Charles O'Connor sang and played mandolin, fiddle, concertina and Northumbrian pipes. Jim Lockhart played a bewildering array of keyboards including harpsichord, celeste, table organ, pipe organ and piano. He also sang and played uilleann pipes, flute, tin whistle and recorder - octopus city! John Fean played fiddle, mandolin, banjo and all manner of guitars. Barry Devlin played bass and grumbled a lot and Eamonn Carr hit out at a bodhran and a loose skinned Arabian Bongo. (Derek Taylor was not in the studio.)
We start off with a medieaval arrangement of "Rug Muire Mac do Dhia (Mary Bore a Son to God)", a traditional carol with Gaelic words. "Sir Festus Burke" is a celebratory Carolan tune. We've joined it here to the festive "Planxty Tom Judge" which you may know better as "Carolan's Frolic". "The Snow That Melts the Soonest" was picked up from a Newcastle street singer in 1821 and brought over by Charles in 1971. We're not sure what happened in between! We found the fine hornpipe "The Piper in the Meadow Straying" in Johnny Fean's repertoire. We're not sure if whoever wrote it had just heard "Deck the Halls" or vice versa - but it's a nice Christmassy tune. Playford's "Dancing Master" of 1651 is the official sourcefor "Drive the Cold Winter Away" but we first heard it from Jimmy who claims he unearthed it single handed! "Thompson's" and "Cottage in the Grove" are a pair of reels. The concertina is a perfect match for their delicate cadences. Ny Kirree fa Naghtey is a manx carol. The title is translated as "The Sheep 'neath the Snow". Manx is quite close to both Donegal Irish and Scots Gallic (in Irish the title would read "Na Caoirigh faoi Shneachta") but it was only ever written phonetically, hence the peculiar spelling. The tune is lovely, don't you think? "Crabs in the Skillet" just the thing for a Christmas starter., is followed by "Denis O'Connor", another Carolan tune (this time in celebration of The O'Connors of Belanagree). This was first played on Christmas day 1723. It's word well! Jimmy did the arrangement on "Do'n oiche ud i mbeithil (that night in Bethlehem)" and it gives an unusual feel to this lovely old Gaelic carol. Although we play the "Lullaby" as an instrumental, it's really a song. The version we have has Victorian words, but there are other versions, other lyrics. "The Snow And The Frost Are All Over/Paddy Fahey's". That we're great fans of Irish Céilí bands should be evident from this arrangement. Charles has been singing "When A Man's in Love" for so long that we decided to get it all over in one go. This Song has been collected as far away as Donegal, Wexford and even Nova Scotia. How's that for universal appeal?
| Martin Feeney | martin@tuatha.org | Last Modified: 05 October 1997 |