Traditional music is soundly established in Ireland as a ‘national’ music with a cross-class goodwill that sees large numbers of young people playing it as their music of choice. It is guided by enthusiastic idealists who run week-to-week teaching and seasonal music schools;  they make things happen by belief, commitment, foresight, planning and persistence. Their work is paralleled by equally dedicated people in Scotland, England, Europe, Scandinavia and North America, all of whom are linked to Ireland by performance and touring in the one disparate, global community of taste. Part of this picture too is the university-level study of Traditional music in Ireland and Britain, out of which comes much valuable research and writing.

The Crosbhealach/Crossroads conferences set out to understand all of this better, and this second volume of papers is a diverse range of voices which assess aesthetic, practical and academic aspects of formal and informal Traditional music learning. The thirty-four essays in this volume are a cogent contribution to Irish Studies knowledge, and are of particular relevance to education, State agencies and the media. They should add too to the confidence of those involved in performance and promotion, for they show Traditional music internationally as alive and engaged – a challenging, satisfying contemporary music of the twenty-first century.

Copies of the book will be available at the launch for a special price of €15, personal sales only. There is a short print run, and supplies are limited at this point. You can reserve your copy for pick-up at the launch: pre-orders now being taken – write to cros03@eircom.net

Available by post only  after the launch date: €26.50 including postage (Ireland and N. Ireland), €27.50 (UK & EU), €31 (USA, World). Reduced postage on multiple copies. The book will be printed in batches in response to future demands.

Special contributors’ rate: this is a non-profit publication and the writers of the papers receive no remuneration. However we offer copies of the book for sale to them at print-cost as a gesture of appreciation for their work. This price is only available to listed contributors. Reduced postage applies for multiple copy orders: please contact us on cros03@eircom.net.

Read the full information on this book on www.whinstone.net.

The Companion to Irish Traditional Music is now available in digital formats. On February 1st 2013 it was released as an ebook on Kindle and on iBooks. It is also available to libraries on-line through the Project Muse UPCC collection, as part of a greater collection, or, later in 2013 as an individual title; libraries can also get access from CHOICE website by subscription.

This is a landmark for a reference publication dedicated to Irish music, and opens up a huge new potential for the encyclopedia’s use in education in particular. The online formats make it possible for schools and colleges to economically manage productive access to the book’s huge volume of data: searches for places, names, music or instrument references, quoting information or gathering together linked but diffuse information on such as dance or song – as part of project and music programme research.

Each of these digital versions also has the terrific ability to not only find a term or name within the book itself, but will also do a search on the web for the same term. A wonderful way to save time and to broaden knowledge, this ties the data from the book into the huge resources on the internet.This revolutionises the Companion’s potential, making it a highly convenient, valuable, everyday resource for any musician, music lover, music student or researcher.

In its Kindle and iBooks editions the many musicians and music lovers whose interest is the community and history of Irish music will be able to have it not only as a portable resource, but one which they can conveniently page-mark, search and peruse at their leisure on any digital device. With c. 600,000 words of highly specialised content this is good value, particularly on the Kindle version which permits reading on all kinds of mobile devices AND laptops. [SEE BELOW FOR ADVICE ON CHOOSING WHICH SYSTEM]

View sample pages on Kindle
The kindle format is the most versatile, for it can be read not only on light, hand-held Kindle devices, but also on most mobile phones, all tablets and PC and Mac laptops and on all systems and makes of desktop computer.
The iBooks version can be read only on Apple iPhone and iPads.

The software needed to read ibooks or kindle is available for free download.

The digital Companion is hugely superior to browsing websites – the entire book is downloaded to your device and once installed requires no internet or wireless connection – it is always there. That is, unlike the very valuable sites such as thesession.org, or the amazing facility of Tunepal, you can have the Companion wherever you go, no matter how remote – uninterrupted. The ebook version will cost €29.99 – half the full, hard-copy retail price. A kindle reader weighs 170 grams, the hardback Companion weighs 1.7 kilograms: for a regular reader that’s half the price, one tenth the weight.

To purchase

For all Apple devices only – ibooks
For all devices – including Apple – kindle

Software needed

To download kindle – for all kinds of devices, including Apple computers, phones and pads

To download iBooks – for all Apple devices only

WHICH FORMAT SHOULD YOU GET – Kindle or iBooks?

