Gerry O’Connor - Gaelic Roots Lunchtime Series, Boston College

Hello, my name is Sheila Falls, and I’d like to welcome you to the Gaelic Roots Lunchtime Series at Boston College. Gaelic Roots is sponsored by BC Irish studies and in collaboration with the Burns Library. Each of the artists will be presenting from their hometown. These performances are pre-recorded to present you with the best quality sound and video. However the artist will be available live on Facebook to answer any questions or just to say, hello.

00:48 - The performance will also be available on the Boston College Burns Library Irish Music Archives YouTube channel, where it will remain after the concert. Now I’d like to introduce Gerry O’Connor from his violin shop in County Louth. He’ll be presenting The Rose in the Gap. He published this collection of tunes which originate from the Oriel region in South Ulster. Gerry’s website will be posted at the end of the presentation for more information about where you can purchase this book. I’d now like to welcome Gerry O’Connor to the Gaelic Roots lunchtime series. Dia daoibh.

01:32 - You’re all very welcome to my workshop here in County Louth in Ravensdale, County Louth. And I’m going to give a concert today of music that was collected in this area back over 100 years ago. I published it in a book, called The Rose in the Gap, a little while ago. And as you know, a rose in a the gap is a place where it shouldn’t be. It’s at risk. So I thought it an appropriate title for the book.

01:57 - And it’s also an unusual tune in ⁴⁄₄ time, which I will play as a march, and I play as an air beforehand. So I’ll be here for the next 45 minutes with tunes and songs from the collection, Donnellan’s collection of dance music from Oriel. [FIDDLE MUSIC] Thank you. The Rose in the Gap, one of the many tunes from the collection of music– The Rose in the Gap collection. And there’s a body of music that was collected in the area– in South Ulster– that we would call Oriel area.

06:30 - Oriel comprising of parts of the counties of North Louth, South Armagh, East Monaghan, and into East Cavan and North Meath. And this will be an area I’ll come back to in a little while. There’s over 300 tunes in the full collection. The collection was partially published in 1909 in the Louth Archeological Journal. And I was given a photocopy of this small article– of the “small collection,” I call it.

06:57 - And from that I started working through these tunes and started recording some of them back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with various bands including Skylark and Lá Lugh. And my solo albums. Also later on with a project called Oirialla, music from the area as well. I’ll play tunes that I recorded on an album of the music and song of South Ulster. The album is called Jig Away the Donkey. And I recorded these tunes with Martin Quinn, an accordion player from South Armagh, and Gabriel McArdle, a concertina player from County Fermanagh. Three reels– The Cottage in the Grove, The Dandy Reel, and Over the Bridge to Beeta.

07:33 - [FIDDLE MUSIC] There you go. Three reels from the collection– “The Cottage in the Grove,” “The Dandy Reel,” followed by “Over the Bridge to Beeta.” In this collection, there are over 220 reels. And the collection was made in an area of South Ulster where it would have been the Plantation of Ulster a lot earlier on. So a lot of the music would have been influenced by the Scottish music, music from Scottish collections.

10:41 - And I’ll play a tune from it now– a tune called “Delvinside.” And I believe there’s many more parts than the three parts I play in this version. But this is one of the tunes in the collection. And I’ll follow it, then, with a well-known tune that’s there as well– “Drowsy Maggie”-- a version of “Drowsy Maggie.” And then a tune with the title of “Yankee Cabbage.” And then we’ll play “Miss Hutchinson’s. “ And I’ll hopefully play a reel at the end that I recorded. It was the first tune I ever recorded from the collection, back in 1991, “The New Line to Dublin.” The New Line to Dublin, I believe, was a new road that was being built between somewhere in South Armagh, I think, Newtownhamilton coming down towards the Cullyhanna direction. That was the new line. So there’s a lot of local references to the tune titles. And we’ll come back to that. So a highland, “Delvinside,” followed by four reels.

11:32 - [FIDDLE MUSIC] Alright, the “Delvinside” highland, followed by “Drowsy Maggie,” and “Yankee Cabbage.” Then “Miss Hutchinson’s,” and finishing off there with “The New Line to Dublin.” As I said, most of the tunes in the collection are reels. I believe there was a small little book– an A5 size of a book that sits inside a fiddle case. And it sits in UCD– in University College, Dublin– in the Folklore department. And I believe that the book was actually broken in half, and that the first section was lost. In my mother’s case and in Francis O’Neill’s and other collectors, what they did was they wrote their jigs, and then they wrote their reels, and then they wrote their hornpipes, and then other tunes. As dance musicians would. In this particular collection, it starts on page three of reels. But the index shows there was more reels, which leads me to believe that there would have been a collection of jigs. There is one jig rhythm in it that’s quite interesting. It’s called a “Drowsy Man’s Hornpipe.” It’s written in ³⁄₈ or ⁶⁄₈. And I’ll play it for you now. And I’m not too sure about this tune.

