For quite some time I've been getting worked up about the stuff I've read on this forum and what I've experience in real life. In general I don't have too much optimism on the future of the brand of Irish music that I enjoy but then I read this quote the other night. It brought me some comfort.
"it is the dogma of the few. and not the faith of the multitude" -James Connelly
Hmmm. What works for me is to play the music the way I like to hear it played, and welcome those of similar mind to join in. I don't worry too much about other session's tastes, or musical fads, or overwrought arrangements of tunes that really come alive when they're played with spontaneity. YMMV.
A few years ago irish Traditional music seen a new lease of life with Riverdance, love it or hate it, but the reality was that many more people discovered irish music and have been enjoying it ever since. Whether your brand of music is Irish republicanism or Ulster loyalist, you should feel that each deserves to feature in our long and eventful history, as both cultures share the same distinctive geneology and sub culture.
If you want to keep your brand of Irish music alive, then keep on playing it, and teach others to do the same, I do.
Being Outnumbered
There were two against twenty we had our backs to the wall............................................Boy did we kick the sh*te out of the two..
Well said, Saint. Perhaps the readership of these pages might take a little time to peruse the aims and qualities of one of our greatest socialist leaders. The day will come......
I like this quote from the man:
'I will say a prayer for all men who do their duty according to their lights' Considering his treatment at the hands of his opponents, quite a final sentiment from a doomed man.
Perhaps also a fine lesson in tolerance and respect, and to remain open to the idea that we are all doing the best we can based on what we have been taught and have experienced.
Lest we forget, Connolly was also active and inspirational in Scotland (Where he was born) as well as in america (being one of the founders of I.W.W). A remarkable man that we would all do well to try and emulate.
I don't think you need a "blood scarifice" like Pearse or Connoly, to keep tradition alive, that's done by lots of small and unimportant people, the foot soilder, not the general, if the penal laws didn't do for us, we'll go another while yet.
I prefer Terence mcswiney's "It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most" speech. After all, what use is faith if never tested.
James Connolly was murdered by the illegal invaders of our land. A working class visionary , his words should be echoing round the minds of all right minded individuals. As I said earlier - Our day will come.
Indeed Connolly was a great man, not a "champaign socialist" like so many others, I think you are doing yourselves a disservice though, politicians and governments come and go, "our day" is and always was today,.
Would someone out there please enlighten Reed (I'm omitting the free bit because, as you now live in the occupied statelet of N.I., you are anything but free). If I start, I may be tempted to go on a very long rant and even say things that he might understand.
This has nothing to do with Politics Its about history and facts and about people like strayway who still have to live without his true rights.............I don't understand why people get upset when Irish people feel like talking about history .I have no hate for the english on this site but facts are facts and its very annoying when Irish history arises on this site and certain people try to brush it under the carpet and try to make like its no big deal.Well to me it is a big deal and if people don't want learn or hear about irish history thats up to themselves but please don't try to stop us taking about it.
As for the relationship between the music and the history .For me the music is my most important link between me and Irishness..
We have an émigré from Cavan here in SWFL and she elects to remove herself from the room during the infrequent times when a historical song is chosen to be sung. Whenever it's over and she returns, there's this awkward moment. You get the "Well we're trying to seek reconciliation and be inclusive now" from her, while the unwitting singer is simply dumbfounded, or has enough wits about them to respond much in the manner you did. If not I always put in a gentle two cents re: historical significance in your same vein.
...and then, of course, quickly after, it's time for the:
"...and now that we've ALL learned something [hopefully] howza bout a nice set of reels, ready?"
But naturally and unfortunately, this attitude puts a cold shoulder on the vital and important study of history and the lessons to be learned there, which is a real tragedy.
Still, Jack, I fear your cause is doomed as you roam the land looking for the remnants of 1950s Ireland, when it was so wonderful that emigration was probably higher than it was during the "Famine".
The image of one person sitting enthralling one and all in a pub full of people by playing tunes on a whistle or fiddle, those days are long gone.
We are being sold a "noisier" world. People cannot possibly be happy unless they are being deafened.
It used to be people wouldn't go into a pub, any pub not necessarily a music one, if it was noisy and boisterous. Nowadays landlords insist on having 6 TVs, 3 Jukeboxes, and 10 poker machines to give the impression that "this is a great pub, look how noisy it is?" even though it may be empty.
So by and large, we have the modern session, supposed to be all inclusive, until recently when some eejit who knows nothing about sessions invented etiquette, as though sessions were some form of ancient rite.
