Folk column: Remembering Mícheál O Domhnaill

The tragic and sudden death in July last year of Mícheál Ó Domhnaill deprived the world of Irish traditional music of a quiet hero. His family and friends have come together to celebrate his life and music in Ómós - A Gig for Mícheál, to be held on May 24, 2007 in Dublin’s Vicar St.
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill, singer and guitarist, was a founding member of seminal bands Skara Brae, The Bothy Band, Relativity and Nightnoise. He forged influential musical partnerships with Mick Hanly, Kevin Burke and Paddy Glackin and oversaw the production of many albums for other artists like Noel Hill and Tony Linnane. As a song collector working with Breandán Breathnach and as a radio presenter (The Long Note), Mícheál left a legacy of enduring quality.
Sisters Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill have assembled a remarkable gathering of traditional musicians and singers to celebrate the life and music of their brother. On stage at Vicar Street on May 24 next will be Maighread & Triona Ni Dhomhnaill themselves, Paddy Keenan, Donal Lunny, Matt Molloy and Kevin Burke, amongst many other special guests. It is a benefit concert with all proceeds on the night going to The Irish Traditional Music Archive.
Plans are afoot to release a retrospective CD and a Trust Fund has been established to oversee a Educational Scholarship that will bear Mícheál’s name. The scholarship will enable a young person with interest in the area of Irish music, song or folklore to study in the Donegal Gaeltacht, and really there could be no more fitting long-term memorial than to help someone set out down the path that Micheal made his own.
May 4 sees the release of the latest album from Dervish. Initially available on a download-only basis from the band’s own website, the album will go on physical release on June 4 in the aftermath of the band’s Eurovision appearance. As well as the John Waters and Tommy Moran penned ‘You Can’t Stop the Spring’, which the band will be performing as Ireland’s Eurovision entry, the album also features a cover of Sonny Condell’s leftfield favourite ‘The Cat She Went A-Hunting’.
Also included is a song by Canadian songwriter Dan Frechette, whose ‘My Bride And I’ is one of those deceptively simple songs that grow on you. Looking closer to home the album also features the songwriting debut of one Cathy Jordan, who has two co-writes on the album.
Having been hugely impressive at last year’s Kilkenny Rhythm And Roots Festival, Jeffrey Foucault is making a return trip to these shores for a smattering of gigs in early May. A big bear of a man, his delicate fingerpicked guitar style seems hugely improbable as he dwarves his small bodied vintage Martin, but there’s an intensity to his playing which makes the recorded versions of his songs seem a little flat for several listens after you’ve seen him.
He’s kicking off with a show in the Cobblestone on Thursday May 3, and like most of the shows on the tour he’ll be playing this one solo. However, for those of you lucky enough to live within striking distance of Enniscorthy, he will be playing in the Bailey there with Clive Barnes on Friday May 4. Although they have very different approaches to playing the guitar, this is a combination of talents that can’t be passed up. On Sunday May 6 he’ll be in the Half Moon Theatre in Cork and Wednesday 9 sees him in Mick Murphy’s in Ballymore Eustace. He’s also playing The Crane in Galway on Thursday 10, Dolan’s in Limerick on Friday 11 and the Seamus Ennis Centre in Naul on Saturday May 12. I saw him at the latter venue last year, in what he subsequently told audiences in Kilkenny was one of the best gigs of his career, so let’s hope the refurbishments there are finished on schedule.
Why do people sing? That is the deceptively simple question that Lillis Ó Laoire has set out to answer in his book, On A Rock In The Middle Of The Ocean, which explores the singing tradition of Tory Island, Co. Donegal.
Although Tory Island is small in size and has a full-time population of just 165 people, it has a rich musical tradition that dates back 200 years and remains an integral part of the island’s cultural infrastructure today. The author has a long-standing interest in the island and its culture, having grown up a short distance away in Gortahork on the Donegal mainland, so it was a natural choice as the focus of this study, which seeks to understand the function of song.
In On A Rock In The Middle Of The Ocean, Ó Laoire explores the occasions at which people sing, the significance of these events and the songs and the singers chosen to perform. He details the way in which the tradition is handed from one generation to another in Tory and the criteria upon which the singers are judged, and also explains how songs act as a mediator of the dilemmas and tensions of island life. O Laoire also explores how music contributes to the strong sense of identity and historical continuity of the Tory Island community.
Ó Laoire has been visiting Tory at intervals since 1984 and has established close ties with many of the islanders, in particular Éamonn Mac Ruairí, Teresa McClafferty and Séamas Ó Dúgáin, each of whom has had a lifelong interest in the songs, music and other cultural traditions of the island, and accordingly a specialised knowledge of them. He attributes part-authorship of the book to them, and also to Belle Mhic Ruairí, Gráinne Uí Dhúgáin and John Ó Duibheannaigh. Although an Irish language version of the book appeared a few years back, this edition will be much more accessible and, as a traditional singer’s book about traditional singing, it provides a real insider’s view of the calling.
Continuing the bookish theme, Cork poet Liam O Muirthile is enlisting the vocal firepower of Iarla O Lionaird to assist in launching his latest collection, Sanas. It’s always good to see Iarla and you can experience the vocal pyrotechnics in the Unitarian Church on Stephen’s Green on Tuesday May 8.
In what has to be a first (or am I just hopelessly naive?), Tommy Peoples’ gigs in Kent at the start of June are being advertised with a poster featuring a naked chick playing the fiddle – and I don’t mean a little yellow fluffy thing. Granted, it’s a painting and it also features a guy in the background who appears to be swallowing a bow. For those among you who have been as thrown by these surrealist fancies as I was myself, the dates being promoted are in Lewes on Saturday June 9 and Littlebourne, near Canterbury, on Sunday June 10.