Regional subdivisions of instrumental music

It would be impossible in this or any other context to give a full account of traditional music making in Clare. In presenting the tradition and some of its practices the county will be divided into four regions – the south west, the Fergus valley, north, and east Clare. This division of the county in accordance to regional music styles has been informed by the first notable textual account which uses similar divisions, Gearoid Ó hAllmhuráin’s extensive thesis, The concertina in the traditional music of County Clare (1990).¹⁶ However, it would be fair to say that these types of division are generated by musicians and audiences themselves in Clare.

A concertina owned by Noel Hill of Lissycasey.
It was made by Louis Lachenal in London c.1870. Photo: John Kelly.

Instrumentally the tradition is unusual in that it is considered fairly multi-instrumental although the fiddle is central, particularly in east Clare. It is possible to be considered as a Clare-style banjo player, flute player, piper or concertina player. This contrasts with other regional styles which are often considered as exclusive to one instrument (usually the fiddle) or two. For example, the idea of a Donegal-style flute player would be considered a nonsensical within the tradition. Another distinction of the instrumental make-up of County Clare is the importance and central role of the concertina throughout the county. The anglo- (or anglo-German) concertina, as opposed to the English concertina, appears throughout Ireland from the late nineteenth century but only really has a strong role in the regional identity of Clare. The account of the regional subdivisions given below is not in anyway comprehensive or even representational. It is just an account of those that this author has heard and seen before in pub and print! Furthermore, examples of particular musicians are largely selected from my own aesthetic prejudices and background. The use of transcription as an analytical tool outside a community of practicing musicians is also a controversial and problematic one. In the examples given below please remember the anonymous statement – ‘talking about music is like dancing about architecture’ – drawing and writing about music further compounds the problems!

South-west Clare

Fiddle player John Kelly from Rehy, Cross, Kilballyowen. Photo: Michael John Glynne.

The region of south-west Clare emanating north and east from the Loophead peninsula is often seen as a stylistic entity in its own right. This region is seen as being musically connected with Kerry and west-Limerick through the influence of travelling teachers and performers such as George Whelan and Pat Barron. This is evidenced by the popularity of tune types such as polkas and slides which would be more normally associated with the traditions of Cork and Kerry. These tune types can be heard in the repertoire of such legendary musicians as Junior Crehan (fiddle) from Mullagh; John Kelly (fiddle) from Cree; and Solus Lillis (concertina) from Cooraclare. Perhaps the dominant figure in the traditional music scene in this region in the twentieth century was Mrs Crotty.

Elizabeth Crotty (nee Markham, 1885-1960) was born in Gower near Coorclare in 1885 but is associated with Kilrush where she and her husband, Micko, were publicans. Her reputation was accentuated by the popularity of the pub as a place for the performance of traditional music; the fact that she was one of the first musicians to be recorded by Ciarán MacMathúna and the RTÉ mobile recording unit in 1955; and the fact that she was prominent in the early establishment of CCÉ in Clare, becoming President of the Clare branch of that organisation in 1956. She was a popular player for set dancing but she is perhaps most notable, outside of her playing style, for being one of the few women to gain popularity and respect as a traditional musician in this period, a period that witnessed the first substantial mass mediation of traditional music.

Mrs Crotty’s pub in Kilrush. Photo: John P McCormack.

Below is a transcription of her performance of a tune that has become synonymous with her and the region, The Reel with the Beryl recorded some time between 1955 and 1960 by Ciarán MacMathúna and Ned Nugent with the Radió Éireann Mobile Recording Unit. Here we can see some of the stylistic features of Mrs Crotty’s style that many believe are part of the conceptual construct of south-west Clare music. The aesthetic behind the performance is obviously embodied (i.e. it is music for dancing to). There is very little ornamentation, indeed the two ornaments annotated in bar 13 are in all probability slips or inaccuracies on Mrs. Crotty’s part. Instead of using the normal larger ornaments common throughout the tradition such as crans and rolls she rather plays through notes of longer duration, using slight pressure on the bellows to accentuate a quaver motion as can be seen in bars 5 and 7 of Round One (R1) below. The most notable feature and the most complex is the ‘doubling’ where she plays the tune in octaves (with a couple of small exceptions where she diverges to a more harmonic effect). An interesting aspect is the swelling effect on the notes of longer duration signified by the hairpins. This is partly rooted in the physical nature of the instrument where the draw of the bellows would cause the effect but it is arguably an important aspect of performance style throughout the county. The overall feeling is one of a dance-centred simplicity that would perhaps be seen as central to much music from this area

The Reel with the Beryl

From Elizabeth Crotty – Concertina Music from West Clare, Track 1.

The Fergus Valley
This central band of music presented as one of the regional sub-sets of Clare music is regarded as the most complex and open to outside influence because of its proximity to Ennis. Members of this community of musicians include Bobby Casey, Joe Ryan (fiddles), Tommy McCarthy, Paddy Murphy (concertinas).

