Maurice O'Keeffe, fiddle player

Recently, Christine and I were on our way back to Dingle from Cork when we decided to veer off the main road and drove through the lovely soft Sliabh Luachra country. Sliabh Luachra means rushy mountain. We went through Newmarket where Scully's Pub is located and where they have a great session every Monday night. We then headed for Killarney, but we came to a block in the road and a detour directing us through Kishkeam. We had not planned to go there and I thought it was odd that we were being directed to the very place where my paternal grandfather was born, where the old family farm still stands and where the Murphy family grave is. It was my birthday and thinking that this was some kind of sign, we decided to make a pause.

I enquired at the post office about an elderly musician, well known, and was pointed up the road. Stopping at the crest of the hill by a house marked by a metal fiddle on the wall, we knocked at the door and went inside. There was Maurice O’Keefe who is 92 years old and still playing fiddle and in the Sliabh Luachra style that I love. Christine was given a chair, I was to sit next to the master and we commenced playing while the ban an tí brought tea and biscuits. Christine joined in with her whistle. Maurice was delighted and said it was as though we had been playing together for years. The tunes were very rhythmical and melodious, mostly polkas and hornpipes. He maintained it was a new band. When I told how we came to be there because of the detour, Maurice pointed up and said, the man above had brought us. He also said he would keep playing until his last day, and anyone playing music could not but be happy.

I hope that I have been able to convey, to some extent at least, how special an occasion this was for us. Maurice has a music festival named after him and here is a link to a report in The Corkman newspaper about it.

Winter Sessions in Dingle

After a busy summer, the traditional Irish music scene has wound down to just a few places offering regular sessions. An Droichead Beag (The Small Bridge) offers music all year round and so does John Benny Moriarty and O'Flaherty. Marina Inn continues too with its early Sunday session starting at 6pm and a Thursday evening sessions starting at 9:30 pm.

Very lively session today at Marina Inn lead by Con Durham on uilleann pipes and Tim O'Shea on guitar, and there were 16 musicians in all. In addition to the two mentioned, there were 5 fiddles, 2 flutes, 2 banjos, 2 penny whistles, 2 concertinas including myself and 1 mandolin.

Great Session!

Great session at Marina Inn on Sunday. It was lead by Con Durham on pipes and Tommy O'Sullivan on guitar. We had 14 musicians which is very unusual at this time of year(4 fiddles, 3 flutes, uillean pipes, guitar, banjo, mandolin, bodhran, accordion and harmonica.) The music was first rate and the momentum was amazing.

Maura Begley Musical Evening

On the other side of the mountain, over Conor Pass, there is a very special musical event every Monday night starting at 8pm. The hostess is Maura Begley who opens her 200 year old thatched cottage for a musical happening. Maura creates an atmosphere that is warm and friendly and encouraging for even the shyest person to participate and everyone is asked to play something, sing a song, tell a story or recite a poem.


Maura is a member of one of the leading traditional Irish music families in Ireland. A couple of her brothers are famous box players but Maura herself is up there with the best of them. She plays mostly piano accordion and harp but I have seen her play numerous other instruments. She also sings, mostly in Irish, with a lovely voice.



We have a young woman visiting us from Germany and we took her to Maura's last night so that she could get a glimpse of the kind of social event that once was common all over Ireland but now is very rare. Being the height of the tourist season, the place was packed. There were several families with children and the talent was amazing.


A couple of old timers from nearby Tralee kept us laughing all evening with stories about the old days and the exploits of some extraordinary local characters.

If you are visiting Dingle, it is well worth the half hour trip over the mountain for some great Irish hospitality and entertainment.
As an extra bonus, the scenery on the way is spectacular.

Dingle Traditional Irish Music Maura Begley

CD Launch at O'Flaherty's Pub

On Monday night we had a great turn-out at O'Flaherty's Pub for the launch of Mazz O'Flaherty's new CD The Borrowed Angels. Many of Dingle's musicians were there to show their support and the event was hosted by Adi Roche with elegance and humour.






Mazz O'Flaherty


Mazz sang some songs from the new CD. In addition to composing, performing and painting, Mazz runs The Dingle Record Shop and the new CD will be available shortly from the shop website.





Ide Maire

Needless-to-say we did not miss the opportunity for a few tunes and there was lots of talent in the house. Éilís Kennedy sang The Factory Girl from her CD, Time to Sail. Mary Greene and Noel Shine sang a few songs of their own composition. Fergus O'Flaherty was on hand with his banjo and accordion to lead a session with lively jigs, reels and polkas.



