A WAY WITH THE BOW:

AN INTRODUCTION TO IRISH FIDDLE STYLES

Philippe Varlet is a French‑born musician and ethnomusicologist who has been playing Irish music in the Washington area and researching its history for almost twenty years. Philippe teaches Irish fiddle playing and performs with several local groups, including Ellis Island and the Blackthorn Ceili Band. His collecting of early recordings of Irish music and research on their history has led to several acclaimed reissue projects, including the anthology From Galway to Dublin (Rounder CD 1087) and two CDs of recordings by Boston accordion legend Joe Derrane (Copley COP‑5008 and COP‑5009). His latest reissue is Milestone at the Garden (Rounder CD 1123), a collection of outstanding early recordings made by Irish fiddle players in Ireland and the United States.

Wherever Irish traditional music is played, you are likely to hear the sweet sound of horse hair on fiddle strings. The harp may be an Irish national symbol and the pipes may continue to be celebrated in the words of “Danny Boy”still the number‑one song in Ireland according to a recent poll conducted on the Gay Byrne radio showbut the fiddle remains the most commonly played instrument among practitioners of Irish traditional music. Ever since 17th‑century Italian violinists propagated their instrument and its art throughout Western Europe, the fiddle has been a staple of  its traditional music cultures. In Scotland and Ireland, it soon vied with the pipes as the instrument of choice to play traditional dance music. Its apparently quick success may have resulted from the instrument's inherent simplicity, relatively low cost, and ready supply from a growing number of local instrument makers. In the case of Irish music in particular, the fiddle was and remains far less complicated and expensive than the uilleann pipesbowing a fiddle may also be easier at first than forming the correct embouchure to blow a flute. The instrument may also have benefited from the rise of an important figure in 18th‑century rural Ireland. Dancing masters who, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, traveled the Irish countryside teaching social graces as well as music and dancing often were accompanied by a fiddler or were violin players themselves and probably contributed to the fiddle's popularity. One can assume that instruments may have changed hands on such occasions and remained in rural communities. In some parts of the country like Donegal, fiddles were sometimes made locally out of tin or brass.

The rise in popularity of the fiddle among Irish traditional musicians is reflected the contribution made by fiddle players to the vast effort of collecting  national music started towards the end of the 18th century. The instrumentalists  from whom Edward Bunting collected traditional music for his three collections, published in 1796, 1809, and 1840, were all harpers and pipers. Later collectors like George Petrie and Patrick Joyce relied on increasing numbers of fiddle players as their sources for  traditional tunes. By the time Francis O'Neill compiled his monumental collections at the turn of the century, fiddle players had become the dominant group among the compiler's informants. One of them was John McFadden, from Carrowmore, Co. Mayo, who can be heard, albeit faintly, with piper James Early on some of the earliest extant recordings of Irish traditional music, two cylinders recorded by O'Neill around 1900 and mistakenly included on a reissue cassette of recordings by piper Patsy Touhey (Skylark SK 1002). “Mac,” as O'Neill called him, reportedly composed a number of tunes which were added to O'Neill's collections.

Today, the fiddle remains as popular as ever in Ireland and within expatriate Irish communities in North America and other parts of the world. Yet, it can be played quite differently by musicians from different areas, so much so that Irish music afficionados will debate endlessly on the respective merits of this or that regional style of fiddle playing. Let us make clear from the onset that style is, in fact, eminently personel. Each fiddle player has his/her own way of attacking the strings with the bow, setting and phrasing a melody, selecting and timing ornaments. And, while general statements on similarities found between players sharing common backgrounds can be helpful, they should not detract from the appreciation of their performances as unique manifestations of individual creativity. A fellow musicologist, then on the music faculty at Boston College, once told me how she was in her office listening to recordings by a particular Irish fiddler when Kilaloe fiddler and long‑time Boston resident Seamus Connolly, who taught Irish fiddle there and was in the corridor, stuck his head in the door and said: “I know who that is.” She was amazed that Seamus could identify one fiddler among thousands upon hearing just a few notes of music. What then constitutes a style and makes it recognizable from others? In part, it manifests itself as a unique combination of playing techniques which each musician elects to utilize. Let us then examine briefly some of the techniques used in Irish fiddle playing, considering fingering first, then bowing.

