Just as an afterthought to the original subject of this threads I ended up thinking of Micho Russell who, in his inimitable slightly incoherent way, talked about flutes and flute making. He basically said flutes were ‘hard to be got’ although some were made from ‘bamboos’ that were washed in on the tide but ‘they were hard to get in the right tuning’. In the same clip he also talks about a man coming ‘back from America’ and demonstrates the way he played jigs, remarking specifically how it was ‘an older style of playing’ different from the way we hear them now. His example is not of the flowing kind.
You’d expect that someone coming back from America would either reflect an old fashioned style of playing that was in vogue when he left lo those many years ago, or would be inflected by the influence of US pop culture, which even in 1915 was a kind of relentless industrialized mechanism.
Somebody like Touhey, who was really a hard core vaudevillian, had to have learned how to quickly grab and hold the interest of a completely mixed audience (Italian, German, polish, bohemian, jewish Scandinavian African American, probably also asian and hispanic), and he likely shared the bill and the backstage with lots of other ethnic musical acts comparing notes on what did and didn’t work in Dubuque. The Vaudeville circuit could involve playing multiple times a day, everyday, for 9 months of the year. Touhey would have learned how to quickly charm any audience, not just an audience of homesick irishmen. I’m especially interested in Coleman, who is said to have spent five or so years on the Keith circuit. There’s not much detail on it that I’ve found yet: some accounts describe him having a song and dance act. I’m planning to go to Ireland in the spring to see what I can find about Coleman in Vaudeville.
I do love Micho’s playing. It’s so smart and full of life. Dumb question, but would he have had records growing up? He says he started playing at age 11, so 1921. Coleman’s records reach Ireland in the 1920s. Radio is rare in the US in 1921, but eight years later it’s ubiquitous. Would he have had a radio in the house as a young man? I’m guessing no–my wife’s relatives, from Saltmill in Wexford, didn’t get electricity until the 1950s and they remember their father setting up radio speakers outside the family general store, so everyone could listen in.
In the documentary he says you had to be careful about practicing the whistle because the neighbors would frown upon whistle playing when work should be getting done, at least that’s what I think he said. My favorite part of that documentary is the expression on his face when Mick Maloney asks hm “what did music mean to you.” It was not the right question to ask, I think.
Dumb question, but would he have had records growing up? He says he started playing at age 11, so 1921. Coleman’s records reach Ireland in the 1920s. Radio is rare in the US in 1921, but eight years later it’s ubiquitous. Would he have had a radio in the house as a young man?
I don’t think they had a gramophone in the house. But all three brothers were well aware of the classic 78 rpm players. You could talk to both Micho and Gussie about tunes from Morrison or McKenna and they would have had knowledge of them. I think there’s a mention of where they heard them, some neighbour used to get records from Ennistymon, but I can’t think of it right now. That stuff was around anyway.
Most of their initial music came from their mother and a neighbour, Patrick Flanagan. I have a recording here of Flanagan playing the Killavil Fancy on the concertina with Micho lilting along. One link to Coleman country.
Electricity wouldn’t have arrived in Doolin before the late 40s, certainly not in Doonagore and given the location of the house you have to wonder if they would have had any radio reception even if they had electricity. But again, they could well have listened to the wireless elsewhere.
Micho played dances on the prom in Lahinch during the mid 40s and he was in bands in Ennistymon around that time as well, late 40s, early 50s (I’d have to look that up, there were photos on the Clare library site but the photo server is still down) so he did get out of Doolin a bit, if not very far. A friend, a concertina player I used to play with all the time, visited the Russell house when she was in her teens, mid 1940s, she had some interesting observations but perhaps that stuff strays a bit too far off topic. My mention of him was more in reference to the scarcity of flutes he observed and the flute style as discussed earlier.
Anyhow, Harry Bradshaw’s biography of Coleman doesn’t give any detail of what Coleman was up to in his days on the Keith circuit, but who knows what has come to light since.
Even though the more portable and popular transistor radio wasn’t invented until the late 40s, there were battery-powered tube radios available starting in the mid-1930s. I wouldn’t go so far as to speculate whether or not anyone in rural Clare actually had or used them, but they were definitely available at the time. I’ve heard from talking to older Travellers that a few families had them in the wagons during that time period, and they’d used to listen to the radio as they did their tinwork. You could send away for the batteries, no electricity needed in the home.
Also, what became Radio Éireann started life out as Radio Athlone, with a 60kW transmitter located in that town by the mid 1930s. That should have been plenty powerful and close enough for a strong signal to reach Clare, even with a poor house location (behind a hill or something like that). Again, not saying that the Russells did or didn’t have it, but it was possible even at the time without electricity.
Reception would depend a lot on the frequency. Mobile phone signals are in the gigahertz range and need line of sight, FM (87-108MHz or so) only slightly better, but the various AM bands at lower frequencies would fare better.
I haven’t been able to find a specific historical frequency for Radio Éireann, but it would have been an AM station most likely in today’s AM range of 500-1500 or so kHz. They also operated a shortwave station staring in 1948.