17:29 - Although it was just included in the hornpipe section, it’s more of a ³⁄₈ or ⁶⁄₈. The “Drowsy Man’s Hornpipe”-- [FIDDLE MUSIC] “Drowsy Man’s Hornpipe,” one of the few tunes not written in ⁴⁄₄ in this particular collection, as it stands. Donnellan, the man credited with publishing the article, well he did publish the article in 1909, he extrapolated 106 of the nearly 300 tunes and published them in the LA Journal, the Louth Archeological Journal, at the time. He was well known as a collector of music, and song also. And he had access to a phonograph and also to an Ediphone– a recording machine. And he had access to a car. And he was a priest. He was born in South Armagh. And he went to college in Maynooth.

20:19 - And he came out as a priest there in 1902. And he was a curate in parishes in South Armagh and then ended up retiring, and is buried in Loughgall in County Armagh. A man of many interests, he was also a mathematician and a physicist. And he is credited with a lot of– or, some of his work was the development of the television. And he took out a patent in 1926 to this effect. And he was also a classical pianist.

20:46 - And he wrote a piece of music called Overture to the Pilgrimage to Lourdes, and it was based on a local air from the area. So, a very talented man. We’re lucky that he at least preserved this music. I’ll continue with a set of tunes that is one of the very first tunes I learned in the collection. And it’s a tune called “The Gypsy Hornpipe.” There’s 221 reels. There’s roughly a couple dozen hornpipes, and there are song airs as well– 12 or 14 song airs– making up a total of 287 tunes in this collection. So here’s a little hornpipe.

21:21 - And quite a few pages of the book– it’s been a well used book. And somebody has gone to the trouble of going over every note in every bar, virtually, with a pen, and making sure that the ink didn’t fade, because the inks weren’t as indelible as they are today. There’s one or two tunes missed, and one or two tunes only half written-over, for whatever reason. Maybe they were running out of time or running out of ink. And I’ll play one that is a version of “Peter Street.

” 21:44 - There was only one where the second half of this tune faded away totally. But I’ll play the standard version, which we all play. And my uncle used to play this in a ceili band, which my mother played in, so I heard this tune pretty well from my very first days playing music. I’ll play the “Gypsy Hornpipe,” a tune called the “Blackberry Blossom,” and then “Peter Street.” [FIDDLE MUSIC] There we go.

25:55 - The “Gypsy Hornpipe” followed by the “Blackberry Blossom” and then eventually getting into “Peter Street,” there. I’ll play a tune that’s not in the collection but has a great connection with the area and would be well-known to any of the musicians who were playing music at the time. Now in the South Ulster area– the Oriel area– which I’ll come back to again is the area of South Armagh, North Louth, East Monaghan, East Cavan, and Meath. It was a great body of Gaelic speaking poets that thrived at the time– from the beginning of the 1700s right up to the early 1800s– and they were known as the Oriel poets. So we can re-identify the area. The old Oriel area would have stretch originally right up to County Derry and a greater landmass.

26:37 - But in later years with warlords and different tensions, it eventually became known as an area of great Ulster poetry. And outside of Munster poets, the South Ulster poets would be the most highly regarded group of poets in the present that we are aware of. Poets like Séamus Dall Mac Cuarta, Peadar Ó Doirnín, Pádraig Mac Giolla Fhiondáin, Art Bennett, and Art Mac Cumhaigh. These would’ve been all poets. Some would have known each other and some wouldn’t. But there were many other poets. There was a collector called Henry Morris (Enri O’Muirgheasa) and he reckoned there were hundreds of poets writing in the Gaelic language at the turn of the 19th century.

27:21 - And in 1829, there was even a bardic convention in Dundalk, where all these poets– lesser-known and well-known poets– all gathered together. The poem I’m going to play the melody to, the poem was written by Peadar Ó Doirnín and the music was put to it by a man I knew Peadar Ó Dubhda who actually translated the Bible into Irish in 1952. It’s a tune called– the melody– the poem is called “Úrchnoc Chéin Mhic Cáinte,” and Ó Dubhda put the melody of an older, local song onto it. It’s called “Úrchnoc Chéin Mhic Cáinte.” The Fairy Hill of Cein, a little hill outside of Dundalk. A megalithic tomb had been there, and that’s where the poets gathered.