One characteristic of Irish fiddle playing that can be heard easily when it is compared to the fiddling of neighboring traditions is the presence of sometimes complex fingered ornaments. Ornamentation in Irish music is not simply decorative. It constitutes a precise, yet flexible system of gracing which is wedded to the melody for the specific purposes of emphasizing certain notes and articulating others. In all likelihood, these techniques derive from piping. On an open chanter like that of the Scottish Highland pipes where a continuous flow of air activates the reed, the only way to articulate repeated notes is to cut between them with grace notes. Similarly, since there is no way to play softer or louder on them, gracing is the only way one can emphasize the accented notes to render the pulse of the melody. On the fiddle or the flute, there are in fact means to articulate and emphasize using bowing or tonguing, yet the piping ornaments seem to have been adapted consistently across instrumental idioms. Commonly used fingered ornaments include single or double grace notes, short, long, and delayed rolls, mordants, and crans, all of which can be further combined or substituted for variation. One could add to the list short slides and double‑stops, also used for emphasis, as well as bow triplets or trebles which, while not strictly fingered ornaments, function in the same capacity. One finds that, in fact, many players incorporate only a subset of these in their technique, while others still use fingered ornaments only sparsely or not at all.

Another intriguing aspect of fingering technique in Irish fiddle playing is intonation. Intonation on the violin can be as flexible as the player is willing to take it. Classical music listeners may be aware of the slight differences in pitch that occur when a violinist is accompanied by a piano, with its rigid equal temperament tuning. The violin is also a much appreciated instrument in musical cultures, like those of the Middle East or India, where the production of microtonal intervals is required by the musical system. Irish music is based primarily on diatonic scales of seven notes and most fiddle players tend to follow conventional western intonation when producing these notes. However, there is at least one area of Ireland, specifically east Co. Clare and east Co. Galway, where fiddlers are known to use a different system of intonation in which certain notes can be played with microtonal alterations, thus giving the music a bluesy flavor which is called locally “the old plaintive touch.”

Differences in bowing styles revolve around the use of slurring, i.e., the playing of several notes on one bow stroke. In principle, a fiddler always has the option to reverse the direction of the bow after each note, the change of direction reinforcing the articulations, or to run the bow from one end to the other, with all possible cases in‑between. The former tends to make the music sound more staccato, abrupt and intense, while the use of extended slurs gives it a legato, smoother and more flowing quality. Typically, northern Irish fiddlers tend to rely more on short bow strokes to play each note separately, the bowing style favored by their Scottish neighbors, whereas in most other parts of the country slurring is often pervasive and sometimes patterned to reinforce the rhythmic character of the melody. Bow pressure also tends to vary accordingly, the single‑note stroke style being associated with sharp attacks and a more intense tone, while fiddlers relying on extensive slurring tend to let the bow act of its own weight, thus producing a thinner and sweeter tone.

Two further aspects of fiddle performance practice with stylistic implications are tempo and tuning. While the speed at which each type of Irish dance tune is generally played falls within a basic range, some fiddle styles tend to involve a pace that is consistently slower or faster than that range. Northern music is usually performed at a noticeably brisker tempo. On the other hand, east Galway and east Clare fiddle players are known for the deliberate, almost contemplative pace of their music. As for tuning, Irish fiddlers overall use the standard tuning in fifths GDAE. Examples of tunings based on a different intervallic pattern are rare, but one well‑known instance of that is the tuning AEAE, used by some to play The Foxhunter's Reel in particular. This manner of playing the tune reportedly originated in Kerry and was learned by Clare fiddler Patrick Kelly who in turn passed it on to other Clare players. This tuning allows for more sympathetic resonance between the strings and easier droning, thus giving the performance a distinctively fuller sound. Much more common are instances when the fiddle is tuned in fifths to a different standard than concert pitch. Anyone who has frequented  seisuns in Ireland is aware that in many of them musicians tune a half‑step above concert pitch (E flat tuning) so as to achieve a brighter tonequite automatically, some say, the pace quickens as well. On the other hand, some players, in east Clare and east Galway for example, like to tune below concert pitch to give their instrument a deeper and mellower voice. Typically, this goes hand‑in‑hand with playing at a slower pace.

