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A Farewell to Col. Phil Townsend

Cutting the cake.

Cutting the cake.

Phil Townsend grew up in Gladwyne, next door to St. Christopher’s Church, where the old Main Line Pipe Band used to practice.

He first heard the band perform at the church’s Azalea Day Fair. From that moment, he was hopelessly addicted to the bagpipes. “I’ve loved them since the very first time I heard them play,” he says. With the sounds emanating from the church hall week after week, it was perhaps inevitable that Townsend would join the band—first, at age 8, as a drummer, and then, at 10, as a piper.

From that point on, almost nothing could keep him away, as one of Phil’s favorite stories will attest:

“One night I was struggling with mathematics, and there was the pipe band playing in the church building,” he says. “I was grounded until I had completed my homework assignment. But finally it was too much for me, and I jumped out the second-floor window, fell onto a trash can—amazingly, I was unhurt—and then ran off to band practice. That should tell you the effect bagpipes have on me.”

And if you’re still not persuaded that bagpipes have a singular hold on Phil Townsend, consider this: On his wedding day—he was living in Utah and playing with the Salt Lake Scots—he married his “infinitely understanding and tolerant” sweetheart Molly in the morning and piped in a parade that afternoon, he says, “with my new bride marching alongside the band.” 

Almost 50 years after he succumbed to the siren song of the drones, he’s still devoted to this finicky instrument. He has played in and led (as pipe major) several Delaware Valley bands, including the old Clan na Gael, Washington Memorial, Philadelphia Emerald and Ulster Scottish. He has performed with countless other bands, on pipes or drums—and sometimes both. He also instructed the Lia Fail Band in Hightstown, N.J.   

Somewhere along the line, Townsend also became acquainted with a competition pipe band in Killen, County Tyrone, just across the border from Donegal in the Republic. He has piped with that band for several years—unfortunately, not including 2002, when Killen won the World Championships in its grade level (4A).

Just a few days after Independence Day in the States, Phil and Molly took up residence in Castlederg, County Tyrone. Townsend once again will pipe with Killen, and he’ll compete in the Worlds on Glasgow Green. But this time, he hopes Ireland will become his and Molly’s year-round home. For, as great as Phil’s love for the pipes, it just might be exceeded by his love of Ireland.

*  *  *  *  *

Recently, Phil’s many friends in Washington Memorial Pipe Band gathered at the band’s practice hall at Valley Forge Military Academy to wish him a fond farewell. Old mates from other bands, including Main Line and Emerald, joined in the festivities. They all clustered around a big fold-out map of Ireland to get a sense of where he and Molly are setting up house. They shared memories. They shared cake—with a tartan frosting, of course. And at the end, the band circled up and blasted through “Scotland the Brave,” “The Rowan Tree” and many of the old tunes, with Phil tapping away on snare drum.

It was also a bittersweet leave-taking in another sense. For the past 33 years, Valley Forge Military Academy has been the focal point of Col. Phil Townsend’s professional life—first, as cadet and, subsequently, as tactical officer, teacher, librarian, director of student activities and, finally, dean of the academy.

The next step in Townsend’s career will be to take his degree in library science from Villanova and apply his skills as a cataloguer at the Omagh Center for Migration Studies, part of the Ulster American Folk Park, also in Tyrone.

It has taken a bit longer than he might have hoped, but Townsend has always known that his life would lead him to Ireland. There were too many profound influences early in life to leave any doubt of that.

“My earliest experiences were with teachers from the North of Ireland, including Hughie Stewart, who founded the Main Line Pipe Band,” Phil recalls. “There was also a woman who was like my second mother, Sarah McGlade, from Castlewellan in County Down, one of the strong influences in my life. She helped raise me, you might say. The first time I went to Ireland I stayed with Sarah’s sister, Agnes Gorman, in a little town called Ballyward in County Down. That was when I was in my early 20s.”

At the time, Townsend was enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps as a result of classes he had taken at VFMC, so he had to return to the United States to fulfill that obligation.