Kindle (on PC, Android and also Mac)
iBooks (Mac, iPad, iPhone only)

Kindle version

Downloads rapidly
Use highlights on text
Multiple-word and name search
Search results not identified by chapter and page number
No separate sections for A-Z units
Page marking
Multiple-word and name search
Can be used on laptop AND phone, tablet etc.

iBooks version

Downloads rapidly
Use highlights on text
Multiple-word and name search
Search results organized by page & chapter
A-Z in separate chapters
Page marking
Read on iPhone, iPad only, NOT laptop

Advice

Both versions can search for a term or name within the book itself and also on the web, and both display the found items in sequence. But there are differences which may be important:

If you want to or need to read the book on any system of phone or pad AND ALSO on  laptop or computer, get the Kindle

If you will be using only an iPhone or iPad to read it get the iBooks version

If you need to have details of where ‘found’ items are located, and  you have an iPhone or iPad, get iBooks version

Need versatility?

A stronger reason to purchase the Kindle version is that you can read both on mobile devices (all systems) AND on your laptop or desktop computer. Perhaps more useful for students, travellers or for musicians on the road. It does not have the overall text broken down into separate A-Z chapters however, and though it gives search results in chronological order, it does not identify what chapter they are located in; this may make the interpretation of search results more cumbersome.

Need to quote?

A stronger reason to purchase iBooks version is if you will be reading only on an iPhone or iPad, for it is easier to negotiate. It has the overall text broken into A-Z chapters, and gives chapter and page numbers to identify where searched-for items are located. This makes searching clearer and ultimately faster, and also makes it easier to go to a particular section for sustained reading; it is also very useful for research, detailed quotation, referencing or planning by such as teachers.

The Companion to Irish Traditional Music has been ranked 11th in a shortlist of 644 ‘Outstanding Academic Titles’ chosen by a key US librarians’ resource, Choice Reviews Online. The shortlist was selected from a total of c. 7,000 academic reviews of books in all subject areas which were themselves chosen by Choice Reviews for critical comment during 2012 out of more than 25,000 submitted books. This means that the Companion is in the top 3% of these 25,000 titles. This is a great achievement for the Companion’s publisher, Cork University Press and indeed for a book dedicated to Irish Traditional music, and for its contributors.

Choice Reviews Online

Current Reviews for Academic Libraries is the premier source for reviews of academic books, electronic media, and Internet resources of interest to those in higher education in the US. More than 35,000 librarians, faculty, and key decision makers rely on Choice magazine and Choice Reviews Online for collection development and scholarly research. Choice reaches almost every undergraduate college and university library in the United States, and enjoys a substantial international subscriber base. Each year it publishes more than 7,000 reviews that are typically the first comment on scholarly publications, are written by selected experts in the subject, and are brief but thorough, providing information, recommendations and ordering data (Choice review)

Music and tunes for the wooden concert flute · New flute tutor by Fintan Vallely

Including the basics of playing traditional music and a selection of over 100 tunes for all instruments.

A unique visual and descriptive ‘method’ for all levels of learning and playing on the keyed and unkeyed ‘Irish’ wooden flutes. Tried and tested, this is a greatly expanded and improved update of the very first Irish flute tutor which was published in 1986. Its 136 pages are packed with background information and suitable for all from the most basic to the most advanced levels. The book covers breathing and ornamentation techniques, has a hundred and five notated tunes and a companion CDs with 180 tracks of tuition, ornamentation and music examples. This ‘method’ is perfectly suited too to the tin whistle.This book first appeared in 1986 as Timber, The Concert-Flute Tutor, the first learning manual for the flute in Irish traditional music. It was a milestone for an instrument which had hitherto been surrounded by much myth and mystery. Indeed, the wooden flute was so invisible to the world outside of Irish music at that time that the first edition was turned down by several publishers on the grounds that there would be no demand for it. Happily, they were proved wrong and the book’s popular uptake confirms that there is a demand for flute learning, and indeed for teaching.

At the time of the original publication there was not only a shortage of learning resources, but also a very real scarcity of flutes. Today the flute is easily available, familiar and visible, as it has been integrated nationally and promoted internationally by many wonderful players, not least by Matt Molloy of the Chieftains.

