Archive News
S’omha Brock set to jazz up music scene in Galway
Date Published: {J}
Síomha Brock, the owner of a distinctive jazz-inflected voice, plays The Kings Head on Thursday, February 16 when she will be joined by a full band to launch her self-title debut EP.
The 24-year-old from Ennis has been enamoured with music for quite a while.
“I was always playing music from a very young age,” Síomha recalls. “I was luckily given the opportunity by my parents to learn a few instruments – piano, flute and violin. In my teens, I started to take up the guitar.
“I got really into The Beatles,” she adds. “And I loved all the female folk singers – Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. I just took to the female vocalists – Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday.”
It’s not just Síomha’s voice that sets her apart – she’s also an accomplished jazz guitarist. How did she come to learn this challenging, nuanced way of playing the six-string?
“I was about to move to Australia, but pulled out of it last minute and went to France instead,” she says. “I studied in the south of France, under a gypsy jazz guitarist. He was an Italian guy, played all over the south doing that Django Reinhart style.
“It took me away from the vocal side of jazz into the instrumental. And probably the appeal to me was I play acoustic guitar and that’s done with more acoustic instruments. I studied for six months and then came back to Ireland, and that’s when it really started to kick off.”
Playing jazz in the sunny climate of Southern France sounds a pretty idyllic way to spend six months.
“It was great,” says Síomha. “Apart from anything else, there are so many musicians in the south of France. So many different festivals and such a flow of people; it’s great just even as a spectator. Joining in occasionally at sessions too– I wouldn’t have been as good as them but I tried my best.”
Upon returning home, Síomha was asked to sing with the Black Magic Big Band, one of the most established and well known jazz bands in Galway.
“That was my first time ever really performing jazz. That would’ve been about two years ago. They had a drummer, Danny Byrt, from Ennis. He had seen me doing my regular gig in Ennis and got in touch with me.”
Now, after singing other people’s songs for a few years, Síomha is concentrating on her own work. Her EP will hopefully give her some deserved exposure on a national level.
“I recorded the EP last August in Ennis,” she says. “I had the songs for a long time, and over the last year had started to play them with a full band. I thought these might be worthwhile recording. I had Danny Byrt, Eoin Judge on guitar, who’s a long term friend of mine, and a bass player called Karl Clews. I decided to go for it.”
A hometown show in Cruise’s, Ennis, saw Síomha air her new songs. The EP was launched by Saw Doctor Leo Moran.
“Leo’s kind of been a mentor of mine for the last couple of years,” Síomha explains. “We were put in touch with each other through a mutual friend in Tuam. I supported the Saw Doctors in Limerick. He always keeps in touch and checks in to see how everything’s going.
“He’s given me advice, anything he can to help and pointed me in the right direction. He’s great to sit over a cup of coffee with and have a chat. He’s a very down to earth guy.”
Síomha is currently living in Cork, where she is studying Music Management and Sound at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa.
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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