Good point, Blissters, the Ireland of the 1950s is indeed hard to find. But on my visits there, (always during the winter,) I managed to find it here and there. I remember being in Gurteen and meeting players like Peter Horan, Sonny McDonagh, Jimmy Murphy, and others at Teach Murray Pub and the Roisin Dubh where I felt like I was walking into the 1950s. In the middle of winter there were no tourists except for myself and a few of the older players who were entertaining themselves and a handful of appreciative locals in very quiet rooms. As soon as they noticed my instrument cases they would demand I join in without knowing anything about me. The feeling there was quite different then it was in Dublin or Ennis, but I have to say some of my fondest memories of my visits were from places like that, and I’ve made frequent return trips. It's not that I didn't enjoy the energy and scene in the other places, but they were definitely two different experiences in many ways.
On my last visit in November of 2004 I met up with Peter in Ballaghaderreen not far from Gurteen. I can’t remember the name of the pub, but it had a huge crowd and the din made it very hard for me to enjoy the music. But there were some of the older fellas there as well, like Pat Finn, who did his best to play a few tunes despite the racket and noise.
I’d sure hate to see those sorts of places swallowed up by the Celtic Tiger, or go back to the way Joe Burke once described it to me how it was before the revival when traditional music was delegated to lonely back rooms away from the punters so as not to “bother” them. It’s hard for me to imagine that would ever be the case considering the popularity of the music now and having so many brilliant young players eager to carry it on.
I suppose you’ll always have some of these players souping-up the music so they can take it on tour and make e few bob, but based on what I’ve seen it doesn’t have to mean that the music played in countryside pubs has to change as well. It seems to me to be alive and well, but as an occasional visitor I wouldn’t really be able to determine that.
So my question to you who live there: are the rural pubs and the older playing styles really becoming extinct, or does it just appear that way to us Yanks and other foreigners who are mostly exposed to the touring groups and don’t live in Ireland?
There will always be places like the ones you described, but they will be in rural districts. In cities, a session is used by management to attract a crowd, to keep the till roll turning. They may enjoy it as well, but it needs to pay.
Back in the fifties ITM was practiced indoors in houses, or in back rooms of pubs. You see most of Ireland was a backwater, due mainly to the efforts of one man who imagined "comely maidens' dancing at the crossroads" to be the ideal. And there were no comely maidens dancing. As people saw themselves living in a time warp, they associated ITM as being part of that time warp, and they wanted to leave that behind them, hence being relegated to the back rooms.
Now obviously there were exceptions all over the country, but as a generalisation, the bit above is not too far from the truth.
Nowadays, ITM is mega, especially for tourists and city dwellers.
I always think visiting any new country is better in Winter, more chance of seeing the real country.
If the Ireland of the 50's was so good then why did all my family have to leave? I don't like many of the changes and can understand your fears though I wouldn't share them. Now more than ever we have cast off our self doubt and our colonial baggage and can start to re explore our national identity, and before anyone gets madder at me, this will surely produce a lot of rubbish. However, things will settle back down. We've survived a lot worse over our history and music, gaa sports, language and dance are all getting stronger with more young people than ever involved. Again, this may not always produce results we personaly like but it must be good. In the same quote Connelly also looks for the "joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs", and although there is an irony in hearing them sung now that the "branch" won't kick down your door (well for most anyway), it still is better that they are sung at all. I hope I haven't made you sadder, I try to think that nothing get lost really, transformed maybe, otherwise we're lost.
Still, Jack, I fear your cause is doomed as you roam the land looking for the remnants of 1950s Ireland, when it was so wonderful that emigration was probably higher than it was during the "Famine".
I've been in enough places where "joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs" turns into "ooh aah up the Ra" to understand why that Cavan woman in Florida would remove herself. History's not so great when you're caught in the middle of it.
Couldn't agree more, Bren. I totally refuse to play "Chucky" songs.
There are some lovely anti-colonial songs, some lovely historic songs of resistance, and I would do those, but only in the correct place, otherwise it does degenerate into triumphalism.
Ok "ooh ahh up the Ra" Will Probably be accepted in 100 years time as things that have happened in recent times are still too close to be considered history.................but a song that is still sung with pride by alot of people and I don't understand way its not banned is.............
When Britain first, at heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the azure main.
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang the strain.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Must in their turn, must in their turn,
To tyrants fall,
While thou shall flourish,
Shall flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Chorus.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke.