The Complete Guide to Learning the Irish Flute contains all that the beginner needs to know about flute technique while it also has much to offer those who are already playing. It is reasoned and written with both the essential traditional elements and modern-day usage of the flute in mind, including rhythm, articulation, harmonics and pitch change. Rarely discussed in the past outside of jazz and orchestral flute playing, these and other techniques not only offer huge potential to the budding virtuoso, but can be of immeasurable value in tone production for all players.

The range of tunes supplied in these pages also makes possible a full, creative, extensive exploration of the elements of style. Photographic illustration is used to demonstrate the text. the book has a modular format which makes it possible to work on any section independently. Experienced players will find much that is useful for polishing their technique while those who are simply interested in traditional music will be better informed about the nuts and bolts of flute playing. The accompanying audio has the huge advantage of (like the text) instant access to particular tracks or sections. For those with iTunes or a similar programme it also offers the great potential to re-order the track sequence to suit their personal taste or stage of playing.

The Companion to Irish Traditional Music has been awarded a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) for 2012.

Coinciding with this award is the Companion’s release on Friday, 1st February as an ebook:

• ibook
• kindle

About the OAT title

About the ebook versions

Full information on the Companion’s contents is on the page www.companion.ie

This includes information on its launch in Dublin on November 24th. The words of the speakers at this event are published  on  www.companion.ie. This free access site presently carries an A-Z list of all the book’s articles (c. 1800), list of all writers (c. 200), a major category breakdown of the articles, and a full names index of all people and bands mentioned in the text (c. 5000 names).

www.companion.ie is designed to help readers to get the most out of the Companion. It should be valuable in teaching where it is necessary to draw related data from many different articles. It will progressively develop to include links from the listed topics to selected web references outside the Companion site.  Feedback is welcomed, as are links to other sites.

LAUNCH ADDRESSES - Royal Irish Academy, Dawson St., Dublin, November 24^th, 2011.

Conference programme

Irish Times comment by Frank McNally, May 16

Fintan Vallely is the academic convenor of the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention’s biennial conference in late June, 2012. This is a unique conference set in a week of exceptional music performances in Derry city and Co. Donegal which addresses a challenging issue for Traditional musics in the 21^st century – the shift of emphasis from music for dancing to music for listening. The conference indeed continues the train of thinking begun at the Crosbhealach an Cheoil conferences in 1996 and 2003. More …

Fintan Vallely, editor

There are many notable publications on Irish traditional music, among them works of monumental initiative and deservedly enduring status. Only a handful however attempt to present an overall picture, a difficult task in what is now a vast field.

The traditional music scene has changed radically since the 1960s, and now by the second decade of the 21st century it is seen to have become an established part of Irish culture. The commercial life of traditional music has evolved and consolidated as well, bringing with it significant music tourism.

The complementary energetic debate on traditionalism in Irish music and its expanding profile within the academic system has created too a wealth of new approaches to playing and study. In particular there is a growth of academic research interests, with many major studies now underway.

The Companion draws together the oldness and newness, the aesthetics and analysis, and the practice and study of the diverse interests and ideas of this music field in relevant and accessible ways. Fintan Vallely, himself an accomplished musician and music writer, has harnessed the expertise of more than 200 specialists from various aspects of traditional music, who in more than half a million words of comment present a remarkably comprehensive image of the field. The Companion presents A-Z descriptions of instruments and their playing styles, repertoires, the history of traditions, and analysis of the impact of the media and the modern history of traditional music making.

Among the specialists who have contributed to the Companion are many major performers such as Martin Hayes, Máire Ní Chathasaigh, Gerry O’Connor, Liz Doherty, Niall Keegan, June Ní Chormaic, Mick Moloney, Niall Vallely and Jesse Smith. Predominant too are the most eminent researchers and writers including Terry Moylan, Martin Dowling, Caoimhín Mac Aoidh, Colette Moloney, Harry Bradshaw, Nicholas Carolan, Anne Buckley, Ríonach Uí Ógain and Pat Mitchell.

Biographical entries cover significant musicians, commentators and composers. Central themes within traditional music are given extended entries such as the coverage of song and dance, oral tradition, innovation and the social politics of Irish music. The structure of the book is tightened, with close positioning of the disparate areas of large subjects like ‘ornamentation’, ‘dance’ and ‘song’. A significant addition to the original edition is the inclusion of many more biographies, and commentary on music, teaching and performance in all 32 counties of Ireland, as well as in Britain, Scotland, the USA and all major European countries where Irish Traditional music is played.

