Friday 25th of January ,RTE radio 1, 10.30pm
Rionach Ui Ogain introduces readings from the Irish language diary kept by Seamus Ennis when he travelled widely as a music collector for the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1940’s. We hear singers and musicians from many Gaeltacht areas as well as Ennis’ own piping and singing. The diary offers a unique perspective on traditional life in the west and the working life of a folk music collector more than 60 years ago. The diary readings are by Antaine Farachain.
RORY
PS Is RTE radio available to listen to on the internet ?
Rabhadh! Tá an tsraith seo as Gaeilge go hiomlán. / Warning! This series is entirely in Irish. If you don’t speak Irish, or if you are Irish and you haven’t spoken a word of it since your leaving cert., you might not get much out of it. It was certainly far beyond my meagre level of understanding, but what I could catch was interesting stuff; especially with regard to his methods for recording songs and his descriptions of staying in people’s homes in Connemara 60 years ago. Now that I’ve recently become interested in documentary linguistics (i.e., the practice of recording endangered or dying languages), it’s given me a lot more respect for what Séamus was doing and what he was able to achieve. Frankly, his documentation work is every bit as important as his own musical legacy.
“Do you know there’s an awful lot to be said about this Irish traditional folk music and folk lore, because first of all, you have to learn it, and first you must learn the tok, and then you must learn the grip, and after that you must learn the truckely howl, and then you have the whole lot, only just to keep on practicing it. Because Seamus Ennis knows far more about this than even the old folk lordy lordy themselves, because Seamus Ennis once met a little leprechauney truckely howl at the bottom of the garden and up the garden path, which came up from that, in the Limerety Limerety hill-hockers, before the earthian throw, before the leprechaun era, and long before the argy-fary, and that was in the deepondoon, before the emerald isle was ever dropped (thock thock) in the water.”