”I had always intended to return to Ireland after I had fulfilled that next obligation,” he says.

Things didn’t work out that way, of course, but now, he says, seems like a good time.

““Certainly, my plan has always been to retire there. But my decision to pull up stakes here and make that move more permanently was of a recent origin,” he says. “I realized that, now, with the economy and developments in the North, now was as good a time as any to purchase some property and a house. We’ve been going back every summer to Castlederg. My intention is to spend at least a portion of every year in Castlederg with the eventual goal of spending year-round there.”

He has children all over the map, too, and visiting them is also part of the plan.

Not long ago, he notes, moving to Castlederg might have been very nearly unthinkable. Because of the town’s close proximity to the Republic on three sides, it was the scene of many violent incidents. IRA bombers and gunmen could sail into Castlederg, do their business, and beat a quick retreat back into Donegal. Townsend notes that Castlederg is reputed to be “the most bombed small town in Northern Ireland.”

But times are changing, as Townsend notes. “For so long, and certainly throughout the ‘80s, Ireland experienced a 14-15 percent unemployment rate. It was not a very promising place to be, notwithstanding ‘The Quiet Man’ and all the stories of going back to Ireland. Now, within the last 10 to15 years, especially with peace so close at hand, there’s a lot more reason for people to stay where they are, or to go back.”

A few years ago, Phil and Molly purchased a bit of land and a duplex near the town center.

Not surprisingly, he looks forward to his new beginning.  

“We have our own driveway and a little garden in the front, and there’s a patio and a wee yard in the back,” he says. “Go out the front door of the house walk two minutes and you’ll be at a library in the center of the village. You can sit and read the newspaper in the living room and have a pipe band arbitrarily marching through town—that’s a fairly common occurrence.”

Of course, Castlederg is very close to Killen. In fact, he says, the region is “lousy with pipe bands”—10 of them within a 20-mile radius.

Heaven? Well, not for everyone, he says. But for this passionate piper, life in Castlederg might be as close to heaven as it is likely to get.

July 12, 2007 by
News, People

Support Team “Ratty Shoes”

About six years ago, Patty Byrd worked with a young woman with multiple sclerosis. “She had such a great attitude–she was so funny about everything, even though she had to take a cocktail of medications just to function,” says Byrd, a banking officer for BSC Services in Philadelphia. “Her disease was so unpredictable. She was planning her niece’s First Holy Communion party—she was devoted to her—and the day of the event her bowels and bladder stopped working. But she never lost her great attitude.”

Then, it seemed, everywhere Byrd went, she saw posters and pamphlets for the MS Society’s Challenge Walk. “It was 50 miles in three days and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Oh, no!’ I was still smoking and about 60 lbs heavier than I am now. But I decided to tell people I was going to do it so I would be obligated. But they all said, ‘Are you nuts?’ Maybe, I said, but I’m going to do it.”

And she did it. It took a lot of training (and some weight loss), but Byrd not only walked the 50 miles that year, she’s walked it every year since, picking up other brave strollers on the way. “My second year I had a hodgepodge team with no name. Then the third year, something happened. It was a chilly day in spring. I was about to go out walking and I put on my shoes and realized they had no insoles. I thought to myself, ‘These are ratty shoes.’”

If you’re a fan of the popular local Irish group, Blackthorn, (Byrd calls herself “an addict) you can probably guess what happened next. “Ratty Shoes” is the name of the group’s 2001 CD and a catchy paean to the magical powers of comfortable old “ratty shoes” that can take you anywhere you want to go. And what CD was Byrd listening to when she made the observation about her own sneakers?

Of course, it was fate. And it prompted Byrd to shoot off an email to the group, asking if she could use the name for her walking team. “They said sure, and they even donated merchandise for raffles,” says Bryd. “Then, last year, (lead singer) Mike Boyce kind of realized, ‘Hey, they’re not going away,’ so the group has really gotten behind us in a big way.”