One dimension of the  tradition which bears on stylistic distinctions without involving fiddling technique per se is repertoire. The core repertoire of dance tunes throughout Ireland is composed mainly of jigs, hornpipes, and reels. These are the kinds of tunes one is most likely to hear at any given seisun or concert. A few other types, like polkas, flings, or barndances, can be required for ceili dances. Some genres, however, are clearly entrenched in one or another local tradition. In Donegal and in other northern counties, the Scottish‑influenced local repertoire includes strathspeys, a slow form of reel, highlands (or highland flings), some of which are derived from strathspey melodies, germans, and mazurkas, all of which are rarely heard outside of that region. In the southwest, the Kerry and Cork repertoire is rich in polkas and slides (fast single jigs) which are essential to the accompaniment of the local set dances. Once again, such tunes would rarely be played in other areas of the country. Even within the core repertoire of reels and jigs, distinctions can sometimes be made between tunes showing traits peculiar to one area or another. Oftentimes, northern tunes are in the key of A, which means that they are played basically on the two highest‑pitched strings of the fiddle, and have a characteristically bright sound. Tunes involving a change of mode from minor to major also seem common in the north, as do melodies with chromatic inflections (departures from the seven‑note diatonic scale). By contrast, many tunes which are considered native to Clare or are favored by Clare fiddlers are played in keys like C or F which do not include as many ringing open‑string notes in accented positions but offer ample opportunity to apply the “plaintive touch.“

Donegal and the North:

            In their wonderful book The Northern Fiddler (Blackstaff Press, 1979), Allen Feldman and Eamonn O'Doherty describe how, even within Donegal, there are distinctive styles associated with different areas of the county. Fiddlers from the South Rosses area tend to play in “strict time,” i.e., without swing or syncopation, while those from the Kilcar/Glencolumbkille region do mix short bows and slurs to produce a highly syncopated bowing. Another major influence on some of the local styles is the piping tradition. Piping ornaments such as the cran can be imitated on the fiddle, and the sound of the drones is reproduced by a sometimes complex use of double‑stops (playing on two strings at once).

            For a long time, the northern styles of fiddle playing remained in the shadows, often being dismissed as being “too Scottish” by the Irish music intelligentsia. Examples of  Donegal fiddling are scarce on early recordings of Irish music. Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and repatriated to Donegal at a young age, Neillidh Boyle (1889‑1961) became involved in radio broadcasts in Dublin in the 1930s and recorded all of six sides in 1937. Rosses fiddler Danny O'Donnell was invited to record for the Irish branch of Regal Zonophone in 1939 and 1946 and produced fourteen sides. Recordings by both men are featured on Milestone at the Garden (Rounder CD 1123). The contrast of styles could not be greater between Boyle's fierce attack and lightning speed and O'Donnell's gently flowing music.

In the United States, where there was a concentration of northern musicians in the Philadelphia area, some may have been involved in commercial recordings with the local Four Provinces Orchestra. One likely candidate, fiddle player John McCormick, made two solo sides in 1924‑5, including one of a tune called “The Buncrana Reel.”  His style seems consistent with the strict‑time, short bowing of the Rosses of Donegal, but no background information on the musician has been uncovered  which would confirm a northern origin. One known Donegal fiddle player who recorded in the United States was Ballybofey native Hugh Gillespie (1906‑1986). Once in America, however, Gillespie became the protégé of Sligo fiddle master Michael Coleman and his recordings (see Green Linnet GLCD 3066) show how completely he was converted to the Sligo gospel.

