‘The sign outside said ‘Séamus Begley playing here tonight – if the silage is baled’

Where would we be without the music? What would we do? Séamus Begley, the singer and box player, asked himself those questions, knowing full well that the notion of life without music was unconscionable to him. His sudden death, last January, left a chasm in the traditional music community. As we near his first anniversary, a new documentary will consider his legacy.

This strapping farmer from west Co Kerry grew up playing polkas and slides for set dancers who liked their music loud, propelled by a driving rhythm. Known locally as James, he grew up in the heart of the Gaeltacht, one of nine children. His love of farming equalled his passion for music, for singing and for seeking out good company, and he revelled in all four passions in equal measure, sometimes all at the same time.

[ ‘Slán leat, a chara’: Tributes paid to Séamus Begley at Mass in heart of Kerry Gaeltacht ]

Breanndán Óg, Begley’s eldest son, laughingly recounts the way his father would balance his farming with his musical life during those heady days. “He was playing in the Droichead every Friday night,” Breanndán Óg says, referring to An Droichead Beag, a Dingle pub renowned for traditional music, “and they would advertise it on a chalk board outside. At one point the sign said, ‘Séamus Begley playing here tonight – if the silage is baled’!”

Among the many contributors to the documentary, Mike Scott of The Waterboys paints a piquant picture of Begley, a musician who exemplified the best of what it was to have music coursing through his veins, imprinted in his DNA. Scott views Begley as a mythical character who lived in a mythical landscape.

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“There was this feral energy and drive to Séamus and his music,” Scott says. “I’d even describe it as almost a punk sensibility. We first met in O’Shea’s Merchant in 1988. Steve Wickham took me there to meet him. I knew Steve Cooney, and on that night Steve was on electric bass. They made a strange double act, but they were fantastic. Séamus looked at me and said ‘Crazy man’.”

Was Séamus referring to himself or to Scott?

[ Séamus Begley: Accordion player and singer with a rare talent and a passion for living ]

“I think he was describing what he thought I thought of him,” the singer says. “But we got on from the minute we met. I got to know him very fast, and I went on to produce an album of himself and Steve, which we recorded in Séamus’s basement, but it was never released.”

Begley had formed an incendiary musical partnership with Cooney, the Australian guitarist, and the pair were tearing up the rule book of traditional music in the late 1980s. Their groundbreaking 1993 album, Meitheal, introduced the music to an entirely new audience at home and away, with Begley’s intricatate tunes and driving style propelled ever skywards by Cooney’s ability to mix effervescent, percussive guitar on polkas and slides with the most delicate accompaniment on slow airs and songs. Their sound was explosive – and deliciously infectious.

The duo were invited to Glastonbury to support The Waterboys. It was an audience for whom the finer points of Irish traditional music were largely a new experience. “Séamus sang Mo Ghile Mear, I remember,” Scott says. “He was singing a ballad in Irish at Glastonbury Festival. I think, to be honest, he was putting a pearl before them that the audience didn’t quite understand at that time.”

He played the same way at home, with nobody there or one or two people there, as he did in front of 1,000 people on stage

—  Eoin Begley

Mary Black also contributes to the documentary, having made Begley’s acquaintance more than 30 years ago, when she fell so deeply in love with west Kerry that she and her husband built a holiday home there.

“First of all Séamus welcomed us as a neighbour,” Black says, “and he had the sweetest, sweetest voice, with a gorgeous timbre, and for such a big strong man, which he was, the emotion he would bring into a song was so special. Even if there were words that I didn’t understand, which could happen with the Irish, you’d be heartbroken listening to him, because you could feel the emotion, and that was what was so beautiful about his voice.”

Black sang a beautiful duet with Séamus on the album Ragairne, in 2001: An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe. It was a revelatory experience. “He brought out a voice in me that I didn’t think I had,” she says. “A different type of voice. We were both singing in the same key, so I had to go into a slightly higher key than I would normally sing in, and I found a voice in that area that I almost didn’t recognise in myself. So he would bring things out in you like that. I was amazed that that happened, and it was through him that that happened. It was a great experience, and I worked hard to make sure that my [Irish] pronunciation was perfect, because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to lift my head in west Kerry ever again: they’d never forgive me.”

[ Séamus Begley: A gloriously boisterous musician who laced his sets with fall-off-the-seat humour ]

As Cooney notes in the documentary, music is part of the social fabric of the community in that part of Ireland. It fulfils a multitude of social functions: from sessions to weddings and funerals (a detail not lost on this writer, who was fortunate enough to have Begley sing at a family funeral).

Begley’s four children are all musical, having inherited not just their father’s music and song but also their mother Mary’s love of set dancing. Breanndán Óg and his brother Eoin credit their father with influencing them in a myriad of ways. “Personally, I credit him with most of my achievements in my life,” Breanndán says. “So many things I’ve done in my career are based on things I learned from him when I was working with him as a teenager on the farm: innovation, no fear of trying something new and no fear of going against the grain. He gave me the power to be brave in that way, and I’ve taken that mentality into my career.”

Eoin, too, got so much from his father’s approach to music – and to life.

“I was inspired by his way of playing,” he says. “He had a fearlessness in his music. He never claimed to be the best technically, but he gave it 100 per cent, and there’s a lot you can take from that. Enjoying bringing other people into the music too. He played the same way at home, with nobody there or one or two people there, as he did in front of 1,000 people on stage. The music was really a social thing for him.”

[ President leads tributes following death of traditional musician Séamus Begley ]

Begley’s ability to be himself, regardless of the company he was in, has left an indelible mark on Eoin. “There’ll always be a difference between public and private personas”, he says, “but with Dad it was kind of minimal. I tend to compartmentalise groups of friends in my life, but he had a lot of strings to his bow and he had a great way of bringing people together. You have to be very brave to be yourself all of the time. And another thing for me, it was great to see how he grew in confidence. Back in the early 1990s, I can remember him going on stage, playing a tune, singing a song and then getting off stage as fast as he could. But over time he grew more confident, and he started telling the stories and the jokes.”

The brothers laughingly recount their father’s relishing of sailing close to the wind both on and offstage, regaling his audience with bawdy jokes and limericks, regardless of the setting. Eoin loved his fondness for pricking up his listeners’ ears – in the unlikeliest of ways. “There was this limerick he loved to recite,” he says. “‘Two ugly sisters from Fordham/Went for a walk out of boredom/ When on the way back/ A sex maniac/Jumped over the wall and ignored them.’ Oh, the sighs of relief you could hear from some people in the audience when they heard that last line!”

Séamus Begley: The Bold Kerryman is on RTÉ One on Friday, December 29th, at 6.30pm