On Wednesday, July 11, when the band performs at the Pennypack Park Bandshell, Welsh Road and Rowland Avenue in Philadelphia, they’ll be selling raffle tickets to help raise money for the team (each person needs to come up with $1,500 in pledges to participate in the walking event). They’ll be selling them at every performance till August 11, when a drawing will be held at The Bolero Resort in Wildwood, where the band is performing. The prize: A complete package (accomodations, food, and tickets) for four to attend Blackthorn’s (huge) part of Wildwood’s Irish Weekend, September 21-23, at The Bolero. They’re also donating $2 from every sale of Blackthorn merchandise from July 11 to August 11 (buying a CD or a t-shirt will automatically get you a raffle ticket, which is also available without a merch purchase for $2 each). For more information and a schedule of band appearances, go to www.irishthing.com.

You may also run into band members on Sunday, July 15, when Team Ratty Shoes holds an MS Benefit at Brittingham’s, 640 E. Germantown Avenue, Lafayette Hill, featuring a host of performers including Random Blonde, Raymond McGroary, Allison Barber, and, possibly, Paul Moore, the co-author (with Blackthorn’s John and Mike Boyce) of “Ratty Shoes,” co-founder of the group, and currently with the band, Paddy’s Well.

Doors open at noon and the Irish frivolity goes on till 4 (Oliver McElhone appears on stage at 5, so you might want to stay). And it’s all in a good cause.

“We have a great team,” says Byrd. They are Tom Wyatt of Duncannon, PA; Christopher Burden of Warminster, whose wife, Michele, has MS; Leslie Bell Moll of Pottstown and Lorraine Porcellini of Philadelphia, who both work for WXPN Radio. “But it’s more than the walkers, our team includes and army of other people who support us, like Blackthorn,” says Byrd.

They’re living proof that there is some magic in those old “ratty shoes.”

July 9, 2007 by
Music

Orange, Green? Does It Make A Musical Difference?

The concert title is intriguing: The Orange and the Green: A Night of Traditional Music and Song from the North of Ireland.

Is there really a difference in Irish music if it’s sung by Catholics or Protestants in Northern Ireland, I asked Gary Hastings, one of the two performers (the other is singer Brian Mullen), who’ll be demonstrating those traditions on Friday, June 1 at the Irish Center in Philadelphia.

“It’s perceived by people both there and outside that there are two separate traditions, while really there are lots of very messy traditions,” says Hastings, who has played the flute on celebrated recordings by the Chieftains and Seamus Quinn, and shared the stage with DeDanaan. “People use music for their identity. It’s about who you are and where you come from. All traditional music has a political genre in it and Irish music is usually seen as a national thing. An Orange band is presumed to be different from a Green band. It’s not especially, but you can have the two bands playing the same tunes and thinking different words to them. And there are some tunes you don’t want to sing in the wrong place. For example, you don’t want to play ‘The Sash,’ anywhere but a Loyalist area.”

That’s the tune that starts, “Sure I’m an Ulster Orangeman,” a lyric that won’t have the bar patrons buying you a pint in Cork or Galway, but might keep your glass full at any pub in the Waterside section of Derry. “Play the wrong tune, sing the wrong lyric, in the wrong place, and you’re dead,” says Hastings.

I guess I must have been fooled by the images of Loyalist leader Ian Paisley and the Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness practically in each other’s arms–or, at least, sharing a laugh–as they took over the new power-sharing government of Northern Ireland a month ago. “It’s still like that?” I asked Hastings. “Aye,” he responded. “It hasn’t gone away.”

But don’t expect Friday’s concert to be freighted with politics. It’s music, says Hastings, and they’ll keep it fun and light, but informative. Hastings and Mullen, a Derry native and acclaimed singer who was Northern Ireland first full-time Irish language radio producer, are in the US to perform at the Library of Congress, which has been hosting a series of lectures by scholars and performances by well-known Northern Irish musicians and singer to build up to this summer’s Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival. The festival is held every year for two weeks overlapping the Fourth of July on the National Mall in Washington, DC. This year’s theme is Northern Ireland.

