was for what was happening on those evenings between himself and Róise. Andrew actually never let that torch go out and he sang right until his last days.

Andrew passed away while I was on Arranmore researching and writing for this project in November. He was a close friend of me and my family, and was like a grandfather to me since I was a small boy. He was a guiding light to me in many ways, and I miss him dearly. I sang a few songs with him only three days before he died and I’m so grateful for every moment I had with him. He was an amazing man.

I’m going to let Andrew sing us out. This is a song that Andrew learned as a teenager from an older man on the island. He heard a neighbour of his sitting on a wall singing this song, and he wrote the words down on a torn up cigarette carton. The man he learned it from couldn’t read or write. It’s a version of the ‘Lowlands of Holland’, and I find it really interesting. The Rocks around Gibraltar are mentioned, which makes me wonder if it was Holland or a Dutch colony that is being referred to throughout the song.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog. I still feel like I’m only scratching the surface, but I don’t see an end to this research either – it’s a long and happy road for me to be on.

Nollaig shona, slán agus beannacht.

Acknowledgments 

Sincere thanks to all those individuals and organisations who gave permission to use recordings and images, and helped with the preparation of this blog.

Researchers Caitlín Uí Éigeartaigh and Nicholas Carolan have studied the 12 volumes of Forde manuscripts and have deduced that approximately half derive from printed sources, with the remaining recorded from manuscript and oral sources.  The melodies, mostly song airs, were organised systematically by Forde in the manuscripts in order to compare the various versions he had sourced.

Unfortunately, as with many other nineteenth century collectors the words of the songs have not been documented. His sources extended beyond Munster to Connacht, Ulster, London, and in Leitrim he collected approximately 190 tunes from the piper Hugh O’Beirne.

Patrick Weston Joyce (1827–1914) acquired the Forde-Pigot Collection from members of the Pigot family and a selection of the melodies was published in his 1909 Old Irish Music & Songs reproduced here.

P.W. Joyce donated the Forde-Pigot Collection to the Library of the Royal Irish Academy.  An article by Nicholas Carolan ‘The Forde-Pigot Collection of Irish traditional music’ was published in Treasures of the Royal Irish Academy Library  (Dublin, 2009).

Learning the Tunes

John Blake selected two jigs from RIA MS 24 O 19 for Mary and Tony to learn,  The Basket of Oysters and The Sprightly Widow.

We now invite you to learn the jigs. By learning and playing these tunes you can ensure the labours of William Forde are not forgotten and are shared with future generations.

ACCESS INTERACTIVE SCORE FOR THE BASKET OF OYSTERS

ITMA’s Interactive Score facility gives you the opportunity to listen to the tune, speed it up/slow it down to play along with as you need, and follow the transcription.

ACCESS INTERACTIVE SCORE FOR THE SPRIGHTLY WIDOW.

ITMA’s Interactive Score facility gives you the opportunity to listen to the tune, speed it up/slow it down to play along with as you need, and follow the transcription.

ITMA would like to sincerely thank the Royal Irish Academy for permission to use images from RIA MS 24 O 19.

The text used above in the section ‘William Forde & Irish traditional music’ is an extract from an earlier ITMA Feature on William Forde’s printed publication 300 National melodies of the British Isles. Vol. 3. 100 Irish airs. (London, ca. 1841). It was written by Nicholas Carolan.

Perhaps in the course of a night’s dining and drinking, one of the Brownes challenged Jack to dance home from Castle Browne to Morristown.

And so he did! He danced his way along the eight miles with accounts claiming he was escorted on the journey by friends, backers and a musician, while in another account he accompanied himself on fiddle, dancing and playing simultaneously. He changed his step every furlong (1/8 of a mile) and there were “heavy wagering on both sides”. He reached his home and won the bet. But, whether from exhaustion or a weakened body that then caught a disease, Jack passed away a few days later at Morristown Lattin on the 7^th July 1731.

“I’ll make you dance Jack Lattin” became used as a threat in Kildare and like I had mentioned above, James Joyce (1882—1941), quoted it in Ulysses when Leopold Bloom is about to be punished by a number of elegantly-dressed Dublin society ladies for sending them anonymous obscene postcards. Castle Browne, the starting point of Jack’s dancing wager, is now known as Clongowes Wood College, a Jesuit boarding school for boys. James Joyce boarded at this college between 1888 and 1891 and it is quite possible that it was here he heard the story of Jack Lattin.

Less than two years after his death, a tune called ‘Jack Lattin’ began to appear in publications, the earliest mention occurring in Faulkner’s Dublin Journal, 2-5 June 1733:

At Madame Violante’s Booth in George’s-Lane, on Wednesday next, being the 6th of June, 1733, for the benefit of Mr. Walsh and Mr. Cummins, Dancing-masters, will be performed a Grotesque Opera, call’d Harlequin Triumphant; or the Father deceiv’d; a new Entertainment call’d the Tavern Bilkers; with the humourous Farce of Scapin; with Variety of Dancing and Musick, particularly several Concerto’s on the Harp, and Jack-Latin on the Pipes, by two of the best Masters in this Kingdom. 

‘Jack Lattin’ appears to have had become enormously popular within a very short time. In 1734, Dublin music collector, John Neal published his 3^rd collection of country dances that were popular in Ireland at the time. This list of 56 dances were mainly of Scotch country dances, however, it included three Irish tunes: The ‘Humours of Trim’, ‘Larry Grogan’ both double jigs and ‘Jack Lattin’ a three-part reel.