Mazz, Adi & Éilís


I often feel that it is a great privilege for me to to be able to play in the sessions with the wonderful musicians in Dingle. I definitely had that experience on Monday night.




Dingle O'Flaherty's Pub

An Chonair Bar Session

An Chonair Bar in Dingle has long been a venue for traditional Irish music. A new session has been added every Monday at 9 pm. The location is Spa Road on the way out of town towards Conor Pass.
















The leading musician is piper Con Durham and he is usually joined by various musician friends. I attended the session last Monday and I must say it was fabulous. The atmosphere was warm and cosy with an open fire and the music was great.










We had Con on the pipes, two fiddles, guitar, banjo, penny whistle, harmonica and mandolin.

The customers were very engaged and there were several bursts of spontaneous dancing to the lively music.



Myself with Con

Scoil Cheoil an Earraigh

Scoil Cheoil an Earraigh 2009 took place from February 18 to 22 in the village of Ballyferriter which is a few miles west of Dingle.

Musical offering on opening night

Scoil Cheoil an Earraigh is a Traditional Music School which concentrates on the style of music and song from the Dingle Peninsula gaeltacht of Corca Dhuibhne. 2009 was the fifth year for the school. The participants were all ages and many of them were young.




The following classes were offered:
Harp Deirdre Grainbhéal
Accordion Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich & Eoin Ó Beaglaoich
Bodhrán Colm Murphy
Banjo & Mandolin Des Kelliher
Uileann Pipes Cillian Ó Briain
Fiddle Úna Ní Chíosáin & Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh
Tin Whistle Bríd Donnelly
Flute Aoife Grainbhéal
Concertina Cormac Ó Beaglaoich & Mary McNamara
Bag Pipes Allan MacDonald
Mouth Organ Rick Epping
Sean-nós Dancing Róisín Ní Mhainín
Singing in the sean nós style Aine Uí Laoithe, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

In addition master classes were given by Mary McNamara on concertina, Mary Bergin on tin whistle and Mick Mulcahy on box.

Rick Epping & his merry men
The Harmonica, Mouth Organ was a new addition this year and I was very happy to participate in the lessons. The teacher, Rick Epping is an American who has spent many years Ireland. He worked for Hohner for a number of years and it was he who designed the Hohner XB40 harmonica. The participants were all older men like myself. There is altogether very little interest in the harmonica in traditional Irish circles now-a-days. Rick Epping may well change that; everyone at the event was very impressed with his playing.

I was delighted that we did not spend all of our time learning tunes as is often done. Rather, Rick spent time explaining the instrument, demonstrating techniques and teaching us how to play in a better way. We learned how to bend notes and how to play an octave by blocking two holes with the tongue.

My daughter, Deirdre took part in the sean nós singing and she was delighted with it. It was all in Irish and it was in the old style(sean nós.)

There were concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings and there were lots of informal sessions that went on into the night. I joined the one at Hotel Óstán Cheann Sibéalhotel. It was lead by John FitzGerald on box with his wife Mary on keyboard and children Sean on fiddle, Kieran on concertina and Aine also on concertina. This is a very talented family from Kildare and I was delighted to spend the night with them. A number of other musicians also joined in as the night went on. This session as well as some of the others went on until the small hours of the morning.

Outdoor session on final day

Lively Session at Marina Inn

You would expect things to be really quite now after a busy Christmas in Dingle, and we did start out our Sunday session with just three musicians and three customers. However by the end, we had twelve musicians and the premises was pretty full. The session was led, as usual, by uillean piper Con Durham and Eon Knightley came with his accordion. There were concertinas, harmonicas, fiddles, flutes, mandolin and voice. And the music was great.

A Bit of German Culture

Friederich von Flotow

During the past two weeks Christine and I were in Leipzig to see our daughter and family. While there, we took in cultural events not available to us in West Kerry. Leipzig is a great musical town going all the way back to Johann Sebastian Bach who was Kapellmeister at the St. Thomas Church there. We attended the German opera Martha by Friedrich von Flotow (1812-1883) in nearby Dessau and a wonderful performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Leipzig School of Music.

