In Conclusion...

When I first began thinking about studying abroad, the message I heard from every person I talked to about it was the same. “You should do it. You’ll learn so much by going to another country.” Being in Ireland was definitely a learning experience for me, achieved through the medium I love more than any other: music. Having musical experiences across both the Republic and Northern Ireland taught me a great deal about differences in attitude towards music between my society and theirs, and, more than anything else, what purpose music serves in Ireland.

The rules of musical performance are much looser in Ireland and Northern Ireland than they are in the United States. Before I went to Ireland, I had never really seen a rhythm guitarist improvising new types of rhythmic accompaniment throughout a song, or watched a guitarist finding good-sounding chords on the spot. At home, guitarists playing rhythm usually find a type of accompaniment and stay with it throughout the song, and they follow standard chords that someone has written down. This is even the case in jazz, one of the most improvisatory genres. The openness to rhythmic improvisation in Ireland meant that band members relied on each other much more than they do here, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in music.

Music is a profoundly social experience no matter where I see it, but the social aspect of it seemed magnified in Ireland. There, it is something that anyone can do, and any person who makes music deserves respect, regardless of experience or instrument. Busking on the streets of Galway City had no limits at all. Everyone from a novice guitarist to a classically trained violinist to a guy beatboxing into a didgeridoo was welcome, and many passersby accepted each musician they saw with a nod, a smile, or a tip. That level of respect and welcoming attitude that the Irish have for musicians was something that I have not encountered nearly as often at home.

Finally, music in Ireland tells stories about Irish history and culture. The song “The Foggy Dew” celebrates the fight for Irish independence and examines the sorrow that came with that fight. The leaders and lessons of the 1916 Easter Rising remain alive in the memory of the Irish people through a song. Even a pipe organ can serve as a reminder of history. The Gallery Organ at Galway Cathedral reflects the connection between music and faith, reminding all who see it of Ireland’s intense religious history. Memories of the Troubles and hope for peace live in the Guildhall Organ of Derry. History comes alive and is remembered through music.

My trip to Ireland was primarily focused on literature. However, music is such an integral part of life there that I could not help but notice it. Music lives in every corner of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and so do the lessons it has to teach about history and everyday life. Hopefully, I will one day return to Ireland and experience once again that feeling of its green hills and lively cities coming alive with the sound of music.

Pipe Organs of Ireland

Sometimes, it seems that music is connected to everything in the world. In Ireland and Northern Ireland, music, religion, and politics were especially tied to one another and influenced each other, resulting in a tangled and confusing knot. One of the most visible signs of the connections between the three was one that I did not expect: pipe organs. My two favorite organs of the trip were at Galway Cathedral and the Guildhall in Derry. Each organ serves as a visible reminder of the music/religion and music/politics relationships, respectively.

Galway Cathedral: Dedicated on August 15th, 1965, Galway Cathedral was the first Catholic cathedral built in Galway City. It is the youngest of all the stone cathedrals in Europe. Described as “probably the most exciting instrument in Ireland today,” the magnificent Gallery Organ is the cathedral’s main pipe organ, originally built in 1966 and rebuilt between 2006 and 2007. It is absolutely massive, covering the entire north wall of the cathedral. The lovely stained-glass window above the organ, shaped like a six-sided flower, draws the eye instantly to the pipes framing it. I am not a particularly religious person, but as I stood there looking at the Gallery Organ, I could not help but feel very moved by it. I could imagine being seated beneath it during a service, with the sound of the organ echoing throughout the cathedral. Such a grand, glorious instrument seemed fitting for praising God, however one defines God, through music.

The Guildhall, Derry: Built in 1887, the Guildhall began its life as Londonderry Corporation’s administrative center. It has been destroyed twice, by fire in 1908 and by IRA bomb attacks in 1972. Today the building houses the Derry City Council, and it was the seat of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry (2000-2005). Its fantastic pipe organ, boasting over 3,100 pipes, was first installed in 1891. It suffered severe damage from the fire and the bombs, but was fully restored after both events. The Guildhall organ’s beautiful white pipes, decorated with blue bands and gold leaf around the pipe mouths, seem to jump out of the wood casing. As I admired the organ, I realized just how much political history the instrument has witnessed. It survived the Irish War of Independence, and the building it calls home was the Bloody Sunday marchers’ original destination. It has actually been a part of that painful history, when it was destroyed in 1972. I was amazed that a musical instrument could have survived so much turmoil. The Guildhall organ, for me, was a visible reminder of Derry’s political past. I also saw the organ as a metaphor for Northern Ireland: political unrest ripped it apart at one point, but it has been put back together. The organ is a survivor of the Troubles, and it, like the rest of Northern Ireland, is healing its old wounds.