More dreadful, more dreadful
From each foreign stroke.
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Chorus.
Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame,
All their attempts to bend thee down,
All their attempts, all their attempts
To bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame.
But work their woe and thy renown.
Chorus.
To thee belongs the rural reign,
Thy cities shall with commerce shine,
Thy cities shall, thy cities shall
With commerce shine.
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
Chorus.
The muses still, with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair,
Shall to thy happy coast,
Thy happy coasts repair,
Best isle of beauty,
With matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Still more majestic shalt thou rise
More *dreadful* from each foreign stroke -"
- was indeed prophetic: How better to describe the British urban skyline when the Luftwaffe finished pasting it and rogue planners, architects etc. vied to fling up horrendous dystopian eyesores?
(Though I might grant that The Gherkin is weirdly majestic.)
Being Outnumbered
Being Outnumbered
For quite some time I've been getting worked up about the stuff I've read on this forum and what I've experience in real life. In general I don't have too much optimism on the future of the brand of Irish music that I enjoy but then I read this quote the other night. It brought me some comfort.
"it is the dogma of the few. and not the faith of the multitude" -James Connelly
good luck with the music,
Jack
# Posted on July 24th 2007 by JackMurphy
Re: Being Outnumbered
Stict to your guns Jack
# Posted on July 24th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
stick
# Posted on July 24th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
Poor Jack. No hope, no future.
Maybe you missed this one:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/14555
# Posted on July 24th 2007 by mickray
Re: Being Outnumbered
Look what happened to Connolly.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Being Outnumbered
Hmmm. What works for me is to play the music the way I like to hear it played, and welcome those of similar mind to join in. I don't worry too much about other session's tastes, or musical fads, or overwrought arrangements of tunes that really come alive when they're played with spontaneity. YMMV.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: Being Outnumbered
A few years ago irish Traditional music seen a new lease of life with Riverdance, love it or hate it, but the reality was that many more people discovered irish music and have been enjoying it ever since. Whether your brand of music is Irish republicanism or Ulster loyalist, you should feel that each deserves to feature in our long and eventful history, as both cultures share the same distinctive geneology and sub culture.
If you want to keep your brand of Irish music alive, then keep on playing it, and teach others to do the same, I do.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Accordionstu
Re: Being Outnumbered
What happened to Connolly?
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by greenman
Re: Being Outnumbered
He's nott looking too hot ...
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Ottery
Re: Being Outnumbered
Being Outnumbered
There were two against twenty we had our backs to the wall............................................Boy did we kick the sh*te out of the two..
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
What happened to Connolly? He was shot by firing squad for trying to take back something that was his own..........................
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
Well said, Saint. Perhaps the readership of these pages might take a little time to peruse the aims and qualities of one of our greatest socialist leaders. The day will come......
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Being Outnumbered
The hero of the working man.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Sugarfoot Jack
Re: Being Outnumbered
I like this quote from the man:
'I will say a prayer for all men who do their duty according to their lights' Considering his treatment at the hands of his opponents, quite a final sentiment from a doomed man.
Perhaps also a fine lesson in tolerance and respect, and to remain open to the idea that we are all doing the best we can based on what we have been taught and have experienced.
I doubt I could have done as well.
Hats off.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Rook
Re: Being Outnumbered
Lest we forget, Connolly was also active and inspirational in Scotland (Where he was born) as well as in america (being one of the founders of I.W.W). A remarkable man that we would all do well to try and emulate.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Being Outnumbered
I don't think you need a "blood scarifice" like Pearse or Connoly, to keep tradition alive, that's done by lots of small and unimportant people, the foot soilder, not the general, if the penal laws didn't do for us, we'll go another while yet.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by stevecomputer
Re: Being Outnumbered
I prefer Terence mcswiney's "It is not those who can inflict the most but those who can endure the most" speech. After all, what use is faith if never tested.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by stevecomputer
Re: Being Outnumbered
James Connolly was murdered by the illegal invaders of our land. A working class visionary , his words should be echoing round the minds of all right minded individuals. As I said earlier - Our day will come.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Being Outnumbered
Indeed Connolly was a great man, not a "champaign socialist" like so many others, I think you are doing yourselves a disservice though, politicians and governments come and go, "our day" is and always was today,.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by stevecomputer
Re: Being Outnumbered
I'm lost here..what the connection between ITM and politics ??