I caught up with Hastings not long ago in his rectory–in his other life, he’s archdeacon at Holy Trinity Church, Church of Ireland, Westport, County Mayo –as he was preparing for a wedding.

Which came first, the flute or the ministry?

The flute. I’m an ordained flute player, not the other way around. I’m only 14 years ordained; I’ve been playing for a long time before.

How did you wind up playing the flute? Was your family musical?

Not especially. I grew up in East Belfast and music was big thing in Belfast anyway. I started on tin whistle so the flute was sort of a natural progression. I learned the Scots pipes when I was 11 or 12. When I went to university–that would have been around 1974-5–it was the start of the folk revival here in Ireland, so it was fashionable at that stage to play. Over the years, I played with different groups like De Naanan at one stage, did a CD with The Chieftains, but never intentionally. I was asked to do it for the craic. It rarely involved any worthwhile amount of money.

How do you “unintentionally” wind up playing with some of the biggest names in Irish traditional music?

I attended Coleraine University County Derry where I met Brian Mullen, Ciaran Curran from Altan, Cathal McConnel of the Boys of the Lough, and Father Seamus Quinn, who was in the same class as me at university. A wave of good musicians passed through all within a few years of each other. People used to come from all over to play tunes with us.

That must have been an incredible experience.

It was, though it was very bad for your liver.

You were teaching Irish studies when you seem to have gotten “The Call.’ How did you wind up a minister?

It wasn’t money either. Another dream shattered. It was just one of those things, a notion that I heard in my head that I knew I would have to do something about someday. Then one day it made more sense.

How’s it working out?

So far so good.

You can hear the Reverend Gary Hastings and his friend, Brian Mullen, performing at The Irish Center, Emlen and Carpenter Streets, Philadelphia, on Friday, June 1, at 8 PM. Tickets are $12, $10 for Philadelphia Ceili Group members.

May 28, 2007 by
Dance

Reelin’ in the Years

Niamh O’Connor is the last dancer standing.

After a dozen years of Riverdance, starting at The Point in Dublin in 1995, O’Connor—dance captain for the show’s Boyne touring company—still laces up the hard shoes night after bone-jarring night.

You can see Niamh’s fancy footwork this week as the company pounds the boards Tuesday through Sunday at the Academy of Music.

Niamh, who first started taking lessons in Dublin at the age of 4, now holds the record for the most performances of any dancer in the show. “I’ve done over 3,000 performances all over the world,” she says. “I’m well above everybody else at this stage.”

She recalls when dancers first were being recruited for the show. As a champion dancer—the racked up medals in the Leinster, All-Ireland, and World competitions—she was an obvious prospect. Of course, virtually no one could have foreseen that Riverdance would go on to become a monster hit worldwide, but for an Irish dancer, the appeal was undeniable.

“Initially we were booked for three weeks in the Point, then to London for three more weeks, then back to Dublin,” she says. “We didn’t think it would take off on such a worldwide level at all. But for any Irish dancer, to be given the opportunity to perform in a show like Riverdance, of course they’d never turn it down.”

No one had ever seen Irish dance performed in such a new and daring way. In some ways, she explains, it wasn’t much of a departure. Still, there were things to learn—things a competitive Irish dancer might not have known or appreciated.

“The steps we do are still traditional Irish steps,” she says. “The thing that was new was the performance element. Irish dancing hadn’t been professional until this time. We started using hand and head movements that would not have been in traditional Irish dancing. That would have been a whole new experience for all of us. We were used to dancing on stage in competition, though. So basically all we had to learn was performance in front of a paying audience, with different music and different costumes.”

Niamh must have figured out how to meet the new challenges. Twelve years on, she’s still on her toes. In fact, she has performed all over the world, with performances in Scandinavia, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, China, and throughout Europe and North America. As dance captain, she is responsible for scheduling and running rehearsals and for breaking in new dancers.

