We had a mild December, which was a welcome change from last year. The few stormy days that we did have also gave us some juicy rainbows (rich colors and a half circle from mountain to ocean), and the rain didn't last long.
My daughter, Leah, arrived from Greece on the Friday before Christmas. It is a long journey for her, since she is starting from Kos and must first fly to Athens to catch a flight to Dublin. Because of her late arrival in Dublin, she had to stay overnight at the Holiday Inn Express, highly recommended because of their reasonable rates and 24-hour shuttle service to the airport. From Dublin you can take the McGinley bus for a long and scenic ride to Donegal (about 5 hours with two rest stops).
Lisa & Leah at the Beach
We had a very relaxing holiday, with Scrabble and our own private stitch-and-bitch. Leah finished a cross-stitch project, and I finished a hand applique UFO from two years ago. Leah made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for our neighbor, Anne, and had a nice visit with her. There were several good movies on the t.v., not the usual situation with Irish television.
By the way, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of buying a license for your t.v., this has always been the policy of the Irish (and U.K.) government. Each year, you are threatened with a court appearance and a heavy fine if you do not purchase a license for each t.v. that you own--and each license will cost you 160 euro. (I hope you were sitting down for that one). They actually send an army of inspectors around the country who go door-to-door to look at your license. The reminders on the television are made to be intimidating and threatening. Can you imagine what would happen if they tried to do this in the US? (Or at least, what would have happened up till a few years ago.) Originally it was meant to pay for the cost of programming on the original (and only) channels - BBC and RTE (now BBC 1 and RTE 1). In those days, there were no commercials, and the programming was excellent. Now, they have a variety of channels, and commercials on RTE 1 (though not on BBC 1), and a lot of the programs are, like American TV, of very poor quality and in bad taste. (In fact, there are a lot of American programs on the Irish channels now, a practice that was already starting in the late '70s to early '80s.)
Soon after Christmas, the winter concerts began. On the 27th, we went to the opening of the Frankie Kennedy Winter School at Huidi Beag's. They launched a new DVD, The Couple Dances of Donegal, a documentary on the survival of traditional music and dance in this region. There were musicians there from around the world, including many from Japan and the US, esp. California, and Minnesota, for some inexplicable reason (unless, of course, they are fans of Paddy O'Brien, a great Irish musician who re-located to Minnesota several years ago). The session was off and running with Mairead and Ciaran leading the way, and joined by all and sundry who had come from faraway places to participate in this annual tribute to Frankie and Irish music.
The following evening we went to the flute concert. There were five fluters from Roscommon, and they gave a good account of themselves. Playing together and in smaller groups, and accompanied by a very able and sensitive guitarist, they charmed the audience with their tunes, many of which I had learned in New York at the Irish Arts Center during the 1970's. Various other fluters in the audience were invited to go up and play a few tunes with the performers, with delightful results. At the end, there were nine fluters on stage and a very happy audience, indeed.
Roscommon Fluters Finale
Our weekend pleasures were enhanced by a luncheon invitation to our landlord's home in Letterkenny. His wife made us a lovely salmon dinner with all the trimmings, including a 4-part dessert that would challenge anyone's resolve to avoid the usual expansion of girth that we experience each holiday season.
Since Michael (our landlord) has won the All-Ireland pennywhistle championship many times over (and his son plays the fiddle), we had a few tuneens together (i.e., we played a few tunes) until it was time to head back to Dunlewey for the next concert.
That evening we saw Noel Hill (concertina) and Tony Linnane (fiddle). These musicians made an LP together back in (approx) 1979, called Buttons and Bows, which I enjoy to this day (downloaded on my computer). They never made another recording and rarely meet for more than a drink and a chat, but are still experts on their instruments. Tony has a fluid, graceful style on the fiddle, and Noel has a unique way of accenting notes and can even get vibrato on the concertina, which I would have thought was impossible. They claimed to be playing the same old tunes, and joked that it is "hard to get new parts for old tunes."
On Monday, the afternoon concert featured Triona and Mairghead Ni Dhomhnaill, the gals who sang in Skara Brae back in the 1970's, and whom I mentioned at the end of the Mixed Grill chapter of this blog. This particular concert was filmed and recorded by TG4, to be aired on Irish television next fall. They sang ballads in Irish and English, and Mairghead's daughter made her public debut, singing a sean nos song in English. (Sean nos, meaning "old way," usually describes singing unaccompanied in a very old style, or dancing in the old style). With their lovely voices and Triona's backing on the keyboard, they held their audience spellbound.
We decided to forgo the ceili that was scheduled for that evening (New Year's Eve) since it was starting at 10:00 pm and we were in "old folks mode." Instead, I spent the evening with our occasional neighbor, Pam, who lives in Dundalk (Co. Louth) with her husband and son. They own the holiday home across from us, and had all come up for the New Year's weekend. Pam does exquisite needlework, mostly cross-stitch, and we always enjoy a good chat on her "get-away" weekends. Luckily, her visits often coincide with my occasional quilting quandries, and her artistic insights have been very helpful. Whether it is a question of which fabric to use for binding, or which flowers to applique on a pieced background, an outside opinion can help to clarify the best decision for a project (this time it was the binding question).
The next concert we attended was Paddy McMenamin, a local fiddler who was a friend of Francie Mooney's. He had a wonderful selection of tunes and a very lively style, and was accompanied by yet another good guitarist. We had enjoyed Paddy's performance last year, and were very glad to have the opportunity to see him again. The sean nos dancer that we saw last year was in the audience (Roy Galvin, a retired ballet dancer who lives in Tipperary) and Paddy invited him up to dance a jig. This was a fascinating performance, and I only wish they had filmed this concert, too.
Later that evening, came the piece de resistance--the Altan concert. With six top-class musicians and an unbeatable repetoire, their high-energy performance was brilliant, with lots of old gems that we never tire of. They were all in perfect sync, epitomized by Mairead's intense fiddling posture mirrored by Ciaran Tourish, the other fiddler in the group. And Mairead's songs, of course, were lovely. As one of their encores, she sang the lullaby that she recorded on their CD, Local Ground. A very special performance by the best-loved Irish group over the last 20 years.
So ends our December blog.