I have written about Thomas Moore in a previous post. The melody of his well-known song, The Last Rose of Summer, is the leitmotif of the opera Martha. Introduced in Act 2, the lovely and plaintive melody represents the young lovers’ longing. It seems that popular airs were often introduced informally to operas in the middle of the nineteenth century as show-pieces for the singers. In Martha the custom is perpetuated. There is a beautiful horn solo of the melody, very delicately played for this performance by our son-in-law, Paul Goodman. The song is sung twice, once by the female lead Lady Harriet Durham, soprano and then later by the male lead Lord Tristan Mickleford, tenor.

The Mikado was delightful and I must say that the translation into German worked very well. It was especially poignant for a place that was formerly behind the iron curtain to make a parody of the unbridled power of state officials. We were surprised to find that Sullivan who was of Irish/Italian decent did his musical training in Leipzig and spent several years there.

End of Season

With just 10 days to go to winter months November, December and January, the number of visitors to Dingle has dropped off significantly since the busy summer season.

Most pubs are half empty even on weekends. The sessions generally are fewer and smaller at this time of year.








However Marina Inn has been bucking the trend with lots of musicians. Last week there were 15 people playing, including a group from France that calls themselves The Chums.




It was more like a céilí band than a session. The music was fantastic. This week there were 10-12 musicians. The prospect looks great for the dark winter months.

Chicago Musicians at Flaherty's

A typical session has about half a dozen musicians. I was astonished therefore when I dropped into Flaherty’s Pub a few nights ago to find the place crawling with musicians.

In addition to locals Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé on box, Aoife Granville on fiddle, Deirdre Granville on harp, there were over thirty young musicians from Chicago. They travelled to Ireland to play at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Tullamore and were making a few stops on the way. It is my understanding that they were invited to make a stop in Dingle by Deirdre Granville.

The buzz in the place was amazing and the music was great. They were supposed to leave for Killarney at 10 pm but nobody wanted to leave so they persuaded the bus driver to stay an extra hour.

Willie Clancy Summer School

Popular hangout for musicians

After several years of promising myself, I finally went with Christine to the annual Willie Clancy Summer School for traditional Irish music. It was held in the coastal town of Milltown Malbay in County Clare. It runs for a week, this year from 5 July to 13 July and the events go from morning to night.




Portable classrooms for lessons

The day began with a three-hour music classes for the various instruments, taught by the top musicians in the country. There were classes for whistle and flute, concertina, banjo, harmonica, button accordion, fiddle and harp.

musicians on the go

In the afternoon there were lectures and demonstrations and in the evening, a recital with a focus on a different instrument each evening. There are also singing and dancing lessons with an emphasis on the lovely Sean Nós or old style.

A group of English musicians

There were informal sessions going all day and night in pubs, in restaurants, on the street corner, anywhere and everywhere. It was amazing to stroll through the town and hear music coming from all sides.

Sessions at Milltown Malbay Restaurant

There were five or six different concertina classes and I joined one taught by Hugh Healy. Hugh is an excellent concertina player and a very good teacher too. The class consisted mostly of school age children with a few adults. I learned a few good tunes and some useful techniques.

I had to make do with a Kodac throw-away camera because the battery on my digital camera was flat.

Hugh Healy has a great CD on which he plays concertina together with his brother Colm on box. You can listen to it here.

Bank Holiday Session

Finbarr, Lucinda, Con and Matt

June bank holiday weekend is always a lively time in Dingle and with the great weather we have been having there are lots of people in town. On such occasions it is not unusual to have visiting musicians drop in to the sessions.

At our regular weekly session with Con Durham and Tommy O’Sullivan at Marina Inn last night we were joined by the well-known fiddle player Matt Cranitch. He has a wonderful Sliabh Luachra style and he gave our session a great lift. Matt is the author of The Irish Fiddle Book, one of the most comprehensive instructional texts available to students of the fiddle. He is a member of the group Sliabh Notes together with Tommy O’Sullivan and Donal Murphy.

The Sliabh Luachra style of playing Irish music comes from a loosely defined area in North West Cork, North East of Kerry and the Southern tip of Limerick. It is a very lively style and the music includes lots of polkas and slides. I grew up with this kind of music in our house since my grandfather was a fiddle player from that area.

Kieran Jordan

We were also joined by Boston Irish dancer Kieran Jordan. Kieran is very much a woman by the way and not a man as you would expect from the name. She has a lovely Sean Nós style of dancing. She danced a jig to the great enjoyment of the audience and then was asked to dance again. To everyone’s delight she hopped up on a table and let fly with a reel. Read more about Kieran and see clips of her dancing on her website.