Her responsibilities don’t end there. She’s on stage, too, for every performance. It’s nothing like easy, dancing well past the point where many would have the stamina to carry on. But, she explains, “I really do look after myself, taking a lot of rest when I should. We have a cardiovascular workout every night before the show. And after every show, I go into ice buckets up to my knees.”

So much for the glamour of the stage.

Now, as Riverdance once again sweeps into Philadelphia, Niamh remains very much engaged in the show. The show has evolved, of course—new costumes new numbers, new sets and lighting changes. But the show remains fundamentally the same exhausting and exhilarating experience it has always been. That killer finale remains, too—and, she says, it still draws a roaring standing ovation, show after show.

Not too hard to take, clearly. And Niamh is prepared to take it for a while longer still. She is studying advanced interior design with the Regency Academy of Fine Arts in the U.K. because she knows that, even for a marathoner like herself, Riverdance must someday end. But for now and for the foreseeable future, Riverdance is her life. “As long as I’m physically able to dance I will,” she says. “I love performing. It’s my job.”

May 11, 2007 by
People

Meet the New Mary from Dungloe

Meagan McGough

The new Mary of Dungloe, Meagan McGough, takes some time with her family: grandfather Ed Brennan, grandmother Dolores Brennan, and her mother, Barbara McGough.

The latest Philadelphia Mary from Dungloe knows how to get to Carnegie Hall. Meagan McGough performed there for five years and discovered, as the old joke goes, the secret is to “practice, practice, practice.”

From the time she was 10 till she was 15, this award-winning Irish step dancer and her parents, John and Barbara, traveled to the Bronx every Sunday after church–four hours up, four hours back from their home in Downingtown– where she would rehearse the routine she performed in an annual show with the late Irish tenor Frank Patterson.

Ranked third nationally among US step dancers, Meagan, who performs with the DeNogla School in Verona, NJ, came in third place at the All-Ireland Championships two years ago–on her 18th birthday. “It’s always the beginning of July so I’m always dancing on my birthday, which is July 6” she laughs. “I guess it’s good luck.”

But her luck hasn’t always been “of the Irish.” She excels in an art form where you break bones almost as often as a linebacker. Meagan has fractured her foot three times since she started dancing at the age of 5. “It’s always been my left foot too,” she says with a wince. “I even danced at the world championships with a broken foot. I just kept wrapping it and taking Vioxx. I broke it the week before the competition and I figured the ticket was booked, the hotel was paid for, and I was going to go. I made it to the last eight bars of the song and didn’t stop but I definitely made a mistake. At World you have to be flawless, the best of the best. Afterwards, I put a cast on my foot.”

Which tells you a lot about Meagan McGough. Challenge? Bring it on! A marketing major at Fordham University, Meagan took a summer job last year that’s sent her in another career direction, one not for the faint of heart. “I got a call over Easter break from an oral surgeon at last year from The Main Line Oral and Facial Surgery Center in Exton,” she explains. “I thought I was going in to interview for a receptionists’ job. I always had interest in the sciences and those gory things, and thought this is so cool. “

It got cooler. They didn’t want her to be their receptionist. They wanted to offer her a surgical assistant internship. She wouldn’t be answering the phones. She’d be assisting in oral surgery–doing suction, helping with IVs, suturing, administering medication. “I thought I’d be wearing suits every day,” she laughs. “Instead, I was wearing scrubs and masks. I loved it. In fact the experience inspired me to go on the medical track at Fordham and go to medical school one day.”

But she didn’t want to give up her marketing major. So she went to the dean of the business school and worked out a plan that allows her to pursue her business degree with a minor in science. “Instead of taking the liberal arts or fun courses in addition to the business classes, I’m on the premedical track which is more challenging than the core courses. When I’m a senior I’ll have most of the prerequisites I need for medical school, though I may have to take summer classes.”

There’s a method to this madness. She thinks her marketing skills will marry well with her medical skills if she’s able to work with Operation Smile, a nonprofit, volunteer organization that provides medical treatment to children in Third World countries born with facial deformities, like cleft lips, that often leave them ostracized in their communities. Its secondary mission: to raise awareness–and money. Irish actress Roma Downey is the international spokesperson for the organization. “I’m going to be interning again this summer and with that extra experience I can apply to work with them next year,” says Meagan.

