Traditional Irish music is a bit of a miracle. In many other Western European countries, homegrown music with roots that go back centuries (or even millennia) might be played at rural festivals and during cultural celebrations: A reminder of times long gone and largely obsolete. Here in West Cork and the rest of Ireland, trad is alive and well, played in places of all shapes and sizes, from tiny villages to big cities. Anyone can join a session, if they feel confident, as the technical standard often is high. On www.thesession.org, “a community website dedicated to Irish traditional music”, new tunes are uploaded every few minutes. Some say there are more than 8,000 Irish tunes in existence but this is hard to verify. The earliest named Irish musician was the fifth century Saint Seachnall, while the most celebrated composer in living memory is Turlough O’Carolan (1670–1738), a blind harper whose tunes can still be heard in a pub near you. In the 1970s there were two bands that introduced Irish trad and folk music to the global music scene: Planxty (from which emerged Christy Moore, still active as a solo artist) and the Bothy Band (Paddy Keenan, likewise). The latter will play DeBarra’s Folk Club in Clonakilty on February 14, alongside the award-winning musicians Tim Edey (guitar) and Dermot Byrne (accordion). The musician-songwriter Paddy Keenan turned 75 on January 30, yet his spirit is forever young writes Moze Jacobs.
As a “musical hero of the modern age”, Paddy received the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year award in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Born in Trim (Co Meath), he spent a few years in Clonakilty where he had a decisive influence on the local Irish music scene. “There was a weekly session in Fahey’s pub across the road with locals and some musicians from nearby villages. I remember looking for a quiet pub for a pint and ending up in DeBarra’s with a friend from Dublin, the singer and guitarist Deckie Hunt. We sat in the corner and started to play and sing. Various people were about to leave but decided to stay; the then pub owner Bobby Blackwell saw the potential and from there we started up a weekly session with the local musicians such as Tommy Tupper, Denis Noonan, Gerry Lombard, Tommy O’Leary, and others. Much later, Noel Redding relocated from a pub around the corner where he’d been playing for years.” As Jimi Hendrix’s famous former bassist, Noel Redding would become a magnet who motivated people from all over the world to visit DeBarra’s pub and by extension, Clonakilty and West Cork.
Paddy’s father was part of the Traveller community. Young Paddy travelled up and down the many roads of Ireland with his family until he was seven. “All my siblings were born in different parts of the country; even in Newry up in the North.” His mother, from a settled background, convinced his father to move into a house. Life on the road was rough and tough but also, in some ways, appealing. “It wasn’t romantic, as many people think,” Paddy explains. “But none of us really wanted to live in a house. We still moved to Ballyfermot (Dublin), next door to fellow travellers Ted Furey and his sons, including Finbarr, who lived with us for a while.”
Music runs in Paddy Keenan’s veins. His father and grandfather were uilleann pipers. “The first music I would have heard in the wagon was my dad playing the flute or pipes or banjo. Later, my brother John taught me to play the tin whistle. Then one day, when I was ten, my dad heard me play his pipes as he returned from fishing with Ted Furey. I thought he’d be cross with me but no, he started to tutor me alongside Finbar. I love the pipes above all other instruments. The sound is very expressive. It belongs to the landscape.”
Paddy played his first major concert at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, aged 14, and later joined the rest of his family who called themselves The Pavees. Pavee is another word for Irish traveller (Irish: ‘an lucht siúil’, meaning the walking people). He is a multi-instrumentalist who also plays guitar and various whistles. Above all, his mind is wide open to all sorts of influences. “There’s a blues and jazz aspect in a lot the tunes I play, some bluegrass and even reggae.” He was once described as, “the Jimi Hendrix of the pipes”. “All I can say about him is, he was a player who followed his mood. A bit like myself. I’m sure that he, too, had to deal with a lot of discrimination and racism as he grew up, which would influence his musical expression.”
In the early years of this century, Paddy Keenan spent three Januarys in Mali, a large country that is among the hottest in the world. Together with Liam Ó Maonlaí (Hothouse Flowers) he starred in Dambé: The Mali Project, a well-received documentary film that follows them as they travel 3000 miles to the remote Festival in the Desert, near Timbuktu.
“My mother had just died and I was getting away from all that. I had never been to Africa before. Being there really reminded me of my path as a seven-year-old. The nomadic life that inspired my album, The Long-Grazing Acre. Of course Mali was a bit different. You could see the tents along the road from your hotel window.
We played with international stars like Toumani Diabaté, as well as with local musicians. When I got out of a boat in the middle of nowhere, some kids who were playing soccer on the bank of the river Niger ran away in fear. They had never seen a white man and believed I was a ghost. Then one of their fathers came to me with a bamboo flute. I joined him with my low whistle, did what he was doing and we clicked without a word. It was as my father said, “You’ll speak all languages if you play music along the road. And you’ll never go hungry .”
Paddy Keenan is working on a limited-edition album featuring the music of The Pavees. He plays DeBarra’s Folk Club on February 14, 8:30pm, www.debarra.ie
