I am curious to learn how would you react in the following situation:
You hear a piper playing Irish music on the street somewhere in Ireland and you then learn that s/he is not Irish but a foreigner, coming for example from Finland… How would you feel about it? Is it ok for a foreign person to play Irish music on the street in Ireland or does it feel wrong or insulting, even if the playing would meet the standards and the busker very much respected the music and the people whose cultural property it is?
I ask because I will be travelling in Ireland in the summer with my pipes. It’ll be my first time there and I have been wondering whether or not it will be wise to do any busking during this time. I’m very grateful for any responses!
nobody’s gonna check your passport
the main spot in Dublin is Grafton st.
always crowded with buskers and other street performers
sometimes buskers are standing in Wicklow st.
just of the Grafton - at some stage was favoured by a piper
playing type of pipes I’m not familiar with - great player.
in the same spot I sometimes meet a guy with hammered dulcimer
and his brilliant.
the only problem I can see with busking over there is that UP might not be loud enough
so bring a mic and a PA
When I was in Doolin in July for my honeymoon, I played all over. I wasn’t busking, but just playing in the street, or playing outside at a table at O’Connor’s pub. I got a number of compliments. Nobody gave me any hassle because I wasn’t Irish…though I imagine that my not being Irish gave them a bit of an excuse to be kinder in their remarks on my playing
Ive been busking in Ireland for 20 yrs. Funnily enough the rare occasion I have problems its from other blow ins! mosty Eastern European! Make of that what you will.
I’d be much more interested in hearing Finnish folk music being busked - it’s not something one encounters very often.
But I don’t live in Ireland, so do ignore me.
Have done it in Ireland to get train money (I hate busking cause the pipes hate playing outside and I hate getting hassled) but it’s a fairly effective way of getting train or bus money fairly quickly when you’re skint. However, I find it more lucrative in places where there aren’t a lot of buskers playing trad, like the middle of Athlone, than places where they are a dime a dozen such as Grafton St. in Dublin or the main pedestrian street in Galway.
I can’t find it now, but there’s a video on YouTube somewhere taken from an RTE news broadcast all about Galway’s use of traditional culture to attract tourists. At one point they show a fiddle player busking on the street. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Theo Paige from California!
Cant remember his name but this busker on the streets of Galway is French, around the corner from him there was a Chinese girl playing the fiddle .I think that Irish people might take it as a complement that musicians from other countries would want to play Irish music.
Did it. No problem. Most of the people I met were rather strangers to traditional music
and mostly responded to me as a musician playing whistle (what I was playing), not
as a foreigner. I was perfectly awful at the time (now I’m imperfectly awful) and people still gave
me money and said nice things.
Also busked in Paris, London and Innsbruck… Busking seems to be, well, busking,
wherever you are.