And in the middle of all this, she’ll be competing in Ireland at the end of July into early August in the International Mary from Dungloe pageant in Donegal. She hadn’t even considered entering the local competition, which is sponsored by the Donegal Association of Philadelphia. The free trip to Ireland? She’s been traveling to Ireland since she was very young, mainly with her maternal grandparents, Ed and Dolores Brennan of New Jersey, who paid for her step dancing lessons and chaperoned her to international competitions. In fact, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to enter if a Donegal Association member hadn’t approached her on St. Patrick’s Day, after she’d done an impromptu “Irish dance battle” with a six-year-old boy during her family celebration at The Plough and the Stars in Philadelphia. (No doubt dazzled by this redhead with flawless skin and sparkling dark eyes who can dance the heck out of a jig.)

“Grace Flanagan, the sister of Theresa Flanagan Murtagh who is the president of the Donegal Association, came up to me and asked me if I’d be interested in entering,” says Meagan. “So my Dad and I went down to the Irish Center and I applied. I really didn’t expect to win. They were all incredible girls. But I’m really excited. I’ve never done a pageant before and even though I’ve been to Ireland so many times, I’m excited about experiencing a whole different aspect of the culture. When you’re dancing in competition, any spare time you have you’re practicing. ”

It won’t be her only trip either. She’ll be competing at the 38th World Irish Championship in Belfast over Easter break in 2008, but for the last time. (The World Championships come to Philadelphia the following year.) “After this World, I’m hanging up my shoes,” she says. “I’m getting certified as a teacher, and as successful as I’ve been as a dancer, I think I’ll be an excellent coach. In fact, I might even be a better coach.”

She’s already the mentor of a younger dancer whose dream was to place in the Irish nationals. “I worked hard with her and she placed 35th, which is a huge deal for her,” says Meagan. “I’m finding it more rewarding to work with kids and see them grow as individuals and see them win. I’ve learned to love the spotlight. Now I’m learning to love the behind the scenes stuff. But this is my last year in the spotlight.” She grins. “I guess I’m going out with a bang.”

Check out Meagan’s competition at the recent Mary from Dungloe Pageant held at the Irish Center.

May 10, 2007 by
Music

Making Music With a Smile In It

Fiddler Kevin Burke—veteran of the Bothy Band, the Celtic Fiddle Festival and Patrick Street—and guitarist-composer Cal Scott never set out to record a CD. Still, it probably was inevitable that these two creative musical minds eventually would crank out something like their new release, “Across the Black River.”

It all started when Burke—a London boy transplanted to Dublin, and now living in Portland, Oregon—paired up with Scott, a resident of the nearby town of Tigard, on a score for a PBS documentary.

“When I first met Cal, he was working on a documentary about the political strife in Northern Ireland,” Burke explains. “He asked me, could I give him some advice on what type of music might be suitable. He knew I was living in town, he knew about me from some other musicians, so he called me up and I said, “Sure,” and we worked on that for a while. When it was over, Cal said, ‘I’d love to learn a bit more about this kind of music and play a bit more. Would you be interested in getting together?’ I said, ‘Sure, I‘d love to.’”

And for a long time, that’s how the relationship went. Burke would drop his kids off at school, and then spend the day at Scott’s studio. The two hit it off, and before long they were swapping ideas the way some guys trade fish stories.

It was all very informal and unstructured.

“Cal says, ‘Maybe the best way for us to go about this is for you to just sit there and play something—anything—just play for five or 10 minutes, and I’ll record it,” Burke recalls, “so instead of you having to play over and over again, you can just go away and I’ll just listen to the recording and come up with a few ideas, and then you can come back and I can show you what I’ve done.’”
So Burke cranked out a few reels played by the late, great Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman—tunes like “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” “Seán sa Cheo,” “The Boys of the Lough” and “Paddy Ryan’s Dream.”