The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, 2nd Edition, is available to purchase on line from Cork University Press

A website dedicated to its content is now running - see www.companion.ie

A study in text, photographs and graphic design of the fiddler Ben Lennon of Kiltyclogher, Co. Leitrim.

Ben Lennon’s life is documented here in words by writer Fintan Vallely and he is presented within his music society in a hundred and more striking photographs by international award-winner Nutan Jacques Pirapez. These elements are integrated by a vigorous, complementary design by Martin Gaffney as the visual story of a personal journey in music by a commentator who has a bird’s eye view that is a panorama of the technological and artistic transformation from the old Ireland to the new, from traditional music redundancy to its artistic supremacy.

The text is based on interviews done by Fintan Vallely in June, 2010, as well as on other conversations with Ben and on his own personal biographical notes; photographs represent conviviality, community, vitality and joy and cover a wide span of years with emphasis on the contemporary. The book is tenderly endorsed by Séamus Connolly, Ciaran Carson provides a poetic Prologue and Fr. Séamus Quinn a touching epilogue, and it includes comment by Maurice, Brian and David Lennon, by Gabriel McArdle, Desi Wilkinson, John Carty and Andy Dickson.

Summary

The Tailor’s Twist was conceived by Nutan Jacques Piraprez and the concept developed with Martin Gaffney and Fintan Vallely working as Friends of Ben Lennon – FOBL. It includes both contemporary images of Ben and material from Nutan’s photographic archive assembled over several decades. Additional informative imagery has been assembled by Martin Gaffney from archival and other resources and from Ben Lennon’s and the Lennon family’s memorabilia. Other images courtesy of Derek Speirs (Report), Fintan Vallely and others as credited.

Song texts quoted by Gabriel McArdle and tune transcriptions by Gerry (fiddle) O’Connor and Fintan Vallely. Niamh Parsons did the interview transcriptions, Áine Hensey helped with captions, and numerous others provided support and additional information.

The project was made possible by research and development funding generously provided by the Deis Traditional music support initiative of An Comhairle Ealaíon – The Arts Council of Ireland.

Supplementary funding for travel and research was given also by The Coleman Traditional Irish Music Centre, now CCÉ’s Regional Resource Centre for counties Sligo, Roscommon, Mayo, Leitrim and Fermanagh.

The Tailor’s Twist has had the unstinting cooperation of Ben Lennon himself, and is inspired by all his friends throughout Ireland who have been hugely appreciative in their thousands of hours of music-making and late-night holding court with him over the decades.

ISBN  978-0-9511569-2-6

Visit fobl.ie for further information.

A satiric/comic song selection of modern Ireland, ed. Fintan Vallely

Publishers’ information

A collection of comic and satirical lyrics that comment on some of the inconsistencies and absurdities that mark Irish society’s transition from the past to the future. The style is long-established and reaches back to the Gaelic bard’s role in early-millennium social structures on this island. Each tale carries a moral, but humour is the vehicle that dispenses it with an ease that renders it both visible and invisible: the observer has the space to 23 their own choices.

This kind of song/verse is long-established in Ireland. Satiric song is a mildly-admonishing device of Irish literature, comic observation and ridicule are part of everyday conversation. These songs comment on perfectly obvious everyday things, they say things that are as rigorously accurate as the news bulletins and newspapers that they were culled from,.. The twist is in the approach, the addition of the fantastic and the surreal. Drama is invoked to drive home the message. But just as important as the songs is the accompanying text. The introductory essays stand on their own as a complementary area of observation and render their associated lyrics all the richer, making this book not just a mere songbook, but a solid comic test that is in a continuum with Breandán O hEithir’s Begrudger’s Guide to Irish Politics, Myles na Gopaleen. Sex, National politics, Drink, Fast Food, Traditional music, Religion, Recreation, Agriculture, the Weather – all are analysed herein through he medium of the direct slag, the obtuse dig, the dry remark.

Sing Up! Song Contents

THE ARAB ORANGE LODGE  – Crawford Howard’s fantasy concerning the consequences of exporting the L.O.L. to Damascus.

THE BALDY SONG – On the plight and restorative antics of men who can’t handle baldness.

