Archive News
Siobh‡n is more excited about gig in Galway than entertaining Queen
Date Published: {J}
Musician Siobhán Armstrong played the historic Irish harp for Queen Elizabeth last Tuesday in Trinity College, having been invited to perform for the British monarch by the university where she studied for her music degree.
Some people might regard that request as a major honour, but while Siobhán isn’t dissing it, she’s definitely more excited about the prospect of meeting up with fellow musicians in Galway and playing for the general public at the sixth annual Galway Early Music Festival, which takes place this weekend in the city.
Early Music refers to Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music and dance, and while it might sound a bit rarefied for most of us, Siobhán promises that the music her group will be performing in St Nicholas’s Church on Saturday night, will be “ravishing”, while the songs have themes that speak to people from all generations.
She is founder and director of the Irish Consort, which is presenting a concert based on the type of entertainment found in England’s Royal Court at the turn of the 17th century. These concerts, with speaking, dancing, singing, music making, were known as masques, explains Siobhán, who has spent 20 years working in the area of historic and harp music and who plays both early Irish and European harp.
During her student years in Trinity she developed a particular interest in music from that era. Her interest in the music drew her to the instruments, and she now has an extensive collection of copies of harps from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque eras
Siobhán says the Irish Consort will feature beautiful music and singing from the time, with vocals courtesy of [soprano] Róisín O’Grady, “an amazing singer”.
The songs, by some of the most famous songwriters of that era, remain relevant, she says. “English Renaissance songs had very human themes. They deal with love and pain and loss and the fact that human beings are fragile creatures.”
In fact, Siobhán sees a correlation between that music and the 20th century blues. “There is a kind of melancholy to both. The themes are universal and always the same.”
Those whose work will feature in the concert include Thomas Campion, who wrote songs to be accompanied by lutes. “The historical harp is the equivalent of the lute – it’s a plucked instrument,” explains Siobhán. Also accompanying Róisín O’Grady’s singing is Nicholas Milne on bass viol – this is the precursor to the cello.
The other part of the Irish Consort programme will feature instru
mental music of the era, which would have been performed for the king. Claire Duff will play violin, Laoise O’Brien will be on recorder, Nicholas Milne on bass viol, and Siobhán will play Renaissance harp and early Irish harp, both of which featured at court.
“The flavour is of Ireland meeting the Continent in entertaining and beautiful instrumental music,” says Siobhán. There is also humour, especially in the opening sections of these scores – “there is funny lively stuff”.
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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