In more recent times, one of the great exponents of Donegal fiddle playing to be featured on commercial recordings was Johnny Doherty. A traveling tinsmith based around Fintown, near Glenties, Doherty came from a long line of musicians and singers. His great‑grandfather Hugh Doherty (born ca 1790) played fiddle, Highland pipes, and uilleann pipes, and his great‑grandmother Nannie Rua MacSweeney (born ca 1800) was a noted singer. Her nephew Turlough MacSweeney was one of two pipersthe other being Patsy Touheywho  performed in the Irish village of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. In effect, Johnny Doherty was one of the last of a  class of traveling musicians and storytellers, repositories of an oral culture which has all but disappeared. Doherty was also an extraordinary fiddle player, especially considering that he did not own a fiddle for most of his lifean instrument would usually be waiting for him wherever his travels took him. A few LPs of Johnny Doherty's music were issued during his lifetime, but only one issued posthumously has been made available on CD ( Bundle and Go, Green Linnet GLCD 3077). Consisting of field recordings made when Doherty was 83 years oldalthough you would not know it listening to the recordit is a cornucopia of typical Donegal tunes, featuring highlands and marches alongside the local reels and the jigs, played in the stark, yet powerful, strict‑time style which was Doherty's trademark.

            By the mid‑1970s, two other northern fiddle players, Tommy Peoples and Paddy Glackin, were making their presence felt on the traditional music scene. Tommy Peoples, from St. Johnston in northeast Co. Donegal, began gaining notice in the 1970s when he came to Dublin looking for work and became involved in the seisuns at the old Piper's Club. Soon he was performing with the Bothy Band, appearing on their celebrated debut album in 1975, and was recording a number of solo LPs. The latter helped popularize a number of tunes, some of them Peoples' own compositions, which had not been widely known outside Donegal. Peoples' playing combines elements of Donegal fiddling with influences from other styles. He tends to bow in typical northern fashion, with short, often syncopated  bow strokes, and crisp bow triplets which he uses often and in idiosyncratic ways. Yet he makes full use of rolls and other fingered ornaments. Several of Tommy Peoples' outstanding  recordings have been reissued on CD, among which The Iron Man (Shanachie 79044) and Molloy/Brady/Peoples (Green Linnet GLCD 3018), with Matt Molloy (flute) and Paul Brady (guitar), stand out.

            Although Dublin‑born and raised, Paddy Glackin inherited from his father Tom, himself a fiddle player from the Dungloe area of northwest Donegal, the love for that county's music and fiddling tradition. He was also a member of the Bothy Band for a short while, as well as of Ceoltóirí Laighean, and recorded a remarkable solo album in 1977 (Gael‑Linn CEF 060) which unfortunately has not been reissued on CD. Glackin's playing, which combines the intensity and fast pace of Donegal music, some of which came from Johnny Doherty's repertoire, with influences from the uilleann piping tradition, can be heard on more recent recordings, In Full Spate (Gael‑Linn CEFCD 155) and Séideán Sí (Gael‑Linn CEFCD 171), the latter in duet with Co. Down piper Robbie Hannan. A similar style infuses Northern Lights  (Gael‑Linn CEFCD 140), a duet album recorded by Paddy's younger brothers Kevin and Seámus.

            Since the early 1980s, Donegal music has gained more prominence thanks to the commercial success of the band Altan, featuring the energetic playing of Gaoth Dobhair fiddler Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh. Through the band's recordings, an increasing number of northern tunes have become familiar to musicians from all areas and are being played regularly in seisuns. This was not always so. When I first came in contact in 1979 with  Mairéad and her husband, flute player Frankie Kennedy, they had joined in at one of the many seisuns held during Willie Clancy Week in Milltown Malbay. Their music was most engaging and other musicians present sat and listened. Tune after tune, it also became obvious to me that no one else at the time knew their repertoire, full of mysterious highlands, virtuosic strathspeys, and those great reels in the key of A. Mairéad and Frankie recorded their first album, Ceol Aduaidh (Gael‑Linn CEFCD 102), in 1983 and, following successful tours of the United States, signed with Green Linnet for whom what was now the band Altan (named after a lake near Mairéad's home) recorded five albums between 1987 and 1993. The group has been a regular visitor to the Washington area, performing at this festival and other venues. Despite the tragic death of Frankie Kennedy over a year ago, Altan remains at the forefront of the Irish traditional music scene with a line‑up that now includes Buncrana fiddle player Ciarán Tourish as well as young accordion star Dermot Byrne.