You probably want to search for 2RN for the early period. Radio Eireann only came in by the late thirties I think.
I can’t find a date for the Doolin area but electricity only came to Liscannor in 1956 and Lisdoonvarna in 1959. I suspect Doolin would have been reached within in that bracket.
My comment earlier was, by the way, made with the specific location of the Russell house in mind, and some experience with tv and radio signal reception dead spots in Clare.
I’m reading Tom Munelly’s oral history of Junior Crehan and Crehan remembers records being important later in his youth. He says people would bring them from America and he/d tune to them and learn that way. He specifically mentions Coleman and the Sligo fiddlers
He mentions Garret Barry, and Willie Clancy, and some other pipers, but piping seems like a much less significant part of the musical landscape than it did in O’Neill’s accounts. He also mentions deep sorrow at the effect the Dance Hall Act had. I wonder if that helped diminish piping relative to other instruments.
piping seems like a much less significant part of the musical landscape
There were virtually no pipers in Clare in the early part of the 20th century. WIllie Clancy knew of Garrett Barry but had never actually seen a piper until Johnny Doran landed at the White Strand for the Miltown races by the early 1940s. Martin Rochford only heard the pipes when he came across Rainey playing in Ennis and he himself remained pretty much the only piper in East Clare for the next forty years or so.
It was only during the 1940s a bit of an upsurge began, Willie got onto the pipes, Martin Talty, Martin Rochford, Peter O’Loughlin got the bug, the Dorans visited more regularly, Seán Reid started pushing things a bit by bringing all these men together, JC Talty, Michael Joe Sexton, Michael Falsey and others followed a bit later.
There were a few players that are a bit outside of this ‘official’ narrative, I have seen photos of a player in Milford house (also in Barry Taylor’s book), just outside Miltown who never gets a mention. Hugh Curtin does get a mention but only just and one or two other names occasionally crop up. John Killourhy told me his elder brother Tadhg, who died quite young, played the pipes. To which he added that set was with Micho Russell for a bit who couldn’t make sense of it and ran a mile, much to John’s amusement.
He specifically mentions Coleman and the Sligo fiddlers
Paddy Killoran should not be forgotten in this context. Killoran married Josie Hayes’ sister after she went to NY (she sang with Killoran’s orchestra). Josie was Junior’s lifelong duet partner and Killoran visited more or less regularly between the late forties to the early sixties. There are some great stories around that. Anyway, Junior would have met and played with Killoran during those visits. There are recordings that were made at the time, not of them playing together though.
Killoran did play a set of tunes during his later visits, Old Dudeen and the Indian on the Rock, I am pretty convinced Junior lifted one of those to make The Otter’s Holt. I never asked him about it though.
One word: Reeds.
If you can’t get good reeds then you don’t have pipes. In WWII, the reed cane was all used for camouflage netting, and it took generations to recover (with clarinets and saxophones obviously getting first choice).
I’ve never seen any evidence that bodhrán, per se existed as a /musical/ instrument before O’Riada.
It was certainly popular supporting the fifes of the wrenboys in some areas, North Kerry for example.
Some wellknown images of that exist too.
The Morrison flute 78rpms have already been mentioned.
Fintan Vallely put together a lot of information, not sure he published it all but have seen him do ‘the talk’. O’Riada didn’t make it up out of thin air although he probably integrated the thing into ensemble playing.
There were older players documented during the fifties, in West Clare I could think of Thady Casey, Marcus Walsh and people like that and I don’t believe they took them up because of O’Riada.
Lack of documentation doesn’t necessarily mean there weren’t a few around in pockets here and there.
I do see mention of drums here and there. O’Neill mentions drums a few times, but not in his childhood. I haven’t been tracking it because it’s tangential, but I’ve seen a few other mentions. There’s that painting of “snap apple night” where a guy is playing what we’d call a tambourine Bodhran-style. Not clear how “musical” that would have been.
A great mystery is the Tom Morrison/John Reynolds flute and Bodhran stuff. Where did that come from? It’s a clearly developed style–Reynolds has obviously done that more than once. But it’s like it appeared from nowhere. It might be some kind of US minstrel/Vaudeville thing. “Mr. Tambo” was a stock figure in the minstrel show.
Sorry i see Mr. Gumby already posted all this. Still where in the world did the Morrison/Reynolds thing come from?
I do see mention of drums here and there.
But quite possibly the types played in (marching) bands, pipe, fife and brass bands were all popular at one time and drummers would be part of them. Some of the 78 rpms used drums (Leo Rowsome did a few of those, for example).
But, like the bodhrán (or perhaps more correctly: the tambourine) initially was, they’re still strongly associated with the wren boys.
Aoife Granville, Charlie Piggot and other members of the Sraid Eoin Wren at Muirís Ó Rochain’s funeral
Percussion may not have been all that common outside band settings, people did use what they had handy, if someone wanted to whack something. In home settings anything kept around the house could have done: the bodhran, a winnowing dish, seems to have developed from there but also spoons, the old, dreaded, coin and glass etc. I have even seen a duet of flute and tongs (and it worked well too).
