Archive News
Charlie shares memories and musical tips in new publication
Date Published: 09-Jan-2013
Charlie Lennon is a leading figure in the world of traditional music, whose compositions have been recorded by the likes of the Waterboys, Joe Burke, de Dannan, Liam O’Flynn and Sharon Shannon.
The Leitrim born musician and composer, who has lived in Spiddal for over 20 years, is launching a new collection of his works this Friday night in Dublin’s Harcourt Hotel.
Irish Tunes for Fiddle, Musical Memories 2 is being published by Walton’s Music and will be launched by RTÉ’s former Director General Cathal Goan. It contains 72 tunes and follows on from a previous collection of Charlie’s compositions, published in 1993.
This new book and accompanying CD was a major undertaking, because he wanted to do it comprehensively. Each tune had to be notated and he also put arrangements for piano on each one, as well as chords for guitar and bouzouki.
“Part of the book is really tips on piano accompaniment. I wanted to put in that,” he says, as he feels providing accompaniment “is a somewhat overlooked area, which requires very specific skills.
“There has to be an understanding between the melody maker and the accompanist. The accompanist must understand the natural rhythm and get under that and support it rather than imposing. Being subtle is part of the art”.
Charlie, who is best known as a fiddle player, has been a piano accompanist on over 25 albums so he’s well placed to give advice on that role, as well as on fiddle playing itself. But, he says, the book might never have been completed without the encouragement of a fellow musician.
“There was a guy living in Spiddal called Dave Flynn and I don’t think I’d have persevered without him. I was lazy,” says Charlie, who isn’t a bit lazy. Many men of his age, 74, would be content to take life easy, but that’s not in his nature.
“I don’t think about age,” he says. He may not, but in the process of working on this book he became ill and was two years out of action. So, while he is very relaxed and easygoing, he is a man who doesn’t waste time now– not that he ever did.
He had no ear for listening to music when he was ill, he says, and was neither able to play nor interested in performing. It was the first time since childhood that he hadn’t been involved with music.
Growing up in rural Leitrim in the 1940s, he played piano and fiddle, but emigration took a huge toll on the community there and as people left, he stopped playing. Then, when he was 14, a teacher at the local vocational school, Master Shanley, got young people playing again and formed a band. Charlie got involved and toured with them for several years, before deciding he needed to sort out his education and establish a career.
“I had enough of the touring every day and felt I wanted to do something else.”
He was starting from the back foot, however. Charlie had been very ill as a baby, as a result of which he was beset by chest problems throughout his youth. That meant that he eventually fell behind with his studies and dropped out of education after finishing national school.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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