28:01 - [FIDDLE MUSIC] “Úrchnoc Chéin Mhic Cáinte” a poem by Peadar Ó Doirnín, and the music put to it by Peadar Ó Dubhda. I’ll continue now with another highland. And again, I mentioned the connection with Ulster’s Scottish tradition of the music in the area. And this little tune is called “Through the Heather.” I’ll follow it then with a tune that’s not in the collection. It’s a little jig that I learned from a fiddle player, Peter McArdle.

30:34 - Peter was a local fiddle player who played in Mark’s bar where, actually, I was given this collection. Peter passed away, and I became the resident fiddle player. And I was there for a couple of years. I have a great– learned many great tunes. But I was given this collection of dance music, a sort of small collection from the Louth Archeological Society Journal of Donnellan’s Oriel songs and dances. And from that I started working on the collection and recording many of the tunes.

31:01 - Peter was a great fiddle player from the middle of County Louth, from Tallanstown. He and his brother were pretty well known for playing unusual tunes. And Breandán Breathnach, the great collector, a Dublin collector, came down and recorded Peter back in 1971. But he only asked him to play his unusual tunes. Time was short. And this is one of the little tunes that Peter played. I just call it– he just has it down as a little single jig. So I start off with a highland, and into a single jig, and then back into a highland and into a few reels. Playing “Through the Heather,” “Peter McAardle’s” single jig, “Down the Meadow,” and “The Scutcher’s Reel” at the end. [FIDDLE MUSIC] There we go. Those were tunes we recorded with the band, Oirialla.

35:31 - And we started with “Through the Heather,” and “Peter McArdle’s,” and then “Down the Heather”-- sorry, “Down the Meadow.” And finishing off with “The Scutcher’s Reel.” So I’ll play another little tune, an unusual tune in the book. It was an old dance that was danced in South Armagh. It was also danced, I believe– I was talking to Nigel Boullier about his book, Handed Down.

35:53 - Nigel published a great collection of dance music from North County Down, which had never been influenced really by the Gaelic League, And it was following the dance tradition and musical tradition exchange very well. And the dances that were danced in North County Down were also danced in South Armagh. And this was one– “Betty Black,” or Bessie Black. It was a four-hand dance. Micil Quinn, a local South Armagh man that I knew, he said he saw it being danced, but he never learned the steps. Nigel has the steps actually in his book. So it’s the tune “Bessie Black.” A little dance I suppose, a barn dancey sort of poppy type of tune.

36:30 - And we recorded this with Oirialla as well. [FIDDLE MUSIC] Thank you. “Bessie Black,” then I followed it with three reels. “The Left Handed Reel,” followed by the “Lass of Ballintra.” And then “Braes of Invercairn” began to show the crossover with the Scottish music– “braes” and “invercairns.

” 41:19 - So it is a lot of the tunes, I would reckon a good 20% of the tunes titles, would have been from a Scottish background, like “lords,” “ladies,” and “colonels” and all that. But I’d say one third of the collection might have been Scottish, one third local, and one third quite familiar to many musicians. The book, here, is available. I have an attic full of them here. And it’s a great resource for local musicians and for any person looking to find out more about the area. It’s an introduction to the tunes, and the collector, and the region in general, placing it within the geographical and historical context. And then there’s a full index in the back, both tune titles and a number index as well.

42:05 - So I’ll finish off with some more tunes– some of the typical tunes from the collection. A tune called “The Marquis of Huntley.” It’s also known as “The Ewe With the Crooked Horn” in this collection. A ewe with a crooked horn has nothing to do with wildlife at all. The ewe with the crooked horn referred to the illegal distilling of alcohol. This was the worm that was used,– that was the term they used for it– the crooked horn. And then I follow with a tune called “Bouncing Kate.” Father Donnellan was a wee bit fussy about titles. He didn’t like “Bouncing Kate.” So in the smaller collection that he published, he called it “Lively Kate.” And then I’ll finish with a tune called “Eliza of Roth.” Most tunes, I’ve stayed pretty close to the notes, because everything was written very well, note-wise.

42:47 - In this particular tune, the keys sometimes weren’t indicated correctly, and in this one, I couldn’t figure out which way to do it. So I played it as a minor, and then I finished it off as a major tune. So thanks again, and hope you enjoyed this little presentation. [FIDDLE MUSIC] Thank you. .