A bumpy road to Carnegie Hall

I’M BACK on the flute. It’s one of those things that happens without reason or intent. I was at a barbeque on Saturday and there was a woman from Jamaica who sang a Whitney Houston song, and it took my breath away, and then she turned to me and asked me to sing. And before I could stop myself, I blurted out that I had a flute in the Jeep, and she said “bring it out” and I thought it would be wonderful to serenade her with a few slow Irish airs.

“Of course I will,” says I, and I headed for the Jeep.

The thing is, I haven’t been playing for a few years. My old black wooden flute has been gathering dust on the mantelpiece and a lot of practice would be required before I’d have the neck to play in public. But my infatuation with the Jamaican woman wiped out all reason.

When I lived in Leitrim, I used to play all the time. My wife would invite a lot of feminists from Manorhamilton to dinner, and the flute helped me avoid arguing with them. If I argued I’d get as cranky as a Dublin Bus inspector and make silly points about men being nice creatures, and the women would just stare at me like I was proclaiming that the world was flat. So the flute was like a safety valve. But since I arrived in Mullingar, I hardly ever needed to play it.

I did take it to a dinner table one evening when I first arrived, only because the lady said, in a crisp English accent, “Be sure to bring your instrument.” When an English woman gets all school mistressy, there’s something in my Irish psyche that stands instantly to attention.

So I arrived with the black flute in a plastic bag and the English lady seemed disappointed. Perhaps she thought I was going to arrive with a silver flute and play Vivaldi. She seemed to be in pain as I played a jig known as The Gander, while the guests were nibbling starters.

“What is it?” she asked.

I said, "It's called The Gander."

“A gander!” she repeated. “I’ve never seen one of those before. It’s very like a flute.”

"No," I said, "This is a flute. But the tune is called The Gander. Haven't you seen a flute like this before?"

She said, “I’m familiar with the concert flute. Is that an Irish flute?”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, “This is the traditional Irish flute. It used to be the most popular concert flute in the 18th century before the silver flute was introduced to world orchestras. Then the old wooden flute went out of fashion, except in Ireland, where people found it agreeable for traditional music, and so now it’s often referred to as the Irish flute.”

“Well we don’t really need the history of it,” she said, “but I do see why they moved on to the silver flute.” And everyone laughed. I put it away and ate my soup with great humility.

Perhaps the reason my playing is not as good as Matt Molloy’s is because the flute was not my first instrument. My life as a musician began with guitar, at 16.

I strummed C and G7 in my bedroom, and sang Our Rivers Run Freerepeatedly for hours; it was a wonderful method of controlling illicit sexual urges. When real life began in my late teens, I picked up someone's instrument at a party in Dublin one night and got to verse five before a drunk student said that if I didn't put it down immediately he'd stick it somewhere that would cause permanent damage to the guitar.

So I’ve endured a few unkindly barbs in my time, but I suppose that is the lot of any musician.

Nonetheless, I was cautious at the barbeque. I assembled the flute discreetly and at some distance from the guests. I played just one tune, without any major blunders, though the guests did look relieved when I decommissioned the instrument.

Except for the Jamaican woman, who listened attentively, and said it was beautiful, and later, when I was leaving, she said she hoped we would meet again. Then I drove back to Mullingar, as chuffed as Sir James Galway might be after playing a blinder in Carnegie Hall.