(upbeat traditional Irish music) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) - On this episode of "TradFest: The Fingal Sessions", we're over the moon to be joined by Stephen Rea, and Louise and Michelle Mulcahy, Neil Martin, and Farah Elle.

(upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (group laughs) Stephen.

- Yeah.

- And Louise and Michelle, you've just come from performing at TradFest.

Tell us what was, what have you been doing?

What was going on?

- I was reading some poetry and they were playing some magnificent tunes.

- [Fiachna] Mm-hmm.

- Along with Neil Martin, and a very wonderful audience who appreciated what they were getting.

- It was a really special afternoon.

We were in Swords Castle.

The whole idea behind seat was- - [Fiachna] "TradFest: Fingal Sessions" was funded by Fingal County Council.

(upbeat traditional Irish music) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) "TradFest: Fingal Sessions" was funded by Fingal County Council.

- Mastery and skill, and we really delved into, I suppose, the annals of poetry and Irish traditional music, drawing from those great masters, both past and present.

- And Stephen, is there something in particular the show was about?

- We actually start with a poem by Moya Cannon which really points to the origins of indigenous music and how it has survived by the incredible courage of the people who made the music and went all around the world and lost everything but the music.

- The poem you're going to do for us is dedicated to beloved musicians.

- Yeah, this is called "Carrying the Songs".

And there's an epigraph at the beginning which says, "Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs," by Frank Harte, so.

It was always those with little else to carry who carried the songs to Babylon, to the Mississippi.

Some of these last possessed less than nothing, did not own their own bodies, yet three centuries later, deep rhythms from Africa, stowed in their hearts, their bones, carry the world's songs.

For those who left my country, girls Downings and the Rosses, who followed herring boats North to Shetland, gutting the sea's silver as they went, or boys from Ranafast and Horn Head who took the Derry boat, who slept over a rope in a bothy, songs were their souls' currency, the pure metal of their hearts, to be exchanged for other gold, other songs which rang out true and bright, when flung down upon the deal boards of their days.

(bright traditional Irish music) (bright traditional Irish music continues) (bright traditional Irish music continues) (bright traditional Irish music continues) (bright traditional Irish music continues) (bright traditional Irish music continues) (bright traditional Irish music continues) - Stephen , that poem was dedicated to Maighread and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill.

- Yeah.

Well, of course, they come from a family that goes way back, and Donegal music, with their aunts.

And it's just so incredible what they possess just by existing.

And so it's appropriate that they were getting it.

Moya Cannon is from Donegal herself.

But what I love about it is the way she broadens it to take in the whole world of music, jazz, African rhythms.

It makes you feel connected to all the important things about music.

- The sense that music comes from the land.

And no matter where that land is, there's sort of a commonality in the music that comes from the land.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- Be it African, be it Irish.

- Yeah.

But I mean, American popular music has just been lifted from Black people and Irish people.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But we've got it back and- (laughs) - Yeah, yeah.

(laughs) Neil Martin, from playing gigs to writing operas and writing tunes, I see you often, you're a busy man.

How did you get connected with all of this?

- Well, Stephen and I have been working together for, in fact, 35 years.

This year was the first time we shared a stage together.

- Oh.

(group chuckles) - And yeah, you all weren't even born then.

(group laughs) So we've been doing a lot of stuff, Field Day Theater Company of which Stephen was a founding director.

And we've worked a lot with Field Day, and out in New York, Sam Shepherd play, and lots of stuff here as well.

So there's a lot of stuff over the years.

So we kinda have a way of going between us.

And it was my first time, the first year to work with Louise and Michelle, so it's been a very happy journey.

- Yeah, marrying music with words in a different way to conventional songs, in a sense.

- I often think of Irish poetry connected very much to the European troubadours of the Middle Ages where there was very little difference between the poet and the musician.

They were kind of all the one.

You sing poetry, really, and you speak poetry out loud, and all of these things are interconnected.

And I like to think it was thus here on this island as well, and kind of sure it was, really.

- And the tune you just played there.

- We played "The Hag At The Churn".

So I suppose, like any traditional music, tunes are passed on from generation to generation, and I suppose each generation breathes new life into the tunes.

And I think when you collaborate in this format, a certain new excitement presents.

And I think every time you play a tune, I think you'll agree with that, Neil, with new people or in a different environment, it kinda, it comes alive.

- Hmm.

And it's amazing to hear it kind of in the context of a poem that is about the O Domhnaills, or there's a reference to the O Domhnaills because obviously, The Bothy Band's version of that tune is one that I have traveled many, many miles to through the years.

- Absolutely.

It's a really rhythmical tune.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- And I think that's a really important connection with poetry and music is that rhythm and the presence of rhythm.