BANG BANG’S DAY – Blow by blow saga of the exciting scenes surrounding Evelyn Glenholmes’s release from court in the late 80s Dublin.

BEAUTY SPOT GLANLEA – Patsy Cronin’s imaginary journey around the world, based on reading newspapers and atlases.

THE BALLAD OF BINDER TWINE – Micheál Marrinan’s verbal extrusions on what to do with the EC Twine mountain.

THE BALLAD OF RANGY RIBS – Dungiven bard Brian McGuinness’s exhaustive dissertation on the colourful life of an unkempt, unbiddable, unwanted bullock.

THE BALLAD OF THE TEETH – Tale of how he lost them to the desires of a jackdaw, and then got them back

THE BODHRÁN SONG – Tim Lyon’s tale of the fate of a German tourist who went trying to make his own bodhrán.

THE BUFFALO FARM IN ACHILTIEBUIE – Andy Mitchell’s nightmare about Scottish Highlands development after overhearing a pub discussion on EC grant-aid for bison farming.

CHARLES THE NAVIGATOR – Charlie Haughey’s conquest of the Mizzen head by yacht.

THE CITY OF MULLINGAR – A 19th century hedgeschool master style eulogy on that most gorgeous of Irish cities.

CONFESSIONS OF A BODHRÁN PLAYER – Observations on the contradictions and absurdities with which the vegetarian bodhrán player must grapple.

THE DAFFODIL MAN FROM KILTYBANE – Jim McAllister’s effusions on an innocent who happened to suggest something so effete as flowers to a Crossmaglen publican.

THE DENTIST FROM FIVEMILETOWN – Hugh Collin’s tale of oral torture in the rare ould times.

THE DONERAILE LITANY – Patrick O’Kelly’s curse on the miserable hoors of Doneraile who robbed the watch he had got from a British monarch.

DRUMSNOT, BEAUTY SPOT*** – Briain O’Rourke’s satire on the beauty spot industry.

DUNNE(S) STOR(I)ES BEATS THEM ALL – On Ben Dunne being caught with no pants, off his head and on cocaine in Miami.

THE E(?)C SONG – Tim Lyons’ denunciation of the evils of the EC and its effect on the drinking public.

THE ERRANT APPRENTICE – Bill Watkins’ internal-rhyme tale of how a soldier lad had his eye wiped by the publican’s daughter.

THE FAST-FOOD SONG – Tim Lyons’ excoriation of fast food burgers and trashy eating.

THE FENIAN RECORD PLAYER – Crawford Howard’s updating of The Ould Orange Flute into the age of electro-mechanical technology.

THE FOODAHOLIC – Crawford Howard at it again, on compulsive eating and its result.

THE FREE STATE ADJUDICATOR – Joe Mulhearn’s satire on public humiliation dealt out to the Ulster song tradition by a Fleadh apparatchik.

THE GUBU SONG – Mickey McConnell’s brilliant parody on politicians’ gobbledygook.

THE GENESIS SONG – How sex was invented, and the background to clerical celibacy.

THE GLASGOW COURTSHIP – Adam MacNaughton’s parody on the grand hedge-schoolmaster song evocations of the early 19th century.

THE GOAT’S REPLY – Fred McCormick’s words in the mouth of the sibling of Brian O’Rourke’s goat: this one has no notion of being humiliated.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU, MR. GORSKY! – Weird sex intrigue behind the scenes of the first flight to the Moon.

THE GRISLY MURDER OF JOE FRAWLEY – Tim Lyon’s tale of drink, love, revenge, grisly murder and prison in a fantasy gombeen land.

HEY RONNIE REAGAN! – John Maguire brilliantly becomes all of Ireland’s marginalia and tells the big man to get stuffed.

HO CHARLIUM – The course of the 1990 Presidential election seen as a horse race at the Phoenix Park.

INVITATION TO A FUNERAL – The Finnegan’s wake theme – the corpse doesn’t turn up, but the crack is good, and rows and fights reduce the party to patheticism.

THE IRISH JUBILEE – A post-famine food-hallucination of over-eating set in Irish America.

The JOHNNIES SONG – How the Gardai set about shutting down the dreaded Well Woman She-been.

LEITRIM IS A VERY FUNNY PLACE – How the natives of Ballinamore dared to refuse to talk to RTÉ in the heat of crisis.