            Other albums of Donegal fiddle music worth hearing include: Fiddle Sticks (Nimbus NI 5320), The Brass Fiddle (Claddagh CC44CD), featuring Francie Byrne, Vincent Campbell, Con Cassidy and James Byrne, as well as the latter's The Road to Glenlough  (Claddagh CC52CD). Some of the same northern touch can be heard at the festival from Sean McAleer, from Co. Tyrone, who will perform with the group Dervish.

The Sligo Tradition:

Sligo fiddle playing contrasts sharply with that of the northern counties. Its characteristic sound is lively and bouncy, with a noticeable rhythmic swing which gives the music its lilt, and it incorporates a liberal use of complex ornaments and melodic flourishes like the runs of successive triplets. The Sligo fiddling tradition has been a dominant force in the shaping of the Irish musical tradition in the last century. Through a number of fascinating recordings made in New York in the early 1920s and brought back home by émigrés or reissued by British companies, several fiddle players from the Ballymote/Killavil area of south‑east Co. Sligo became household names and influenced fellow players throughout the Irish diaspora. By all accounts, this region had been a hotbed of traditional music and great fiddle playing for many decades and the players who would  reveal this fact to the world with their records were heirs to that legacy. But it is the exposure these fiddlers received through this new technology and its commercial applications which put their style on the musical map.

Arguably best known among them is Michael Coleman (1891‑1945), who has been called Ireland's most influential traditional musician in this century. Born in the townland of Knockgrania, Coleman emigrated to America in 1914 and started a career on the vaudeville circuit. By the early 1920s, as the booming American record industry sought to secure the ethnic market, Coleman began making records for a variety of companies, including small labels like New Republic created by Irish‑born entrepreneurs. He would go on to record an impressive 80 sides for the major companies, Columbia, Victor, and Decca in the 1930s. Because of the reverence for Coleman's music,  most of his recordings have been reissued periodically. The best collection to‑date is a double‑CD set produced by Harry Bradshaw (Gael‑Linn CEFCD 161) with no less than 48 of Coleman's celebrated performances.

            Through his widely distributed recordings, Coleman's playing style had a tremendous impact on the tradition as a whole and on Irish fiddle playing in particular. Forsaking their earlier schooling on their instrument, countless fiddlers attempted to emulate Coleman's style, while others put the fiddle away forever. All in all, Coleman's recordings created a norm which threatened the survival of other regional styles and which effect is felt to this day. The interest in Coleman's playing was due not only to his superior technical abilities but also to his consummate artistry and seemingly effortless creativity. His classic settings and variations have been studied, learned, and replayed for the past fifty years or more.

            Several other outstanding fiddle players from roughly the same area were also successful recording artists in America during the 78 era. James Morrison (1893‑1947), from Ballymote, made a large number of recordings, including many duets with pipers Tom Ennis and Michael Carney and flute player John McKenna. He was one of the few fortunate enough to continue to record commercially after the crash of 1929. His 1930s recordings, with banjo and piano accompaniment, sometimes have the feel of early jazz. Morrison's playing shares many common traits with Coleman's, and yet  has a sound of its own with its more staccato bowing and its heavy swing. Paddy Killoran (1904‑1965) was from Emlagation, just outside Ballymote, and came to the United States in 1922. A few years younger than Coleman and Morrison, he enjoyed a long recording career which continued after World War II. Killoran made many fine solo recordings and was quite successful as a dance band leader. One of his recording partners was yet another Sligoman, fiddle player Paddy Sweeney (1894‑1974), from Moylough, near Tobercurry. Recordings by Morrison, Killoran, and Sweeney can be heard on Milestone at the Garden (Rounder CD 1123).