Music is a medium of passing on historical, social, political, and religious information. The pipe organs of Galway and Derry were more than just musical instruments. They were reminders of Irish culture and history through their connections to religion and the Troubles. They symbolized the intimate relationship between music, politics, and religion.

History through Song: "The Foggy Dew"

In Ireland, songs are often used to commemorate certain events or times. Songs function as tiny history books, capturing the country’s stories in three to five minutes. The Irish song that most fit into this role of historical document was “The Foggy Dew.” The song honors one of the most celebrated rebellions in Irish history: the ill-fated Easter Rising of 1916. This rebellion was an explosive expression of growing Irish resentment against British rule, resentment that can be traced back to the British government’s lack of assistance during the Great Famine.

The Easter Rising began on April 24, 1916. A rebel force of roughly 1,250 captured the General Post Office in Dublin and several other important buildings around the city. From the steps of the GPO, rebel leader Patrick Pearse announced the formation of a new Republic of Ireland. However, the rebels’ meager forces and supplies were no match for the British Army, and they surrendered on April 29. By May 12, fifteen of the sixteen leaders had been executed at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, likely without fair trials, and were unceremoniously buried at what is now Arbor Hill Cemetery. Almost overnight, the executed leaders became martyrs for Irish independence, and they have been immortalized as heroes today. “The Foggy Dew” was written by priest Canon Charles O’Neill from County Down in 1919. Upon attending the first meeting of the Dail Eireann, or Irish Parliament, O’Neill was moved by the number of elected members’ names described as “prisoner of the foreigners.”

I first heard “The Foggy Dew” when I was eleven. Though I did not understand the history, I adored the lyrics and powerful, soaring melody. In summer 2013, as I started learning Irish songs in preparation for the trip, I was thrilled to find “The Foggy Dew” in one of the songbooks lent to me by my professor. I learned the song and performed it several times around Atlanta. In the Global Awareness course during the fall, I finally was able to connect the song with its inspiration. Learning the story of the Rising helped me relate to the song even more deeply.

While in Ireland, I performed “The Foggy Dew” three times: at Kilmainham Gaol, Sheehan’s pub in Killarney, and The Larches Bar in Finney. Because of a reprimand from a docent, I was not allowed to play the entire song at Kilmainham. Nevertheless, it was an incredibly moving experience for me to play part of “The Foggy Dew” at the site where the people it commemorates died. It really made Irish history feel much more immediate and alive for me.

Even more moving were the reactions from locals. In both Sheehan’s and The Larches, every local in the room sang along with me, and more often than not they knew all the words. They also sang it with audible and visible emotion, as if the 1916 rebels had just been executed last week. I was amazed at the level of emotion and connection that they had with “The Foggy Dew.”

I have seen songs function as brief history lessons before, but that role was particularly prevalent for Irish songs. Seeing the connection that the Irish have with “The Foggy Dew” proved to me that, for them, history is far from past. It is still incredibly important to them and ensures its immortality through songs.

Busking in Ireland

On my travels through Ireland and Northern Ireland, I was thrilled to discover that the general attitude towards musicians is respectful and welcoming. This attitude was most tangible in busking situations. The term “busking” means to perform for monetary tips from passersby in public places. Busking can be any type of performance: playing music, reading poetry, caricature drawing, dancing, and swallowing fire all count. The tradition of publicly performing for money goes back to ancient times, but the term “busking” first appeared in British slang in the late 1800s. Busking is common around the world.

The first thing I noticed about the musical buskers in Ireland and Northern Ireland was their endless variety. There were several performers whose instruments I’d never seen in that context before. I spied accordions in Belfast, Dublin, and Galway City, violins in Belfast, and, most memorably, a didgeridoo in Galway City (left)! Levels of experience varied too: one woman in Galway City was clearly struggling to get a sound out of her guitar, and yet she was being tipped just as much as the more experienced player across the street. I’d never seen such a beginning-level player busking before. The people of Ireland demonstrated a level of openness about “appropriate” instruments and experience that I don’t normally encounter.

I was astounded by the sheer amount of respect that street musicians receive in Northern Ireland and the Republic. Unfortunately, buskers are often stereotyped as panhandlers because we play for tips on sidewalks. I’ve witnessed that stereotype here in the U.S.: sometimes, potential customers turn their heads away and walk faster when they see me, as if they’re afraid I might heckle them for change. In Ireland, however, that wasn’t the case at all. When I busked on Eyre Square, the main square in Galway City, passersby would look over and smile, nod, or wish me a good morning. Even a local policeman smiled and waved when he saw me! It was as if the people of Galway City viewed me as a professional musician who automatically deserved respect, regardless of what I sounded like.