LITANY OF A BIG EGO – And how RTÉ broadcasters used feel obliged to be important and exclusive in the days when their employer was important because it was exclusive.

THE MAN FROM DEL MONTE – Scorching cynicism from the sadistic quill of master-bard Deaglán Talúin.

THE MICE AT IT AGAIN – Sean Corcoran’s collected woes about the proliferation of mice in the days before Dak and poison.

MICK SULLIVAN’S CLOCK – The Clock packs it in, goes on tour and is beaten to death.

THE MILTOWN COCKROACH – Con Fada Ó Drisceoil’s fate at the fangs and venoms of beasts of the night in a tent.

THE MISSING MISSUS MYSTERY – How Mrs. Runcie never appeared on the TV when the Bishop went to Rome for the early stages of an Anglo-Roman cease-fire agreement.

THE MOVING STATUES MOVEMENT – The only economic growth of the 1980s – when even the statues got sick of the rain.

THE NAMES OF TUNES SONG – Michael Scanlon parades a significant repertoire as seamless medley to the tune of The Swallow’s Tail.

NELL FLAHERTY’S DRAKE – Spectacular curses over the theft of a prized bird.

THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED OWENY’S – Finbar Boyle’s satire on the Gardaí for daring to close down a famed topers’ emporium in Dundalk.

THE NIGHT-CLUBBING SONG – Mícheál Marrinan’s jaunt to the big smoke to taste a bit of the high-life and late-drinking fashionable in 80s Dublin.

ON THOSE WHO STOLE OUR CAT, A CURSE – wished venomously by Michael Hartnett in the spirit of Doneraile, Carey and Nell Flaherty.

OOR HAMLET – Adam McNaughtan tells the story as it has never been told, set to music.

THE ORDNANCE SURVEY MAN – Deaglán Talúin’s Herculean assessment of the mundane life of a mere civil servant who is fond of a bit of music.

PADDY’S LAMENT – The fight-back against the ‘Paddy’ syndrome in industrial England.

PADDY’S PANACEA – Sophisticated, late 19th century ramble extolling the efficacy of the pure drop.

PANAMANIA – George (senior) Bush’s desperate stab at fame after Mikhail Gorbachev had stolen the limelight.

THE PAPISH GOAT – How a Fenian hoofer was kidnapped and irreversibly transubstantiated into percussion.

THE PEELER AND THE GOAT – Darby Ryan’s 1830s scathing satire on the Peelerhood who had wronged him.

THE POOL SONG – Con Fada Ó Drisceoil denounces the shapeless louts and loussies who spend their lives hooped over green tables playing with their balls.

THE QUILTY TURTLE – Ciarán Ó Drisceoil’s fantasy about a beast which somehow got from the Caribbean to Clare and into a row.

RESURRECTION ROMP – How it really happened – intrigue, Jesus, Peter, drink, money and the music scene.

RIGGED OUT – Famine years souls-for-clothes trade-off tale.

ROUND THE MICKEY DAM – The Derry emigrant navvy in 19th century Glasgow extols the merits of a good breakfast.

THE RONALD REGAN BAR – Why Ronnie came to visit Ballyporeen.

ROUND THE MICKEY DAM – Fightin’ Irish again: in defence of victimisation, Paddy takes the initiative.

SAFFRON AND WINE – Miltown Malbay’s tough team which couldn’t be matched by the matchmakers.

THE SEALINK SONG – Discourse on the somewhat absurdity of the Ferryboat evacuation Mayday messages.

THE SHADES OF ASHGROVE – Darby Ryan in exceptional Anglo- Hibernic (satirical?) verbosity in praise of his local stream.

SKIN THE GOAT’S CURSE ON CAREY – The famous Dublin cabman reeks verbal revenge on the first supergrass.

SOLID STALLION SPANKER – Eoghan Ruadh O’Súilleabháin’s alliterative ad for the sale of his horse.

THE STUDIO SONG (P XXX) – Paranoia strikes broadcasters once there’s a change in the weather.

SWEET BALTRAY – Bitterly-derisive tale of a wedding feast for a couple who do not enjoy the scribe’s affections.

THE TRANSIT VAN – Sean Mone on the life and times of a border smuggler who took his inspiration from Margaret Thatcher.

THE TRIP TO FEAKLE – Deaglán Talúin’s surreal account of an innocent music trip to Co. Clare by naive natives of Coolea.