“So I sat and played for five or 10 minutes,” Burke says, “and then I went away. When I came back he had all these great ideas. Some of them were fantastic, and some of them were less fantastic … and some of them were a bit odd. So we just kind of talked about it. I was responding to some of his ideas, and he was responding to some of mine. Before long we had this journey.”

The journey went on for a long time before either man conceived of the notion of releasing a CD. But when they did, those Coleman reels, and one other non-Coleman tune—“The Reel of Rio”—would occupy a place of prominence.

Only it doesn’t quite sound the same as it did when Burke played it the first time. There’s the start, for one. Scott’s introduction sounds a bit like Texas swing. It’s anything but.

“There’s been a kind of a flirtation with that style of guitar backup with Irish music from the ’20s and ‘30s,” Burke explains. “Some of the older recordings have accompanists that sometimes give you the idea, that’s what they’d be playing most of the time, that swing-jazz style. I was talking to Cal about how it might be suitable to start this set of reels because all the tunes in that set, except one, were recorded by Michael Coleman back in the ‘20s. What I wanted to do was play a bunch of classic tunes but give each of them a new twist and at the some time make reference to some of other people’s twists on Michael Coleman’s music. But, since he had such a big impact from the ‘20s on, it just seemed suitable to have the rhythm hark back to the ‘20s as well. With Cal’s background, it was very easy for him to say, ‘Oh, yeah, you mean something like this?’ and he’d just lay it out there. And I’d say, ‘Yeah, that’d be a great way to start.’ And it’s a bit nostalgic. It makes you smile. There’s a smile in it, you know? It’s not silly, though. It’s not supposed to be a comedy. It is slightly amusing, but hopefully there’s a lot of affection there, too, that comes across.”

Together, Burke and Scott were able to create a set that clearly hearkens back to its Irish traditional roots, but with a fresh new approach. “It was my idea,” Burke says, “but Cal’s execution that made it work.”

The two took some liberties with an American tune as well—bluegrass scion Bill Monroe’s famous “Evening Prayer Blues.” Burke had been playing is solo in his performances. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it came up short. He recorded it for Scott, but still wasn’t happy with the sound. So once again, Burke and Scott put their heads together and came up with a few new twists.

“The first time I heard it (the tune), it was Bill Monroe playing it with a band, and it felt very much like a bluegrass tune,” says Burke. “But it’s called ‘Evening Prayer Blues,’ and even though Monroe played it much faster than I played it, even though it was fairly fast in his original version, I really got this hymnal aspect from it. It struck me as a very gentle, private and almost spiritual piece of music. So I took that hymn idea and slowed it down and tried to make it more poignant and thoughtful—the idea of pondering about your spirituality. But I also wanted some reference to the fact that it was Bill Monroe and that it was a bluegrass tune without me trying to sound as if I’m a bluegrass player. So again, Cal’s execution of these ideas is great. He’s a great mandolin player so he made a little reference in there to the bluegrass sound, and he helped me put a second fiddle line on it that would be more typical of a bluegrass reference. And I asked him, what about playing bouzouki instead of guitar? That would still be in keeping with both genres, the Irish and the American, but it would move it slightly away from the bluegrass sound just a little more. That’s how it grew.”

Most of the rest of the tunes on the CD take a similar approach, with reverence for the source material, but tweaking here and there. The result is a CD with—much like the long set of reels—a bit of a smile in it.

You can share the smiles this Friday at 8 when Burke and Scott swing by the Irish Center for a concert, sponsored by the Philadelphia Ceili Group.

May 4, 2007 by
Music

Hard Work Pays Off

Maeve Donnelly is that rarest of birds, an Irish musician whose parents are not players themselves. (Which would make them, um … kind of like the Muggles of the Irish traditional world.)  

Somehow, in spite of her inauspicious roots, she has managed to muddle along.

She won her first All-Ireland Fiddle Competition at age 9. She won two more All-Ireland fiddle titles after that. She also picked up the National Slogadh Competition for Solo Fiddle and The Stone Fiddle Competition in County Fermanagh.