An 1807 account of Jack Lattin claimed that he not only composed the tune named after him, but also danced to it on his journey from Castle Browne to Morristown. How true this is or who was the original composer, we’ll never know. However, we can assume it was almost certainly a fiddler who knew Jack was an accomplished dancer of reels.

Solo dancing from this time was percussive, improvised and appeared as stage dances. In June 1736 it was danced in Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, the first time solo by a man and the second time by a couple, while there are also accounts from 1786 of it being played for the Rince Fada which would suggest it was a well-known tune amongst the musicians of Ireland at the time. In 1804 the famous Tipperary piper O’Farrell, published his tutor and collection of music ‘for the Irish or Union Pipes’, and included ‘Jack Latten with Variations’.

The tune, with variations, was still in circulation in the late 19^th century in South Leitrim,  as collected by Stephen Grier (1880’s).

Donegal fiddle player, Cathal Ó Curráin, recorded the original 3 part Jack Lattin reel for me and listening to it as I retraced his footsteps, I tried to imagine how Jack himself would dance to this tune. A line in Sean Donnelly’s research also caught my attention and played a role in the creation of my dance for Jack. It was a remark by Queen Victoria while being entertained by an Irish step dancer during a visit the Duke of Leinster’s house at Carton in the early 1800s. She commented

‘the steps are very droll.’

droll: humorous, especially in an unusual way

This really made me laugh! I imagined Jack dancing the roads with great energy and devilment, teasing those who bet against him with his effortless and witty steps. I also thought Jack would appreciate it more that I focus on his great feat (and great feet!) rather than the tragedy that befell him.

Drawing inspiration from this along with the tune, my surroundings and the historical sites, I formed the bones of a dance for Jack, partially structured but with much space for spontaneity and craic on the day.

On the 6th of November 2020 I returned to Kildare in the company of Cathal Ó Curráin, and in memory of Jack Lattin I danced “From Castle Browne to Morristown” and lived to tell the tale.Edwina Guckian, November 2020

Míle Buíochas

Alan Woods, Liam O’Connor & Grace Toland at ITMA

Seán Donnelly – researcher

Micheál Ó Ruairc – camera

Victor Tzelepis – camera & drone

Cathal Ó Curráin – fiddle

Kevin Murphy – Local history section Kildare County Council

Fr. Michael Sheils and the staff at Clongowes Wood College

Constance & Pamela Cassidy and Edward Walsh at Morristown Lattin

Seamus Cullen – researcher

Fr. John Quinn – collector & researcher

Emmett Gill – Na Píobairí Uilleann

22 October 2020, a live-streamed conversation between Martin Hayes and Liam O’Connor

The Liam O’Flynn Collection at ITMA

Liam O’Flynn collated a vast personal archive over his 50 year career. This precious collection was donated to ITMA by Liam’s wife, Jane, after his untimely death in March 2018, ensuring his legacy is preserved for present and future generations. Liam O’ Flynn’s legacy flourishes in this magnificent collection and is inspiring on multiple levels. The opportunity to ‘Draw from the Well’ at ITMA has been a magical and unforgettable journey into the music, life and times of one of Ireland’s most influential pipers, Liam O’Flynn.

I spent much of the summer of 2020 exploring the Liam O’Flynn Collection at 73 Merrion Square and the journey was incredibly inspiring in so many ways. ‘Drawing from the Well’ has given me the opportunity to connect with the personal collection of Liam O’Flynn and has allowed me to gain a very special and rare insight into the ideologies, key reflections, influences, music and life of one of Ireland’s most iconic pipers. Without doubt, this is a collection I look forward to revisiting time and time again.

Liam composed the jig titled, ‘The Piper’s Stone’ having being inspired by this ancient site and area of incredible beauty in Co. Kildare. One of my ‘Drawing from the Well’ highlightswas a visit to The Piper’s Stone organised by ITMA. The visit was very special and memorable and it was wonderful to meet Jane O’Flynn, Liam’s wife at the source of the inspiration of this composition. Jane gave us a rare insight into Liam’s sources of inspiration and musical life, and the day concluded with a visit to Liam’s home and music room. As one can imagine in any musician’s life this was a truly unforgettable day and I will treasure these memories for many years to come.

Sunset

For me there is something very special in the light of a long summer’s evening which can create a great sense of calm. This tune was inspired by such an evening in the west of Ireland culminating in a magical and breathtaking sunset over the Atlantic Ocean.

Liam O’Flynn

The Return of the Pedalboard

This tune concerns a cantankerous and unpredictable piece of electronic equipment which belongs to that great musician and friend Arty McGlynn. On more than one occasion on stage it has caused its owner great distress and the rest of us great amusement. So when it went missing after a trip abroad all seemed safe and well. But, unbelievably, it re-appeared soon after – delivered safely home by a returning musician. A new tune seemed the only response!

Liam O’Flynn

Compositions of other musicians are included in the collection including the reel ‘Barr na Cúille’ composed by Néillidh Mulligan. A hand-written transcription and note by uilleann piper Néillidh Mulligan accompanies the tune. Liam requested the tune having heard Néillidh play it in The Cobblestone in Dublin.