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Free Reed
Re: Being Outnumbered
Would someone out there please enlighten Reed (I'm omitting the free bit because, as you now live in the occupied statelet of N.I., you are anything but free). If I start, I may be tempted to go on a very long rant and even say things that he might understand.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Being Outnumbered
I'll get me coat....
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by stevecomputer
Re: Being Outnumbered
I think we should be able to do this fairly simply.
Traditional music reflects a culture's indentity and history.
I don't think that it can't do that even if it doesn't want to.
P.S. Anyone seen the movie in production on Mr. Connolly? - http://www.rascal-films.com/connolly/
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Being Outnumbered
This has nothing to do with Politics Its about history and facts and about people like strayway who still have to live without his true rights.............I don't understand why people get upset when Irish people feel like talking about history .I have no hate for the english on this site but facts are facts and its very annoying when Irish history arises on this site and certain people try to brush it under the carpet and try to make like its no big deal.Well to me it is a big deal and if people don't want learn or hear about irish history thats up to themselves but please don't try to stop us taking about it.
As for the relationship between the music and the history .For me the music is my most important link between me and Irishness..
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
Thank you, Saint, very well put. We must meet up sometime.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by strayaway
Re: Being Outnumbered
The next Im up in your part of Ireland or if your down my way
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
Hear hear, Saint. [thumps bar]
We have an émigré from Cavan here in SWFL and she elects to remove herself from the room during the infrequent times when a historical song is chosen to be sung. Whenever it's over and she returns, there's this awkward moment. You get the "Well we're trying to seek reconciliation and be inclusive now" from her, while the unwitting singer is simply dumbfounded, or has enough wits about them to respond much in the manner you did. If not I always put in a gentle two cents re: historical significance in your same vein.
...and then, of course, quickly after, it's time for the:
"...and now that we've ALL learned something [hopefully] howza bout a nice set of reels, ready?"
But naturally and unfortunately, this attitude puts a cold shoulder on the vital and important study of history and the lessons to be learned there, which is a real tragedy.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Being Outnumbered
And I was only having a wee sleg.
Still, Jack, I fear your cause is doomed as you roam the land looking for the remnants of 1950s Ireland, when it was so wonderful that emigration was probably higher than it was during the "Famine".
The image of one person sitting enthralling one and all in a pub full of people by playing tunes on a whistle or fiddle, those days are long gone.
We are being sold a "noisier" world. People cannot possibly be happy unless they are being deafened.
It used to be people wouldn't go into a pub, any pub not necessarily a music one, if it was noisy and boisterous. Nowadays landlords insist on having 6 TVs, 3 Jukeboxes, and 10 poker machines to give the impression that "this is a great pub, look how noisy it is?" even though it may be empty.
So by and large, we have the modern session, supposed to be all inclusive, until recently when some eejit who knows nothing about sessions invented etiquette, as though sessions were some form of ancient rite.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Being Outnumbered
Excellent perspective bb.
I suppose it's a bit of human nature to idealize the past and perhaps find in it something that never was.
We Irish Americans are never guilty of idealizing our ethnic past into fiction. [keeps straight face]
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Being Outnumbered
Thank you, SWFL, although I always feel threatened when someone actually agrees with me, where's the catch I think.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Being Outnumbered
Good point, Blissters, the Ireland of the 1950s is indeed hard to find. But on my visits there, (always during the winter,) I managed to find it here and there. I remember being in Gurteen and meeting players like Peter Horan, Sonny McDonagh, Jimmy Murphy, and others at Teach Murray Pub and the Roisin Dubh where I felt like I was walking into the 1950s. In the middle of winter there were no tourists except for myself and a few of the older players who were entertaining themselves and a handful of appreciative locals in very quiet rooms. As soon as they noticed my instrument cases they would demand I join in without knowing anything about me. The feeling there was quite different then it was in Dublin or Ennis, but I have to say some of my fondest memories of my visits were from places like that, and I’ve made frequent return trips. It's not that I didn't enjoy the energy and scene in the other places, but they were definitely two different experiences in many ways.
On my last visit in November of 2004 I met up with Peter in Ballaghaderreen not far from Gurteen. I can’t remember the name of the pub, but it had a huge crowd and the din made it very hard for me to enjoy the music. But there were some of the older fellas there as well, like Pat Finn, who did his best to play a few tunes despite the racket and noise.
I’d sure hate to see those sorts of places swallowed up by the Celtic Tiger, or go back to the way Joe Burke once described it to me how it was before the revival when traditional music was delegated to lonely back rooms away from the punters so as not to “bother” them. It’s hard for me to imagine that would ever be the case considering the popularity of the music now and having so many brilliant young players eager to carry it on.