This Saturday, Donnelly will bring her fiddle—and her winning ways—to the Coatesville Cultural Center for a concert with guitarist Tony McManus, starting at 8 p.m. The concert is sponsored by the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Society. (There will be workshops from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in both guitar and fiddle: $25.00 for either one. Pre-registration IS required! Please call (610) 486-2220 to do so.)

In a recent phone conversation from her home in Quin, County Clare, Donnelly explained how she made the journey from the Galway of her childhood and a house somehow not filled with fiddle-playing parents, aunts, uncles and cousins to emerge as one of the preeminent traditional players of her generation.

Q. How did you start out? How old were you?
A. I started very young. I was probably about 6 or 7 or so when I started playing. The reason for starting was, my two older brothers had gone to music lessons. Their teacher taught specifically Irish music.

We had a fiddle hanging on the wall at home. My other brother Declan had played fiddle, and so he had advanced on to another fiddle. It was no great mystique toward learning fiddle.

I got the fiddle put in my hand and a bow, and off I went with my two brothers to learn music.

Q. Not everyone who starts out on an instrument stays with it. Why did you?
A. I didn’t ever exactly like music lessons. I don’t think there’s a child who does. It was no great treat. My lessons would have started on a Saturday. I still feel like I had a big black cloud over me until it was over. I wasn’t great at reading music and I picked it up as best I could, playing by ear.

The way it happened was, we used to go to fleadhs as a family. We in turn were part of a bigger unit, and we played at fleadh cheoils all over the country. It was a special group of maybe 30 people. Within that group, everybody would go to the fleadhs. We would combine in different ways to go in for competitions.

A big proportion of praise goes to my parents, who put in a great sacrifice and weren’t pressuring us to get first place in the fleadhs. It developed as a social outing.

That (playing in fleadhs) made a difference. I was playing in fleadhs and competing from about the age of 9. At the time we would have traveled up to three hours back in the late 1960s. It was quite a journey to go to these fleadhs.

Q. Your parents didn’t play. It seems like everyone else I’ve interviewed who plays an instrument comes with a pretty deep family background.
A. I often think, would it have been nice to have had parents who were musicians? Sometimes it can be more refreshing not to have parents playing musical instruments at home. It’s better doing your own thing, and a challenge.

Q. Was there a point at which you felt like your playing had progressed beyond the routine of lessons, to where you knew that there could be something more?
strong>A. I finished classes in my teenage years. At about that time, a whole new breed of festival started in Ireland. They were non-competitive workshops. The first one was Willy Clancy Week. That was my first introduction to learning music for a whole week, and having great fun and being immersed in it for a week. The first year I went there I was in a class taught by Sean Keane of the Chieftains. And I met a lot of pipers. I never met pipers. I met Seamus Ennis. It was an eye-opening experience. That was about 1974.

After that, I would go back annually.

Q. How has your approach to playing progressed since then? How did what you learn in workshops influence your playing? 
A. It sort of organically grew. I enjoyed what I was doing. I also felt that I worked at what I was doing. I’m not claiming that it dropped down or I was gifted in any way. It sort of spurred me on to studying the music, to working at the music, rather than sitting and playing at sessions. I spend a lot of the just sitting at home and playing.

I think session music is a great form of practice and a great form of picking up tunes and great form of fun. As an exercise in improving your playing, I’m not sure I would agree. It depends on the session. At that level you just play as an ensemble groups. The individual part of the playing doesn’t come. But playing in sessions also gives you motivation to keep playing. Every time I go to a session, I always hear a new tune. It’s like a lifeline in its own way.

Q. What do you do when you aren’t playing? 
A. My full-time job, and has been since I was 20, I’ve been a teacher. I teach in the area of learning support. I take children 7 to 12, children who have trouble with literacy and numeracy. Being a teacher means I have a long holiday time. I have more flexibility. I can take one week and I can tour.

March 24, 2007 by