This is a catch up day. Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th went by so quickly I had no time to sit and write. We just arrived in County Clare, near to Ennistymon, actually pretty much mid-distance between Ennistymon and Lisdoonvarna. Ennistymon has Cooley’s House, where we’ve enjoyed memorable sessions with Adam, Stefan, the Australian Bob’s and Paul Dooley and Lisdoonvarna where sits The Roadside Tavern, where we’ve had mighty sessions with Terry Bingham, Paul Dooley, Christy Barry and Seamus Hynes as well as Billy Baldwin, the publican, on bodhran.
So I ended the last entry with us expecting a session with Wayne Sheehy on Monday the 27th. We spent that day driving up to the next peninsula, The Beara, where we had some great adventures on our first visit in 2012. Bridget’s Dad’s mother’s family, the Healey’s, were from the island of Dursey which is on the southwest tip of The Beara. It’s approx. 4 miles long and separated from the mainland by a treacherous channel with powerful tidal races that flow through it. I’ve looked at the currents running through it and tried to imagine how the people in older times crossed it. It couldn’t have been easy. Much like The Blasket Islands to the north off Dingle they shed their population to where there are according to Wikipedia 3 or so permanent residents. I like the “or so”. Whomever they are they must value solitude. We were going to try and cross over to it on the cable car that runs from the mainland out to the island, Ireland’s only cable car, but there were too many people that day and it looked like the car only took about 6 at a time. We needed to be back in Kilcrohane at 6:00pm so we bid Dursey goodbye and continued the road to Laragh stopped in at Helen’s, what used to be Sullivan’s, and had some delicious fresh sea food for lunch. Helen remembered us playing there in 2012, it hadn’t changed much in 12 years.
Helens, Sullivans, back in 2012
We crossed over Healey Pass back to the south side of The Beara and got back at 5:30. Just enough time to freshen up, grab our instruments and meet Wayne at Eileen’s.
Wayne greeted us at Eileen’s and mentioned that we might have a musical legend show up. We were thinking maybe Damian Dempsey might be the person, Wayne was touring with him when we met him in 2016 and he’s from Cork, but he was keeping it close as to whom it could be. We settled into a corner, tuned up and played tunes. At first it was pretty empty but as we played and bantered more people arrived. At one point an attractive young woman came in with a friend and Wayne introduced us to Lisa Lambe. https://www.lisalambe.ie/about/ He’d mentioned to us that he was working with an amazing young singer, but I didn’t really know her work. Introductions went around and Wayne asked us to play a set. Lisa listened and seemed engaged with what we were doing. My wife Ally had texted me and wanted to know if we were going to be near Kilcrohane, which of course we were, just up the road in Ahakista. It turned out that a friend of ours in Spokane, Nancy, has an ex-sister in law named Sandy who lives in Kilcrohane. What are the chances of that? It’s Ireland, all sorts of wonderful things, connections and adventures happen for us here. I contacted Sandy and told her we were going to be at Eileen’s at 6:00 and she came and introduced herself. She’d been married to Andy, an old friend of ours and Nancy’s brother, and they were a duo, Andy on guitar and Sandy singing. At one point Sandy asked if we could back her up on a song, we asked her to sing a couple of bars, found the key and she proceeded to sing a wonderful blues, she’d heard it from Bonnie Raitt but it sounded a lot like an old Bessie Smith song. Sandy was warmly applauded and we asked Lisa to sing for us. Here is what she did.
To say we were stunned is an understatement. The song is in Irish in the Sean Nos style, but you don’t need to understand the lyrics to sense the longing and sorrow within it. We had tears in our eyes, with both the song and the beauty of Lisa’s interpretation. She’s a gifted performer and artist in the truest sense of the word. We sang a couple of songs with Lisa adding harmonies and at one point she started singing P Stands For Paddy to a melody we had started. The sense of joy and spontaneity was palpable. Bridget was sitting next to Lisa and at one point she leaned over to Bridget and said that we were “proper exceptional.” When you hear that coming from and artist of her calibre you can’t just “aw shucks” it away. We come to Ireland to soak up the culture and learn, to make new friends and strengthen the bonds we’ve made already. We’ve been self conscious about playing this music that we didn’t grow up with, but we love it and do our best to be respectful. Wayne understood our intent back in 2016. We approach the music and culture with respect and we bring to it what is in us. We hope it represents the music and us well.
Around 10:00pm Eileen gently asked us if we wrap things up. On Monday evenings she said she usually closes closer to 9:00. We weren’t ready to call it a night so stood under the little outdoor enclosure Eileen has and spoke politics, music and lots of other things that came to mind and finally said goodbye. It was a memorable evening.
Wayne Sheehy, Eileen and Lisa Lambe
The next morning we packed up and had a visit from our host at Hilltop House in Ahakista. We asked if our music was too loud and too late. She told us no not at all, they love the music. Her mother was in the hospital with a fractured back and Evelyn said she’d been at the hospital with her mam but that if her mam had been home she would have had a glass against the door listening in. Her Dad played box (accordion, usually buttons not keys) and had his own stool down at Eileen’s. He’d passed away not long ago. We also learned that musicians like Frankie Gavin, Alec Finn, Dolores Keane (she was once called the voice of Ireland) and many others had stayed there, so we were some more musicians who had been called in by Hilltop House. Honestly these things find us, we don’t plan that well!
We had a short visit to Wayne Sheehy’s home on the north side of The Sheepshead. We all like Wayne, he’s generous and welcoming and a very busy man. He is the proprietor of Ocean Studios, has played as a professional drummer for decades, toured with U2, The Rolling Stones and Damian Dempsey amongst others. He’s smart and witty, has broad musical taste and is currently producing some extraordinary music. He played us some tracks of an album featuring some gorgeous vocal work with a beautiful soundscape of keyboards, strings, cello, bass and guitar. We were blown away with the raw tracks he played us. The album has yet to find a home so I can’t be specific but I told Wayne that when it’s official I want to have it in my collection. We also listened to some tracks by some performers from Congo and Burundi that were really good. Wayne is a good sound engineer the product speaks for itself. He also offered an antique keyed flute to James. Wayne doesn’t play it, told us that it had been given to him and he wanted to pass it on to James if he could use it. It appears to be Swiss made, we’re guessing late 19th or early 20th century and despite leaky pads James can get some music out of it. He’s going to send it to someone who can restore it. We reluctantly said goodbye to Wayne and hit the road to Inch, Dingle to visit our friends Fidelis and John Foley, proprietors of Foleys Bar Inch.
MORE TO FOLLOW