I suppose you’ll always have some of these players souping-up the music so they can take it on tour and make e few bob, but based on what I’ve seen it doesn’t have to mean that the music played in countryside pubs has to change as well. It seems to me to be alive and well, but as an occasional visitor I wouldn’t really be able to determine that.
So my question to you who live there: are the rural pubs and the older playing styles really becoming extinct, or does it just appear that way to us Yanks and other foreigners who are mostly exposed to the touring groups and don’t live in Ireland?
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Being Outnumbered
There will always be places like the ones you described, but they will be in rural districts. In cities, a session is used by management to attract a crowd, to keep the till roll turning. They may enjoy it as well, but it needs to pay.
Back in the fifties ITM was practiced indoors in houses, or in back rooms of pubs. You see most of Ireland was a backwater, due mainly to the efforts of one man who imagined "comely maidens' dancing at the crossroads" to be the ideal. And there were no comely maidens dancing. As people saw themselves living in a time warp, they associated ITM as being part of that time warp, and they wanted to leave that behind them, hence being relegated to the back rooms.
Now obviously there were exceptions all over the country, but as a generalisation, the bit above is not too far from the truth.
Nowadays, ITM is mega, especially for tourists and city dwellers.
I always think visiting any new country is better in Winter, more chance of seeing the real country.
# Posted on July 25th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Being Outnumbered
If the Ireland of the 50's was so good then why did all my family have to leave? I don't like many of the changes and can understand your fears though I wouldn't share them. Now more than ever we have cast off our self doubt and our colonial baggage and can start to re explore our national identity, and before anyone gets madder at me, this will surely produce a lot of rubbish. However, things will settle back down. We've survived a lot worse over our history and music, gaa sports, language and dance are all getting stronger with more young people than ever involved. Again, this may not always produce results we personaly like but it must be good. In the same quote Connelly also looks for the "joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs", and although there is an irony in hearing them sung now that the "branch" won't kick down your door (well for most anyway), it still is better that they are sung at all. I hope I haven't made you sadder, I try to think that nothing get lost really, transformed maybe, otherwise we're lost.
# Posted on July 26th 2007 by stevecomputer
Re: Being Outnumbered
Still, Jack, I fear your cause is doomed as you roam the land looking for the remnants of 1950s Ireland, when it was so wonderful that emigration was probably higher than it was during the "Famine".
FIRST line of my FIRST post
# Posted on July 26th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Being Outnumbered
I've been in enough places where "joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs" turns into "ooh aah up the Ra" to understand why that Cavan woman in Florida would remove herself. History's not so great when you're caught in the middle of it.
# Posted on July 26th 2007 by Bren
Re: Being Outnumbered
Couldn't agree more, Bren. I totally refuse to play "Chucky" songs.
There are some lovely anti-colonial songs, some lovely historic songs of resistance, and I would do those, but only in the correct place, otherwise it does degenerate into triumphalism.
# Posted on July 26th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Being Outnumbered
Ok "ooh ahh up the Ra" Will Probably be accepted in 100 years time as things that have happened in recent times are still too close to be considered history.................but a song that is still sung with pride by alot of people and I don't understand way its not banned is.............
When Britain first, at heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the azure main.
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang the strain.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Must in their turn, must in their turn,
To tyrants fall,
While thou shall flourish,
Shall flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Chorus.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke.
More dreadful, more dreadful
From each foreign stroke.
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Chorus.
Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame,
All their attempts to bend thee down,
All their attempts, all their attempts
To bend thee down,
Will but arouse thy generous flame.
But work their woe and thy renown.
Chorus.
To thee belongs the rural reign,
Thy cities shall with commerce shine,
Thy cities shall, thy cities shall
With commerce shine.
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
Chorus.
The muses still, with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair,
Shall to thy happy coast,
Thy happy coasts repair,
Best isle of beauty,
With matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
# Posted on July 26th 2007 by Saint
Re: Being Outnumbered
"Still more majestic shalt thou rise
More *dreadful* from each foreign stroke -"
- was indeed prophetic: How better to describe the British urban skyline when the Luftwaffe finished pasting it and rogue planners, architects etc. vied to fling up horrendous dystopian eyesores?
(Though I might grant that The Gherkin is weirdly majestic.)
# Posted on July 26th 2007 by nicholas