Colm T—ib’n joins top traditional musicians for cancer care charity

Date Published: {J}

Award-winning author Colm Tóibín is on a motorway in the UK, heading to Heathrow for a flight to Cork. Currently writer-in-residence at Manchester University, he will move to a similar post in America’s prestigious Columbia University in January and he has several new books in the pipeline.

But he’s finding time to come to Galway on November 26 for a special reading when he will team up with top traditional performers Martin Hayes, Peadar Ó Riada and Caomhín Ó Raghallaigh, collectively known as 3-Triúr. The event, in the Radission Blu Hotel, is a fundraiser for Cancer Care West.

When Colm Tóibín was invited to take part in an event for Cancer Care West, he raised the possibility of reading alongside the internationally renowned fiddle player Martin Hayes, whose unique interpretation of Irish traditional music has won him fans from America to Japan.

“It’s a dream to be on stage with him,” says Tóibín. “His music was a big revelation to me; he lifted it and did something very interesting to it.”

The fact that composer and multi-instrumentalist Peadar Ó Riada and fiddler Caomhín Ó Raghallaigh – both of whom the writer knows separately – are part of the evening is an added bonus for Tóibín.

“I don’t mind if nobody else comes along,” he says with a laugh. Of course, he’s joking.

“It’d be great if lots of people were there to enjoy the fun.”

The event will be a mix of music and readings, as well as a public interview with Tóibín and Hayes, and a Q & A session with the audience. The author has selected two pieces for the evening – one from a collection of short stories, the other from his acclaimed novel, Brooklyn.

“There’s a story in Mothers and Sons called A Song and it uses the song Dónal Óg. And there’s a scene in Brooklyn where an old man in Brooklyn sings a song.”

These pieces are just about the right length, says Tóibín, who adds he’d rather let the musicians take the spotlight on this occasion.

Wexford born Colm Tóibín started out in journalism in the early 1980s, and was editor of Magill magazine at a time when the now-defunct magazine was a real force in Irish life.

But in the mid 1989s he opted out and started travelling and writing fiction.

“I was young enough to start all over,” he says of his decision. But there was no grand plan.

“I was happy enough ambling along. But the main thing to do is to keep working.”

Books including Brooklyn, The Master, and The Blackwater Lightship have made Colm Tóibín an international literary name today “but it was a very gradual process . . . and it didn’t happen with my first few books. It’s always a bit of a shock to me”.

Currently writer-in-residence in Manchester, he held a post in America’s Princeton University until recently and will return to the US in January to teach in another Ivy League institution, Columbia.

His teaching commitments don’t interfere with his writing, he says. In fact, they help.

“I only teach on Mondays and Tuesdays and at some point on Tuesday I’m a free man.”

That schedule gives a shape to his week.

“One of the problems with being a writer, as well as the blank page, is having no shape to the week. But teaching for two days means I tend to use the other two days pretty fruitfully.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.