YOUR PLACE OR MINE? – Briain O’Rourke’s campaign-tale of the short-lived Gold rush in Co. Mayo.

BOOTLEGGING BOGLE – Sheila Miller lashes out at the folk-pop song pirates of folk club Scotland.

THE WATERFORD BOYS – The rat trade, the landlord and a smart customer.

THE WEATHER SONG – Classic moan by Tim Lyons about the worst summer in decades

WEE WHITE TURBAN – Mulhearn’s seething parody on The Broad Black Brimmer.

WHEN I GROW UP – Briain O’Rourke’s other life as a kid madly wanting nothing more from life than to be beaten.

WHEN THE ESB CAME TO COOLEA – How the ‘electric’ came to Coolea, West Cork.

WILLIE MAC BRIDE: THE REVENGE – Crawford Howard’s revenge on the pub-lounge lizard’s most popular request.

Song notes to the songs in the book which appear on the Schitheredee album Big Guns and Hairy Drums by Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely

1/ The Bodhrán Song.

With the international fashion of Folk musics the bodhrán has multiplied in geometric progression as a symbol of instant access to music-making. It has reached nonsense proportions in the Irish Fleadh Cheoil and English Folk Festival scene where a melody instrument may well start off the music, but the percussion swells in and eventually becomes an end in itself. Ever aware of this scenario all round him the whole summer long, Tim tells the original yarn about the bodhrán in song in which he vilifies the ‘typical’ tourist as German (it used be American) but lets the goat get away. Sensibly enough he robbed The Cuckoo’s Nest to lay his tonic eggs in – to eliminate the possibility of any German ever learning the song.

2/ Song of The Teeth.

Martin O’Malley from Miltown Malbay in West Glare is an outstanding patron and enjoyer of traditional music and Song. A farmer. the only thing which interferes with his hay making is the cursed Willy Clancy Summer school in the first week of July. On the one sunny day of 1985 while at the hay he set his teeth on the wall for a rest after dinner, and a jackdaw robbed them. Two years later a neighbour (called Crowe) found them, So Martin coined the immortal words: “Robbed by a jackdaw, brought back by a Crow”, and the song gushed forth.

3/ The Fast-food Song.

To a traditional air, this is about the Fast Food industry which is fattening the Western Hemisphere and will eventually kill it off, a result of Tim being half poisoned by a half-thawed, botulism-ridden alleged burger he foolishly once bought on the side of the street at the Willy Clancy Week one year.

4/ Dunne’s story beats them all.

“DUNNES’ STORES BETTER VALUE BEATS THEM ALL” used be the famous slogan of Ireland’s most competitive cut-price supermarket which specialises in selling the fastest-moving items at the lowest prices. Its millionaire proprietor, young Ben Dunne, while on an alleged golfing trip to Miami O.D.’d on cocaine and was arrested after going off his rocker in the company of a woman from an escort agency. Later on he appeased the Catholic hierarchy by joining in the Irish supermarket blockade against selling condoms.

5/ Jake the Sniffer.

The police will stoop to any level to wipe out drugs, even corrupt innocent dogs by getting them hooked so that they will do anything to get a sniff. Tim was taken by the tale of this beast, one Jake, who was once kidnapped for interrogation by the drug barons.

6/ Charles the Navigator

One morning in 1985 the yacht of Charles J. Haughey crash-landed on the Mizen Head off Co. Cork as he was rushing home to eventual accountability for his expensive lifestyle. The Mizzen’s lighthouse keeper counselled the survivors by torch light, and the Party faithful flocked to Baltimore to witness their boss being winched ashore and dried out on the pier – all timed perfectly to get the Sunday one O’clock news. The ‘taypot’ is the one Charles gave away to Maggie Maggie Maggie (leaving a lonely gap in a set in the National Museum) and the `sickening crunch’ is his own description of the docking.

7/ The Weather

Tim wrote this opus in desperation at the bad summer of 1985 which caused a National gloom both that year and the one Slier. The bad Weather must be held accountable too for Gay Byrne depressing the half of the country about the joys of working in America and Australia thereby creating an emigration crisis among people foolish enough to take him seriously The exodus makes the famine years look like a bomb- scare, and he didn’t go himself in the end, now trying to convince us to become millionaires).