Finally, buskers in the Republic and Northern Ireland were very respectful of each other. Performing too close to another musician is very rude and often damages both buskers’ chances of making good tips. Generally street performers are good about this, but I’ve had problems with other musicians performing too close to me. In Galway City, though, I never saw buskers having space issues. They all stayed about ten feet or more away from each other. Even the performers using amplifiers kept their sound levels low enough that they would not draw attention away from others. The buskers of Ireland were much more aware of each other’s spaces than the ones I’ve seen in the U.S.

Ever since I started playing the guitar, I have performed on street corners for fun. However, I have never seen such good attitudes towards street performance as I did while in Ireland. Not only were the performers more open to different instruments and more respectful of one another, but the people they performed for were also more supportive and appreciative. Busking definitely has a much better reputation in Ireland than it does in the U.S.!

Banna de Dhá and the Pubs of Ireland

When I was first accepted to Agnes Scott College’s Literary Ireland study abroad program, I knew I wanted music to be a part of my experience. So, when I heard that a traditional Irish band, Banna de Dhá, would be offering a master class at my school, I jumped at the chance to hear what they had to say about Ireland’s music. During the class, fiddler Tom Morley and guitarist Hazel Ketchum discussed their experiences with traditional Irish music, particularly what it is like to perform it. I assumed that what they said about performance practice in Ireland was true, but I was still eager to see exactly how true it was. After witnessing music all over Ireland, I can comfortably say that Tom and Hazel were right on the money about how performance works there.

First, Tom mentioned that performers playing melodies often string many different tunes together with no break between them, and these melodies are played from memory. Hazel told us that accompanists, on the other hand, usually find chords that match the melodies by ear. I witnessed this blend of memorization and improvisation in pubs all across Ireland. At Sheehan’s pub in Killarney (left), the band rarely stopped between songs, not even when keys or rhythms changed. When the band invited me to perform with them, all I needed to tell the guitarist was which key I sang in, and he improvised his own chords as the songs progressed. None of them used sheet music or even had chords sketched out on a napkin.

Tom also shed some light on the nature of improvisation for rhythm instruments in traditional Irish music. He said that accompanists sometimes have to improvise different parts depending on the number and types of instruments present in a performance. For guitarists like Hazel and myself, this could mean anything from changing the strumming pattern to give rhythmic variety to filling in a simple bass line. What a guitarist must do to add to the rhythm depends a great deal on the other instruments.

In Ireland, guitarists

were present in almost every performance I saw, and always as rhythm performers, but what they played varied just as Tom said they would. For example, the band at Peadar O’Donnell’s in Derry (right) had a guitar and a bhódran (“BOH-rahn”), a traditional Irish drum, for its rhythm section. Since there were two rhythm instruments, the guitarist did not need to add much variety to his rhythms. When the guitar is the main or only rhythmic instrument in a performance, however, the guitarist must be more creative in order to hold the band together and add variety. This was the case with the bands at OliverSt. John Gogarty’s in Dublin, Sheehan’s, and Tigh Coili in Galway City. In each of these bands, the guitarist was the main rhythm carrier, and each guitarist added a little something extra to his rhythm, such as improvising a melody that fitted with the main tune (Gogarty’s) or swapping strum patterns to mark the beginnings of new songs (Tigh Coili).

Musicians performing in Ireland felt much more group-oriented than I am accustomed to. There was no clear leader in any of the groups mentioned above. Each member of the group helped support the others and cue them in when something changed in the songs. Music, for them, was definitely a group endeavor!

Hello out there!

To any future readers I might have out in the Interwebs, I'd like to say hello and welcome to Harpstrings and Bhodrans! This is my first time entering the brave new world of blogging, so if anyone has any suggestions about layout, content, etc., I'd be happy to hear them.

As its title reveals, this blog concerns the music of Ireland and Northern Ireland. I had the great good fortune of traveling throughout both countries for 18 days this winter, via my college's Global Awareness study abroad program. As part of the program, I took two classes to prepare for the trip: Literature of Ireland and the two-credit Global Awareness travel prep course. Our final project for the GA course was to create a blog "dedicated to your Ireland experience." As a music major, I knew full well that my blog would have something to do with music in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

When I first applied to be in the Literary Ireland program, I saw it as a shot at fulfilling a lifelong dream. I have long felt a deep love for many things British and Irish (save for black pudding), and my internal compass has always seemed to point towards those little green islands across the ocean. I have often joked that I knew how to draw the Irish and British flags long before I could draw my own American flag! So, when I discovered I would be going to Ireland, there were no words to describe the excitement I felt at the thought of seeing one of the places I'd wanted to visit since childhood. And even more exciting was the thought of sharing music with the Irish people.

This blog is merely a snapshot of the many great stories I brought home from Ireland. I hope that readers will find it as enjoyable and educational as the trip itself was for me.