This is the detail of the painting of which Hammily Hamilton says “Detail of a painting of about 1842 showing the interior of a shebeen in Listowel, County Kerry. The fluteplayer is playing what is obviously a full-sized flute, and appears to be wearing a military style cap. The other musician is playing the bodhran, the Irish frame drum. This is the first depiction of either instrument in an Irish traditional context.” (from “The simple-system flute in Irish traditional music” by Samuel Colin Hamilton, 2007)
As far as I know that and the “snap apple night” painting, which also appears as a lithograph, are the only visual depictions of Bodhran playing in the 19th century. But as Mr. Gumby mentions there had to have been drum playing traditions, both in ireland and related to the experience of being in the army or seeing the british army on the march.
Keane’s “The Bodhran Makers” describes it not just as a wren dance thing, but as a tradition that’s musical–an adult can be known as a good Bodhran player–in Kerry. He also has a character from the north, an Irish native, who’s never heard of a Bodhran.
It’s still not clear to me where john Reynolds was from–I think I’ve seen Leitrim? But he clearly had a well developed and specifically irish style in the late 1920s. Were they called “bodhrans” then, or just tambourines?
Also while at the Mercer museum I noticed Mercer had collected a bunch of hoop shaped grain sifts, the things Bodhrans are alleged to be based on.
Keane’s “The Bodhran Makers” describes it not just as a wren dance thing, but as a tradition that’s musical–an adult can be known as a good Bodhran player–in Kerry. He also has a character from the north, an Irish native, who’s never heard of a Bodhran.
A lot of references coming out of North Kerry and West Limerick, definitely a pocket where tambourines/bodhrans were strong. You may (or may not) know of the 1977 documentary on Sonny Canavan, up in the RTE archive : here. But there were others also, this 1966 one for example. Nice old photographs knocking about too, the famous 1946 ones of the boy with bodhran & stick by Kevin Danaher :
but many others as well, a lot associated with the Wren :
There was another old character who used to come up sell his stuff during the eighties and early nineties, nice old guy although I forget his name now, he may or may not have come down from the Gort area:
Thanks Peter for all the wonderful photos!
I’d seen the Wren Boy one, but none of the others.
About Chief O Neill, whether or not all his statements would be considered valid today (with the gift of a century of hindsight) they undoubtedly express the attitudes and opinions of a turn-of-the-century Irishman deeply involved in Irish music.
Yes he was beating the uilleann pipe drum often and loudly! But he was alarmed at the seemingly eminent extinction of the instrument. Keep in mind that the genuine Irish warpipe and the traditional Irish harp were already extinct, and the Irish language had suffered a massive decline in O Neill’s lifetime.
In Scotland the Lowland pipes and Union pipes, quite popular in the 18th century, had gone extinct in the 19th.
The villain of the piece was the Scottish Highland pipes.
After devoting 150 pages of Irish Minstrels And Musicians to uilleann pipers past and present there’s a five-page chapter “Typical Highland Pipers”.
And near the end of the book he laments
“The old race of the Union pipers is fast passing away…the Warpipe craze apparently has not yet reached its zenith… a fellow has only got to get a set of Warpipes, hang a kilt around his middle…and he becomes an Irish piper…”
Today’s New York St Patrick’s Day Parade, if O Neill could but see it, with thousands of kilted Highland pipers, and nary a Union pipe in sight, would be the fulfillment of his worst fears.
That sight wouldn’t reveal to him that the Union pipes, in spite of it all, have reached their own zenith.
Thanks Peter for all the wonderful photos!
I’d seen the Wren Boy one, but none of the others.
You’re welcome, it’s always fun to dig out that stuff. I had originally put up a few scan of pics of the Kilfenora bands, the original brass band and the fife and drum band that went on in the village to become the small industry that is now the Kilfenora Ceiliband. I took them down because the person who let me scan them originally asked me for a bit of discretion with them. And Bill Ochs was going to use them for the Micho book as well. But that’s not going to go in its envisaged form anyway, so here’s one now, I love that sort of stuff:
I like those photos of Thady Casey and Marcus Walsh (with John Fennel on the whistle). They are from the fifties, Thady Casey at the 1957 Fleadh in Miltown Malbay. There was a pocket of bodhran players in this area, there was also Pat Kelly who played with Junior Crehan and his group. I have pics of him somewhere and there certainly are some on the Clare library site.
There’s a recording Seamus Ennis made as his final free lance job for BBC of a bunch of Clare players in 1961-ish in the house of Marty Malley where Willie Clancy plays with Aggie White and Thady Casey whacking the tambourine. Raucous stuff.
I have a double-cassette tape set of recordings made in Co. Clare and Co. Kerry by Ciaran MacMathuna “as far back as 1955”. The 5th track on “Music From Kerry” is “How to make a bodhran” by Jack Duggan. No indication when exactly the recording was made, but it may well pre-date O’Riada’s “introduction of the bodhran”. Might “legal action” follow, if I put it up on “Youtube”, do you think ?