By all account, another masterful Sligo player in New York was James “Lad” O'Beirne (1911‑1980). A neighbor of the Colemans in Ireland but a good deal younger than Michael, Lad O'Beirne never knew him well until he came to America. The story of their first encounter in New York, related by Lad's son Jim, is indicative of  the state of regional traditions then. Lad was taken to a place where Coleman was playing and was introduced to him only as a young fiddle player who had recently emigrated. Coleman started playing and Lad took out his instrument and joined in. When Coleman switched to the next tune, Lad followed suit, and so on until Coleman was thoroughly perplexed. Lad was then asked to play a tune and started to play one he knew Coleman would not have known because it circulated in Killavil after Coleman had left. At last, Lad's identity was revealed to Coleman and an emotional reunion ensued. The story illustrates how belonging to a local tradition meant playing a certain repertoire, sometimes with tunes arranged in specific medleys, all of which would have been unknown in the next county. The most significant impact of the emergence of mass‑produced and widely distributed sound recordings is that it changed these circumstances forever. As fate would have it, it was this group of young, brilliant Sligo fiddle players who were in the right place at the right time.

Not surprisingly, the presence of so many talented Sligo fiddle players in New York City has left a mark on the local Irish music scene. In effect, the city has become a center of Sligo‑style fiddle playing and can boast of such expert exponents as Andy McGann and Longford‑born Paddy Reynolds, whose classic recordings are available again on CD (Shanachie 34008 and 34011). And there are still younger but equally adept players following in their footsteps. The latest to cause a stir is young Patrick Mangan, a student of Brian Conway for some years and already an All‑Ireland champion. Patrick will be performing at the festival today with the “next generation” set.

Kevin Burke is yet another  Sligo‑style fiddle player who has made a name for himself in the United States, although through a different route. Born in London of Irish parents from Co. Sligo, Kevin grew up listening to the music of the Sligo masters of the 1920s and 1930s. However, his playing reflects the influence of other fiddle players, for instance west Clare fiddler Bobby Casey, with whom he came in contact during his years of musical apprenticeship in London. Yet another alumnus of the famous Bothy Band, Kevin became better known in the United States when he began touring here with ex‑Bothy Band guitar player and singer Micheál O Domhnaill, after the group disbanded in the late 1970s. The duo met with immediate success, in part perhaps because Kevin's flowing, easy‑going fiddle style and Micheál's gentle open‑tuning harmonies agreed with the tastes of the new‑age music audience of the early 1980s. Kevin Burke has a half‑dozen or so recordings to his credit in the Green Linnet catalog, including the classic If the Cap Fits (GLCD 3009) and Portland (GLCD 1041).

Galway and Clare:

            The area around Loughrea in east Co. Galway has long been  renowned as a hotbed of traditional music. The slow and expressive musical style of the area, which is not without resemblance to the East Clare style,  received early exposure through the recordings of the Ballinakill Ceili Band (see From Galway to Dublin, Rounder CD 1087), which line‑up included two fiddles, two flutes, and piano. By all accounts, one of the premier contemporary fiddle players in the East Galway style is Paddy Fahy, also known as the composer of many tunes now universally played in Ireland and abroad. Fahy's music tends to explore less common keys like C and F, with intriguing modal shifts between major and minor. This, together with the deliberately slow pace and smooth  flow of his playing, give his performances an eerie quality. Unfortunately, Fahy has not recorded commercially, and rare amateur tapes of his fiddling are traded like a rare commodity.

One Galway fiddler who has won much praise for his playing, both as a solo artist and as the leader of the group De Danann, is Frankie Gavin. Born in  Corrandulla in the heart of the Connemara Gaeltacht, Gavin grew up in a musical family and came under the influence of early recordings of Irish music made in America, particularly those of  Galway piper Patsy Touhey and Sligo fiddle master James Morrison. Frankie Gavin's fiddle playing is technically complex, unabashedly brilliant, and has a pronounced, driving swing. His first solo recording, made in New York while on tour with De Danann in 1977, has been recently reissued on CD (Shanachie 34009). Gavin's recordings with the band, of which there are now ten, illustrate his unique flair for duet playing. 

Clare fiddle music has been attracting a lot of attention lately thanks to the quiet musicianship of one of its finest contemporary exponents, Martin Hayes, who luckily is among the performers at this year's festival. Yet, Martin's playing represents only one facet of the music of Clare which really encompasses two somewhat distinct traditions, that of West Clare and of East Clare. Although the differences between the two styles may not seem striking on paper, they are easily heard. Like east Galway fiddlers, east Clare players favor a slower pace and mellower tone, sometimes achieved by tuning the instrument lower than standard pitch. The intimate, moody sound is matched by the choice of repertoire which tends to concentrate on tunes in minor modes and flat keys. While also unhurried and understated in their playing, West Clare fiddlers have a slightly more straightforward approach to their music.