And I suppose with tunes and poetry, they can both marry the emotional intensity of each other, and I think that's something really special that we've worked on throughout the seat performances.

- And I think that's a very, very ancient tune.

- [Louise] Mm-hmm, it is.

- I wouldn't be surprised if the origins of that were not in a clan march going back to the 16th, 17th century.

I'd be pretty sure it would have, it's all rooted, it's all earthed in the tradition and in the piping tradition.

- [Fiachna] Stephen, this next poem is from a dear and departed friend of yours.

- Yeah, well, (chuckles) all the friends are departed these days, but yeah.

Poor old Derek, he's truly emerging as one of our greatest poets.

And he never promoted himself ever, and he just kept at it.

And it's coming home now.

You can see it as the way he goes from personal position to seeing the whole world.

It's almost unique.

I love his work, yeah.

- Hmm.

So the piece you're going to read for us now.

- Well, it's called "Washing Up".

And he goes from the simple action of washing up dishes to seeing the world.

And he starts with an epigraph, "The miracle is not to fly in the air or to walk on water, but to stand on the earth."

It's a Chinese proverb.

You do the gastronomy.

I wash up and rinse under a running tap.

I like it on the whole.

It gives me time to think about our lives here at the edge, no, at the eye of real existence, wind and sky working together to define the limits of our own demand.

There's so much washing up to do on the degraded planet now.

Oceans and forests, oily sands, our filthy, lucrative demands on the resources of this place, and soon, perhaps, of outer space.

Beyond the window, a bright star notes my performance from afar, twinkling to find a widower engaged on a domestic chore, a relic of pre-digital times, fond of anachronistic rhymes and flight from the new politique of induced squalor and high tech, washed up on a deserted beach, grumpy, contrarian, out of reach.

(soft cello music) I stand here at the kitchen sink, watching the soap bubbles blink.

No.

Here at the sink, I stand with a wet drying cloth in hand, dreaming not of that caricature and automatic dishwasher, but of an even simpler life, untouched by electronic stuff.

The best of miracles rely on the old known reality, pines where the wood pigeons live, wild garlic growing in the drive, the nightly fun of wiping dry dishes and bowls and cutlery.

Washing up here along this shore, us urban exiles can be sure of a real world where fauna thrive and precious habitats survive, where swifts back from Rwanda find unchanged the nests they left behind, and hungry gulls remain content with their own fishy nourishment.

However much we wish her ill, nature, as such, is hard to kill.

The more insistent our demands, the more severely she responds by turning up the heat again so we too register the pain.

Golfers in helicopters fly here, dropping daily from the sky.

And surfers surf, who might prefer not to be here, but in Hawaii.

But these are just technology playing its games with sea and air.

Knowing our own place, I infer from my perspective as (speaks in foreign language) in the whole turbulent shebang, the universe and everything is the one miracle that wins out over a rake of sins.

It might be going too far to say life is worth living anyway for the naive and unprepared despite the violence endured or the despondent migrant crowds out in the road like drifting clouds.

What do we know in our resigned enclosure, sheltered from the wind?

But don't we cherish all the same our long-sought equilibrium?

(gentle cello music continues) I stack the plates with diligence, glad to have been of use for once, and step outside to watch the sea washing up in the estuary.

(no audio) - Thanks, Stephen, that's amazing.

Powerful, powerful poem.

- It's an amazing poem, isn't it?

Yeah.

- Better clean up the Earth.

(chuckles) - Derek was a man who suffered terribly personally and more than the other poets that we all know of.

And I suppose his way to get out of that was to face the big issues that faced everybody in the world.

- [Fiachna] Mm-hmm.

- That's what makes it so powerful.

- Louise, you've got some tunes for us.

- We have.

We'd love to play a selection of jigs for you on the flat set of uilleann pipes in B, and Michelle has an accordion as well.

I suppose one part of the tradition which is so important is musical families, and we come from a musical family.

Our father, Michael, plays the accordion as well and a whole host of other instruments.

And growing up, we've learned so many tunes at home in our kitchen, just like so many other families around the country.

The first tune is a tune which we learned from our dad, and it's called "Johnny Henry's".

And we also mentioned new compositions and new tunes coming to light, and I think we're at a really exciting time where there's so much archival footage.

And I think that's a whole other magic when you hear new tunes.

And the second tune, actually, is a composition of the piper and broadcaster, Peter Brown, and it's called "The Land of Plenty".

- [Fiachna] Ah, great.

(upbeat traditional Irish music) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) - Fantastic.

- Great.

- Thanks so much.

Your pipes, we were talking about the torch being passed on, I mean, the story behind your pipes is one worth hearing.