8/ The Sun-worshipper Song.

There is a pool of water in the North pole ice a mile across. There is a hole in the ozone layer which if it doesn’t incinerate us all will drown us in melted icebergs. Steps were taken some years ago to limit the substances which were causing all this, while at the same time the price of cars has been kept down to make sure that none of it will work. The song explores the contradictions involved with those who fetishise the colour of the body.

9/ Resurrection Romp

The apostles, as everybody knows, were heavily into Irish music and they liked a couple of drinks of a weekend – especially with a Bank Holiday coming up. Christy Moore told Fintan this story in joke form one Good Friday in Maisie Friel’s of Miltown Malbay as all were breaking the law for pleasure. Fintan wrote it as a commission for RTÉ’s ‘Sunday show’ at Easter, 1990. Producer Noel CoughIan wasn’t pleased, nor was presenter Andy O’Mahoney: their show was a “family” one, so it was censored out.

10/ The E?EC Song

The 1969 EEC elections were celebrated by people all over Ireland killing each other to get to blazes out and find a good job in Brussels. Tim doesn’t agree with all this rot and sets out in detail the cashed hopes. false promises. ruined economy. automated pubs and other awfulness that have been the result of Ireland’s joining up in ’71.

11/ The Well Woman Song

Prior to `83 contraception was illegal in Ireland. This led to unwanted pregnancies, large families, single mothers – and to abortion in England. A group of impeccably moral citizens in 1983 initiated ‘The Referendum” to prevent women making such decisions, and then the law eased so one could get condoms – but only from a doctor (if you planned busy sex-life it would be cheaper to emigrate). Since the Well Woman clinic respected the woman’s right to choose, and, furthermore, was liberally interpreting the law by giving out condoms free, in return for a small voluntary donation, ‘The Referendum” crowd put pressure on the Gardaí to prosecute. A lad was sent to the clinic to purchase a condom which became `Exhibit A’, and long after the things had been made legal the clinic was fined £50 for their dastardly crime.

12/ The Price of the Pig.

A tale of hard times when the innocent lad in a strange town is beguiled by the charms of a smart woman and ends up penniless. A gem of a traditional piece to the air of the jig Tatter jack Walsh.

13/ Mwilly Mmride

Australian Eric Bogle’s wonderful 1970s Green Fields of France details the pointlessness of World War 1 slaughter, addressing an unknown soldier, Willie MacBride. The Fureys topped the charts with it, lodging it in everybody’s sentiment file, everywhere that English is spoken. Anyone suspected of being able to sing is constantly terrorised by unknown civilians with requests to “do Willie MacBride”. Finally Crawford Howard from Belfast obliged, in parody. This is Fintan’s adaptation of Crawford’s rather brilliant, original idea.

14/ Confessions of a Bodhrán Player

This addresses the New-agey type of player of the modern Irish skin drum who mistakenly believes that this the oldest thing around, and, conveniently, also perceives it as easy to play as stamping your foot. Neither is true, and so bodhrán players continue to take the brunt of the jokes inside Traditional music.

15/ The Grisly Murder of Joe Frawley

The grocer-cum-publican is common enough in rural anywhere. Joe Frawley had such an emporium, and was a politician too. Ever since Irish women took to the pub after the epidemic of addiction to Dallas where every sentence used a drink as punctuation, music came to be provided as entertainment, sometimes the native stuff, more likely a cocktail of Country and pop. Often, to save expense, local Trad musicians would be recruited, and called a ‘session’. Substances other than alcohol would be consumed too, and Tim’s parody on the classic ‘murder’ ballad romantically unfolds. The ‘holy hour’ was the now-obsolete dinner-hour during which Dublin pubs were closed to give unionised bar-staff a break.

16/ The Moving Statues Movement

In 1985, in twenty-six places around Ireland, previously content and immobile statues of stone, plaster and reinforced concrete began to move – wink, weep, bleed, sigh, talk and even light up. The thing caught on like good scandal and became the only growth industry of the 1980s. Nell McCafferty pondered the curious fact that the statues only moved in the 26 Counties (Fintan’s theory is that the ones in the Six Cos. were afraid to move). It was all brought on by all the talk and referenda on divorce and contraception; the air is that of the 1960s Civil Rights anthem.

These sixteen songs appear in print in Sing Up!, published in July, 2008