Martin Hayes was exposed early in life to the traditional style of east Clare fiddle playing. Martin's father is P.J. Hayes, long‑time leader of the famous Tulla Ceili Band, and his uncle is Glanree fiddle player Paddy Canny. Hayes and Canny were featured on one of the very first LPs of Irish music to be recorded in the early 1960s and their duet album was as influential at the time as were the records of Planxty or the Bothy Band in the mid‑1970s. Paddy Canny's extraordinary command of the “plaintive touch” was captured on record a few years earlier for Gael‑Linn (see Milestone at the Garden, Rounder CD 1123). Martin himself now has two albums to his credit, Martin Hayes (Green Linnet GLCD 1127) and Under the Moon (GLCD 1155), for which he has received well‑deserved praise.

West Clare fiddle music is synonymous with the names of Bobby Casey, Junior Crehan, Joe Ryan, and John Kelly Sr. Their playing was recorded on several LPs during the 1970s, but precious few examples are available on CD today. Exceptions are Bobby Casey's track on a recent reissue of recordings made in London in the 1960s entitled In the Smoke (Globestyle CDORBD 088), and the recently released recording by Sceach fiddle player Joe Ryan (An Buachaill Dreoite, Cló Iar‑Chonnachta CICD 113).

            Clare fiddle playing will also be represented at the festival by Kilaloe native Seamus Connolly and by James Kelly, whose father John Kelly Sr. Came from Kilbaha, near the mouth of the Shannon. Both men have illustrious credentials and several recordings to their credit, including James' newest album, The Ring Sessions (SPINCD 999), which has received critical acclaim. While rooted in Clare's music, the style of these two performers has been heavily influenced by the playing of the Sligo masters of the 1920s.

            Other worthwhile recordings of Clare fiddle music include that by Tony Linnane (Noel Hill & Tony Linnane, TARACD 2006), Mary Custy (With a Lot of Help From Their Friends, Celtic Music CMCD 064), and Tola Custy (Setting Free, Cló Iar‑Chonnachta CICD 098).

Kerry and Cork:

The Southwest and particularly the area called Sliabh Luachra (Mountain of the Rushes), on the border between the counties of Cork and Kerry,  is home to an exceptional fiddling tradition whose figurehead in this century was  Pádraig O'Keeffe (1887‑1963). Born in Gleanntán, Castleisland, O'Keeffe left an early career as a school teacher to become a much sought‑after itinerant performer and fiddle teacher. His most students included Paddy Cronin, who made a series of landmark recordings for the Copley label while living in the United States (see Milestone at the Garden, Rounder CD 1123), and brother and sister Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford. Like Cronin, Denis Murphy spent several years in America and made a few recordings for the New York label Celtic. Better ones were produced back home when he was one of the traditional musicians recorded by the newly‑established Gael‑Linn record company in the late 1950s. One of Murphy's sides from that session is also included on Milestone at the Garden (Rounder CD 1123).

Previously, the music of Sliabh Luachra had attracted the attention of Seámus Ennis who at the time worked as a collector for Raidió Éireann and, later, the BBC. Acetate recordings made on these field trips have recently been reissued on several albums, Kerry Fiddles (Topic TSCD 309), which features O'Keeffe, Murphy, and Clifford playing in various combinations, and two recent Radio Telefís Éireann CDs devoted to recordings by Pádraig O'Keeffe (RTE 174CD) and Denis Murphy (RTE 183 CD) respectively.

At first hearing, the playing of the Sliabh Luchra fiddlers does not seem that different from that of neighbor traditions just north of the Shannon. It involves the same basic techniques of ornamentation with grace notes and rolls and the same pervasive slurring with the bow. Yet, it has a unique flowing, lyrical quality which is hard to ascribe to any particular technical feature. The easiest distinction to make is one on the basis of repertoire. There is nothing outside that area to match the combination of melodic simplicity and rhythmic vitality found in the many polkas and slides which make up so much of the Kerry/Cork dance repertoire.