- It's particularly moving.

And for many people, Liam O'Flynn was the first port of call.

People would have heard it, the first sound of Irish traditional music, the sound of Ireland, are brought for so many people.

And sadly, we lost Liam O'Flynn a number of years ago.

I know he was a great friend of Neil's, and we've talked about this many times when we've met over the last while.

But Liam donated, when he passed away, two sets of pipes to Na Piobairi Uilleann, and these are one of them.

They were made about 35 years ago by a lad from Montenotte.

I'm just incredibly honored to be able to play and continue playing this beautiful instrument.

And every time I strap on the pipes, I really think about Liam's legacy.

I think about the music he created worldwide and how he elevated the status of uilleann pipes and Irish music to new heights and new platforms worldwide.

What an incredible legacy, and I just feel really honored to have been entrusted with the care of this set by Na Piobairi Uilleann in Dublin.

- Your playing of them is extraordinary.

- Oh, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

Farah Elle, great to have you with us here.

It's so, so, so nice to see you.

- Yeah, it's nice to see you too.

- And congratulations on your wonderful music.

Your album, "Fatima", is just beautiful, stunning.

- Thank you.

Feels good to have it off my chest.

(laughs) - Yes.

And to think the first time we met was a couple of years ago and you were working on it, I'm imagining.

- [Farah] Yeah.

- And dreaming up what has now become this body of work.

It must be exciting to have it out in the world.

- Yeah, definitely.

When you're working on something for, it was seven years, so it just feels like, ha, okay, I can just, I have more space now to work on more projects, and yeah.

And also, I just wanted to share the songs.

I didn't want to hold them hostage anymore.

(laughs) - So in those seven years, I mean, lots of inspiration.

- I think when you're an artist, your inspiration mostly stems from life, right?

So I just had more time to experience things.

So, it's funny because when it came to releasing the album, I really didn't feel like the same person anymore as I was when it started, of course, and so much had happened from just growing up.

And then I released it after the pandemic as well, so it was like a different world even I'm releasing it out into.

So yeah, it felt good.

It feels good.

- [Fiachna] Good.

- I feel like, (sighs) okay, I don't have that foreboding sense of, oh God, I really better release that album.

(laughs) Like, it's done now.

(Fiachna and Farah chuckle) - There's an amazing tune on "Fatima" called "Laundry", which I play time and time again on RTE Radio and I love it.

- [Farah] Thank you.

- Is there any chance we might do it together?

- Yes, let's do it.

Yeah.

- Okay.

(group laughs) Can we all join in?

(laughs) - Yes, that would be perfect, absolutely.

This is a shout out to anyone who's ever done your laundry.

(group laughs) All right.

(gentle keyboard music) (gentle keyboard music continues) ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home ♪ Only in your eyes ♪ That it finally feels so right ♪ ♪ My baby calls me all the time ♪ ♪ No, not only in the night ♪ Only in your arms ♪ Can I feel you mean any harm ♪ 'Cause baby only in your eyes ♪ ♪ That it finally feels so right ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home ♪ Oh ♪ Ooh ♪ Ooh ♪ Ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪ Mmm mmm mmm ♪ Blowing in the breeze ♪ Fill my heart with ease Okay, are you ready?

♪ Home and my laundry is done - That's it.

♪ I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ - Except louder.

♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ - And keep going, all the way.

♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Only in your eyes, and my laundry is ♪ ♪ That it finally feels so right ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ My baby calls me all the time ♪ ♪ And my laundry ♪ No, not only in the night ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Only in your arms, and my laundry ♪ ♪ Can I feel you mean any harm ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ 'Cause baby only in your eyes ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ That it finally feels so right ♪ ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ (group laughs) - Hey.

(laughs) - We might have been supposed to end on home there but we took it all the way.

(group laughs) Oh, what a beautiful, amazing evening this has been.

Thanks so much, guys.

- [Louise] Thank you so much.

- [Farah] Thank you.

- Neil, you have something to round up the evening for us, haven't you?

- Well, I want to play a couple of reels.

Michelle, you know the names of them, I don't.

What are they?

- The first one is a great old reel called "Lady Gordon's".

And the last one then is called- - "The Strawberry Blossoms".

- "The Strawberry Blossoms".

- Yeah.

- Fantastic.

"Lady Gordon's" and "The Strawberry Blossoms".

Beautiful.

(upbeat traditional Irish music) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) - [Fiachna] "TradFest: Fingal Sessions" was funded by Fingal County Council.

(upbeat traditional Irish music) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) (upbeat traditional Irish music continues) "TradFest: Fingal Sessions" was funded by Fingal County Council.

(upbeat traditional Irish music) (dramatic music) (upbeat theme music)