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Classical Music in Dingle

It is interesting to note that although Dingle is blessed with so many talented musicians, there are few possibilities to hear classical music here. Recently, we were contacted by our friend Johannes Moora offering to bring a concert to Dingle. The program consisted of Schumann and Mendelssohn songs with piano accompaniment and some short solo pieces for piano.

We found a very suitable venue in Emlagh House that has a beautiful upright piano. Emlaigh, a luxury country house, won the AA Guest Accommodation of the Year 2005.

The singer was soprano Iris Pedroli and was outstanding. She has a beautiful clear voice with a lovely texture. The pianist, Renate Poncette was also first rate. Johannes Moora interspersed the program with interesting extracts of diaries and letters of Robert Schumann.

Here is a copy of the program:

Clck on Program for a clearer image!

Féile na Bealtaine Dingle Peninsula

Aigedlige Fife and Drums

A number of people have visited my blog looking for information on this year’s Féile na Bealtaine. I was waiting for the printed program to appear. However, it is now just a week away and it is still not available so I thought I had better post some information. The following information was taken from this week's Kerryman.

The event will take place this year from April 30 to May 5^th. There is a good website Féile na Bealtaine 2008 showing the wide range of events that will be available.

Festival Highlights

Cathy Davey: Best Irish female winner at the Irish Meteor Awards

Citizen Havel: Irish Film premiere of the movie on the life of Vaclav Havel, former president of Czech Republic

The Mystery of Life on Earth: A lecture by Alex Antar on climate change.

Kila: Irish Folk Music/World Music group

Political Symposium: Does Irish aid help Lesotho? With Irish Ambassador to Lesotho, Mr. Paddy Fay

Aigedlige Clique: Our good friends from the Basel, Switzerland marching band will be back with us again this year.

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French Musicians at O'Flaherty's Pub

We took visitors from Stuttgart out on Wednesday night to the session at Flaherty’s Pub. You never know who is going to show for a session and that is just what makes it so special.

This was a fabulous session with hosts Fergus and Mazz O’Flaherty and visitors from France brought in by our resident French bodhran player, Eric Marini.

There was Alexis Guterrez on violin, Evelyne on bouzouki and the Petat family playing box and concertina. They had no trouble joining in many Irish tunes and there were some lovely contributions of traditional French music. Check out their Dissidanses page on MySpace.

Stuttgart Eurythmeum in Dingle

This week we had a visit from the Stuttgart Eurythmeum with a performance of the Grimm fairytale “The King of the Golden Mountain.” See blog post at Anthroposophy Ireland.

Quiet Town-Lively Music

It is the quietest time of the year in Dingle with very few tourists and many of the locals away in search of the sun. But there was nothing quiet about the session at the Marina Inn in Dingle this evening. It was lead by Con Durham on Uilleann pipes with Tony Small on guitar. In addition there were three fiddles, a penny whistle, a flute and myself, mostly on harmonica but occasionally on concertina or bones.

Con is a regular at Marina and I’ve written about him before. Tony Small, originally from Galway has been playing regularly in Dingle for the last couple of years but this was the first time that I bumped into him. He is a good musician and I enjoyed playing with him. His accompaniment to the uillean pipes was excellent and in addition he sang several interesting ballads with a strong clear voice.





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Christmas Shepherds' Play

The Camphill Community in Dingle put on the Christmas Shepherd’s Play for the second time this year. This is a musical play with 18 songs and I was asked to do the music. I invited some session friends, Gordon and Rose Saunders to play with me. We are used to playing Irish music in the key of “G” or “D.” These songs are mostly in “F” “Bb” and one in “Eb” which was a bit challenging but with a little practice, we got the hang of it.










A.C.Harwood who translated the plays into English gives a background in his preface. The Shepherds’ Play is one of three plays that were found sometime around 1845 by Karl Julius Schroer on the little island of Oberufer on the Danube River near Pressburg in Austria. Schroer was one of Rudolf Steiner’s teachers. Sometime in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century a group of German people moved there from Lake Constance and brought with them the cycle of religious plays which they had received from their ancestors. The peasants of Oberufer had preserved the plays, both the text and the tradition of acting, unaltered down through the generations.

Through Steiner, the plays were brought to the Waldorf Schools and it has become a tradition that the teachers put on the plays at Christmas time as a gift to their students. Camphill follows the same tradition.


Camphill
Dingle