… and how did he manage to write such a very fine jig? Also, that jig seems to be really similar to Paddy Fahey’s jig as Martin Hayes plays on his self-titled CD (track 2). (I haven’t really compared the tunes, though.) Does anyone have a bit of background information?
…
As Kevin said above, personally I wouldn’t drop ‘legendary’ on everybody but that’s another story.
Barry was a blind piper from near Inagh, he travelled a circuit of the area, playing and teaching music. It is said he could find his own way around from Inagh to around here. There are several houses where he ‘called’ and stayed for prolonged periods, receiving bed and board in exchange for his music. One of these was Clancy’s in Illaunbawn which is about a mile from where I live, another was Talty’s in Toreen, about half a mile north of where I am writing this. In that house concertinaplayer Tom Charlie Talty talked to Ciaran MacMathuna, Willie Clancy and Martin Talty for a radioprogramme broadcast during the late 50s. He vividly remembered seeing Garret when he [Tom Charlie] was very young. I have met a few old people who said they could remember Garret playing when they were very young [I met one 15 years ago and she was well into her nineties then, she’s long gone now].
Barry also travelled to Lenihan’s in Knockbrack (the family home of the late Tom Lenihan the singer] and recently a message was posted to the uilleann pipes mailing list saying he used to call at Carrowduff house, which is still there too.
There are a few stories in circulation bearing evidence Garret was fond of the drink and wouldn’t play if he was left dry.
Anyway, Willie Clancy’s father used to hear Garret play and memorised the tunes, several tunes like Garret Barry’s jig, and lovely versions of The Lark in the Morning, Strop the raizor and the Gold Ring were passed on by Gilbert Clancy to Willie. Was the piping style passed on to him too? Who knows, Gilbert played the flute, but according to Willie only ‘played the pipes in his head’, certainly the ‘feel’ of the music was kept alive in the process.
[on that note, I play a lot with concertinaplayer Kitty Hayes who grew up listening to her father and Gilbert Clancy playing in the kitchen. Kitty has great stories and a memory full of the old tunes she heard when she was young. She’s well into her 70s now]
Garret died in the poorhouse, I heard a story Gilbert Clancy paid for the funeral in Inagh cemetary. A stone in his memory was erected there two years ago on an extremely cold day just before Christmas. Sean Reid’s grandson, also Sean Reid and himself a direct decendant of Garret Barry, played at the grave side. A large number of people turned up for it, I remember talking to Sean Potts, Pat Mittchell, Tommy Keane and Bill Ochs and many others on the day, just an indication of the esteem in which Garret Barry is still held to this day.
PS, Bloomfield, I don’t think he composed the tune, it’s just an otherwise nameless one [there’s a Garret Barry’s reel as well which Willie played on a tape recorded by Martin Talty, he played it together with the ‘Virginia’ another fine local reel and you can hear the lads joking about the tune name ‘virgin? nyaaa..’]
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-04-16 04:33 ]
Kevin, Peter: thanks for the insights. How interesting. It made me imagine the old days of horsebuggies, farmhouses, and intinerant blind musicians. Who would let a musician stay in their house for months at a time now?
On 2002-04-15 17:23, Bloomfield wrote:
Who would let a musician stay in their house for months at a time now?
Quite a few people. Haven’t you heard the old joke:
Q; What do you call a musician who’s just broken up with his girlfriend?
A: Homeless.
Stve, that’s different. And I guess Andrea Corr wouldn’t have trouble finding a place to stay in a pinch :roll: , but what about Davy Spillane? 