Archive News
Connemara’s young musicians display their talent in new CD
Date Published: {J}
Anyone looking at this album would say ‘the old music is doing OK out in Connemara,” says Leo Hallisey, Director of the Conamara Environmental Educational and Cultural Centre, about The Mermaid’s Purse, a new CD featuring the talent of about 50 of Connemara’s finest young traditional musicians.
The album is being launched on Friday, April 1, in the Station House Hotel in Clifden. It is the work of the Conamara Environmental Education and Cultural Centre, (CEECC) Letterfrack and the musicians taking part range in age from eight to 18, and from all over Connemara – both the Irish and English speaking areas.
The Mermaid’s Purse came about following a series of concerts, entitled Mól an Óige, which have been running for about seven years, under the auspices of CEECC and which provide a platform for up-and-coming musicians throughout Connemara. These concerts are held twice yearly in the Church of Ireland, Clifden, to mark both the winter and summer solstice. As well as providing great entertainment over the years, the concerts have raised thousands of euros for local charities.
“The logical way to go was to record the music, because it encapsulates the whole energy of the concerts,” explains Leo, who is the driving force behind the project. “The idea behind the concerts was to provide a warm safe space where the kids could feel safe in a warm embrace with an audience who wanted them to succeed. The sort of space where if they made a mistake they could start again.
People going to the concerts could see the kids coming up, and get an accurate picture of the fine quality and variety of music being played by young people all over Connemara.”
The album is a mix of song and music, with five songs in total being included –a couple of these in Irish.
The Mermaid’s Purse was produced by the well-known piper Ronan Browne who recorded the CD in the Church of Ireland, where the concerts took place.
“It was an environment where they were comfortable and it was also an elegant space, with a bit of atmosphere, where there was a bit of space between themselves and the audience. Ronan made it a truly wonderful and memorable experience for all the young players involved,” says Leo.
Spiddal based Ronan also enjoyed the experience. “They were such a wonderful group of young people to work with, full of excitement and with the music oozing out of their pores. We all had a great time,” he says.
The artwork on the CD is by Vincent Murphy, well known for his work as a book designer. Vincent also designed An Cosán Draíochta, the much praised last musical recording from CEECC.
But none of this would have been possible without a huge network of support, says Leo.
“We are blessed to have, a wonderful cohort of highly talented music teachers and their work forms the bedrock of this CD,” he says.” I’d especially like to thank Marie Walsh, Liz Kane, Ciara Conlon, Noreen O’Sullivan and Mary Finn who have contributed so much to the development and nurturing of Irish traditional music locally.”
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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