Several Cork fiddle players have been contributing to bringing that repertoire to a larger public through their excellent recordings. From Carrigohane, Seamus Creagh made is mark in 1977 when he recorded with Kanturk accordion player Jackie Daly. Their classic duet album has been reissued on CD (Gael‑Linn CEFCD 057). Seamus' recently released solo album, Came the Dawn (Pigeon Inlet PIPCD 7330), combines repertoire from his native area with other tunes learned along the way. Cork native Matt Cranitch, who was a member of the pioneering group Na Filí in the early 1970s, has acquired a reputation as a skillful air player but is not above playing polkas and slides. He has done so on several recordings with the group Any Old Time, and on his latest offering, Sliabh Notes (Cross Border Media CBMCD 018), with Limerick accordion player Dónal Murphy. Cranitch is also the author of the very useful Irish Fiddle Book (Mercier Press, 1988) in which he reveals the many secrets of traditional Irish fiddle playing.

One participant in this year's festival who comes from the Southwest is Vincent Milne, from the Clonakilty area of West Cork, who will perform with the group Nomos. Milne's father, also a fiddle player, was from Co. Sligo and the Sligo influence shows in Vince's playing alongside that of his adopted county. His fiddling was featured recently on the album A Small Island (Ossian OSS CD 07), with Cork accordion player Pat Sullivan and Brid Cranitch on piano. Additional examples of Kerry‑Cork music can be heard from fiddle player Gerry Bevan, with Brendan Begley on accordion, on several of the tapes in the series Music for the Sets (Na Píobairí Uilleann NPU 002 through 007).

In an interview published a couple of years ago, Martin Hayes was expressing the opinion that the regional styles are dying out and could never be revived. This may seem surprising coming from a young musician whose playing style appears so entrenched in regionalism. What Martin is alluding to, of course, is the intermingling of styles and the rise of a more homogenized manner of playing which have resulted from easier contacts between musicians of different origins and from the wider circulation of recordings. Martin continued with a note of cautious optimism, saying that the natural evolution would be for style to become even more than before a matter of individual expression. Ironically, the very medium which may have contributed the most to the disappearance of regional styles has also created monuments to these styles in form of a rich legacy of recordings which are made available again. Perhaps individual performers will continue to admire and draw inspiration from these recordings and rediscover in them the many ways of the bow.

Recordings cited:

James Byrne: The Road to Glenlough, Claddagh CC52CD

Michael Coleman: Michael Coleman, Gael‑Linn CEFCD 161

Seamus Creagh: Jackie Daly agus Seamus Creagh, Gael‑Linn CEFCD 057

Came the Dawn, Pigeon Inlet PIPCD 7330

Johnny Doherty: Bundle and Go , Green Linnet GLCD 3077

Hugh Gillespie: Classic Recordings of Irish Traditional Fiddle Music,

Green Linnet GLCD 3066

Kevin and Séamus Glackin: Northern Lights, Gael‑Linn CEFCD 140

Paddy Glackin: Glackin, Gael‑Linn CEF 060

In Full Spate, Gael‑Linn CEFCD 155

Séideán Sí , Gael‑Linn CEFCD 171

John McFadden: Patrick J. Touhey , Skylark SK 1002

Vincent Milne: A Small Island , Ossian OSS CD 07

Denis Murphy: Music From Sliabh Luachra, RTE 183 CD

Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh: Ceol Aduaidh, Gael‑Linn CEFCD 102

Pádraig O'Keeffe: The Sliabh Luachra Fiddle Master, RTE 174CD

Pádraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy, Julia Cliford: Kerry Fiddles, Topic TSCD 309

Tommy Peoples: The Iron Man, Shanachie 79044

Molloy/Brady/Peoples (Green Linnet GLCD 3018

Various: The Brass Fiddle, Claddagh CC44CD

 Fiddle Sticks, Nimbus NI 5320

From Galway to Dublin, Rounder CD 1087

Milestone at the Garden, Rounder CD 1123

Music for the Sets, Na Píobairí Uilleann NPU 002 through 007