Rosie Shipley

You know that old saying about “the elephant in the room,” and how it usually refers to the big, bad thing that no one wants to acknowledge?

Well, Gerry O’Beirne’s “Elephant”—his pet name for a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind guitar hand-crafted by Ithaca instrument artisan Dan Hoffman—truly is a big, bad beastie. In O’Beirne’s hands, you can’t help but acknowledge its powerful presence.

He manages to wring every last ounce of musical expression out of his smudged and well-worn Martin 12-string, too.

In concert with Baltimore fiddler Rosie Shipley Saturday night at the Coatesville Cultural Center, O’Beirne coaxed all manner of unearthly sounds from those two guitars—slithery slides, deep and resonant drones, and glittering harmonics. Throughout the night, O’Beirne at various times channeled blues man Robert Johnson, classical artist Andres Segovia, Dobro master Jerry Douglas, and even one-hit zitherist (“The Third Man”) Anton Karas—sometimes, all in the same tune.
With the Elephant, O’Beirne offered a delicately nuanced interpretation of his tune, “Western Highway,” previously recorded both by Maura O’Connell and DANÚ lead singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (who was to have been the headliner before she was waylaid by laryngitis). Wielding the 12-string, O’Beirne’s dazzling performance of another tune, “Long Beating Wing,” left the audience practically breathless.

O’Beirne managed to top even those fireworks with virtuoso performances on, of all things, a ukulele. Don Ho must have been spinning in his grave. Tiny bubbles, my arse.

With all of this praise for Gerry O’Beirne, you might wonder whether Rosie Shipley was even in the room. No need to wonder. This one-time student of master fiddler Brendan Mulvilhill did her old teacher proud.

Shipley plays with power, poise and no small measure of daring. With O’Beirne at her side, she’s an unstoppable and potently creative force. One example: Shipley’s up-tempo interpretation of Carolan’s Concerto, traditionally performed in a pretty, subdued baroque style.

As a teen, Shipley studied at the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts in Nova Scotia. (Where, she adds, she also wove tartans and made out with boys in kilts.) Thank goodness for the Scots influence, because she treated the audience to a couple of lovely strathspeys, which you don’t often hear in traditional Irish performances.

Likewise, Shipley and O’Beirne drew on non-Irish influences to close out the night with a set of tunes from the American South: “There Ain’t No Whiskey in This Town” and “Cluck Old Hen.” On the latter, the fiddle strings were smokin’. (And O’Beirne’s uke rang out like a banjo.)

Did we miss Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh? Of course, but in another way the loss was also our good fortune as these two superb musicians ably and satisfyingly filled the breach.