I remember heading for Tory Island one day many years ago and finding the strong hand of Patsy Dan Rodgers holding mine as I disembarked from the ferry; a musician and King of Tory, he welcomed everybody at the pier and played for them in the social club at night. And I missed him last week when I was back on the island for a few days taking a language course.
I had a disastrous mishap at the coffee break on the first morning. I squirted a portion of coffee from the communal flask into my cup in the kitchen where the students and teachers were gathered, and then poured milk in. But I hadn’t realised that new legislation requires all plastic bottle tops to be permanently secured to their bottles or containers. In trying to dislodge the cap, the carton went flying in the air and my mug of coffee to the ground. I had to go down on all fours and clean the mess from beneath everyone’s feet. Not the most dignified beginning to the course. But apart from that the week was a pleasure, listening to lectures during the day and music in the social club in the evenings, where a picture of Patsy Dan with his accordion hangs on the wall.
Around a flickering fire blazing in a makeshift barbecue, people chatted and waited for the food to cook on the grill
All my life I have relied on music as a remedy for depression. It lifts up my soul. So when I returned from Tory I was delighted to get an invitation to spend an evening by the shores of Lough Allen with the fiddle player Gerry O’Connor, and the pipers Paddy Keenan and Mickey Dunne. Keenan and Dunne were on a trek to Donegal commemorating their ancestors and the musical riches that Travellers bequeathed to the nation over many decades.
Around a flickering fire blazing in a makeshift barbecue, people chatted and waited for the food to cook on the grill.
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Three young boys rode bareback ponies along the shoreline, encouraging their steeds to splash in the water. Behind us two barrel top wagons sat under trees, while the pipers Keenan and Dunne rested on the doorstep of a wagon and chatted about life, and fiddle player Gerry O’Connor sat on the step of his camper van and talked to me.
Above the reeds the evening air was warm and thick with midges and horse flies; but even bites on my arms and legs felt like a small price to pay for the joy of being present beside a lake, beneath the trees, with such a wonderful band of Travellers and locals and a couple of Ireland’s most gifted musicians.
When you go into a room and take out an instrument and begin to release the tunes, there is a smile comes on everyone’s face
“What do you love most about music?” I asked the fiddle player.
“It makes people happy,” he said without hesitation. “When you go into a room and take out an instrument and begin to release the tunes, there is a smile comes on everyone’s face.”
I agreed because I know that every worry and anxiety I ever have about phone bills or far-off wars or my old-age pension, all dissolve when I hear the notes rise from a flute or a fiddle. And music seems to me like the most convincing argument against war; a bunch of polkas can pierce the ears with a kind of aggressive love, in contrast to the noise of warplanes.
It’s no wonder that lovers are always singing. In the face of war, they sing. In the face of sorrow, they sing. And in the face of poverty, they sing.
Needless to say, meeting Paddy Keenan and Mickey Dunne — both iconic masters of the Uilleann pipes — was thrilling even before they played a note
And it’s no wonder that the great religions of history gathered the voices of their congregations into song for liturgies; because it was in singing that people embodied their deepest self, and woke to the ground of joyful being.
Needless to say, meeting Paddy Keenan and Mickey Dunne — both iconic masters of the Uilleann pipes — was thrilling even before they played a note. When I hear Paddy Keenan play I hear his father play, and I hear Johnny Doran play and I hear the music of an entire battalion of pipers that lived long ago.
A great musician is not just a single individual, but she or he is the full flowering of a tradition that reaches deep into the past and far into the future. Traditional musicians are like one family; some sing now and some listen in the cradle, and some like Patsy Dan Rodgers rest in the clay. But it’s fair to say that love never dies as long as the sound of a tune can be heard in the house.