Bobby Casey (1926-2000), a fiddler from the Crosses of Annagh, near Miltown Malbay, is one of the more significant figures in the recognition of this style. Bobby emigrated as a young man in 1952 to London where he became a central musician to the burgeoning London pub session scene at the time. Bobby’s complex tonality and general musicality is perhaps the least communicable through transcription but the transcription of the second tune, Farewell to Connacht, of the first track of his 1979 recording Taking Flight does illustrate the intricate nature of the performance. We can see from the nominal slurring that the bow work is relatively complex, sometimes slurring over the main beats of the reel (e.g. bars 17 & 18), effectively hiding those beats. There is much complex ornamentation (particularly in bars 17 and 19) and he subtly plays with the intonation of the fiddle in ways which are perhaps impossible to fully account for with western notation but some are indicated below in the glissando symbols in the transcription. The double stopping is also quite complex, indeed it is difficult to separate this from the strings resonating which is equally a part of the performance style but isn’t indicated below. He even alters the intonation of tones while double stopping – the ‘E flat’ in bar 4 is perhaps the most extreme example of that. Although the full extent of it cannot be shown below he engages in much subtle variation, especially at the end of phrase points in the second part of the tune. Kevin Crehan gives a personal account of Casey’s complexity and musicality when he writes:

Listening to, and playing with Bobby, this joking, shocking, irreverent side of his personality was always to the fore. His music is full of inventiveness and devilment. The flourishes are bountiful and spread effortlessly over the phrasing. Indeed as Cait Reed once commented, ‘Bobby Casey ornaments his ornaments!’ This expression is presented as a wave of inventive and complex embellishment.¹⁷

Farewell to Connacht

From Bobby Casey, 1979, Taking Flight, Mulligan Records.

North-west Clare
The musical community in and around the Burren would also be regarded as a distinctive community with a much more rhythm-focused, uncomplicated aesthetic. Naturally enough perhaps the most important feature of the musical environment in north-west Clare is The Kilfenora Céilí Band but many individuals stand out and would be regarded as iconic for this particularly approach to Clare music, such as Chris Droney from Bellharbour and the Russell brothers from Doolin. There is a recognisably strong flute tradition in this area to compete with that of the fiddle and concertina.

Below is a transcription of the first round of a single jig performed by a younger exponent of that tradition, flute player Garry Shannon. Although Garry is generally regarded as a contemporary flute player whose style can be seen as more cosmopolitan, in the performance annotated below he is deliberately performing in a style associated with this region and particularly that of the admittedly idiosyncratic flute, whistle player and singer Miko Russell. Miko was from Doolin, a village on the west-coast that has become an international tourist mecca for traditional music. The entire track on Gary’s recording is called ‘Heirloom’, implying that the tune is something that has been handed down, but this tune in particular is called The Clare Jig, which is a completely different tune to the double jig usually given this title.

Miko Russell. Photo: Michael John Glynne

The tune is a single-jig, a relatively rare tune type in performance practice generally these days and associated with playing for solo step dances or figures of social set dances. Garry here has chosen not to use the plethora of contemporary flute ornamental techniques that he would otherwise deploy, such as rolls and crans, but instead he uses single note grace notes and looks for subtle complexity elsewhere. The performance is perhaps more like Mrs. Crotty’s than Bobby Casey’s above although, like all, there is the notable use of the crescendo dynamic on occasional long note (as in bar 9, 10 and 11). Related to this is the accent utilised to make the pulse on an otherwise slurred note on which the main beat would fall (as in bars 8 and 12). Notable is the emphasis on presenting different phrasing patterns such as hiding the natural phrasing of the tunes which would be based around sequences of two bars.¹⁸ Much of the articulation is not annotated below but it is a central tool used by Garry to provide the rhythmical sensibility of the tune (see bar 5).

The Clare Jig (Garry Shannon)

From Garry Shannon, Loozin Air, Brick Missing Music.

East Clare
Perhaps the most distinctive and universally recognised sub-division of what is regarded as Clare music is the music of east Clare. Indeed, for much of the audience for traditional music, especially outside Clare, is very often divided stylistically between east Clare and the rest. This music is stereotypically much slower and contemplative than the music of the rest of the county and perhaps is more closely associated with the traditions of east and south-east Galway. Central to this idea of a regional approach is the music of The Tulla Céilí Band but it also has its iconic individual performers, particularly in Paddy Canny, Martin Rochford (fiddles) and more recently Martin Hayes (fiddle and banjo) and Mary McNamara (concertina).

Below is a transcription of Martin Hayes’ performance of Martin Rochford’s Reel from his spectacular album with Dennis Cahill, Live in Seattle (1999).¹⁹ Martin Hayes has been one of the few traditional artists in Ireland who has been able to take a regional sound and popularly transform it for a modern international audience. In the process of doing so he has had critics who point out that he has taken certain clichés from older generations and accentuated them outside of a more traditional proportionality. Certainly Martin’s performance practice is unmistakably individual; however he is a consummate virtuoso capable of such switches in style while maintaining his identity as an east Clare fiddler. It is certainly unfair to represent him in one round of a tune as his treatment of the set as a gestalt is perhaps one of his more important trademarks. However it does illustrate some of the trademark sounds considered to be typical of east Clare. The tune is in F major, an unusual key for the performance of traditional Irish music, but it could be said that the fiddlers of east Clare would share a propensity for difficult tunes and keys with their neighbours in east Galway.²⁰ Not much ornamentation is used for the embellishment of the tune perhaps because this is the first tune of a set and Hayes is carefully constructing a dynamic through the use and non use of techniques such as ornamentation. His bowing tends to be single producing a heavily swung sound that would perhaps be better represented as quaver – semiquaver but hasn’t for reasons of clarity. His bowing is quite complex, often avoiding bowed emphasis on the beat (seen in the many slurs over the bar lines) and creating three dramatic breaks in the A part of the tune. Perhaps the major clichés indicating an east Clare origin are the slow tempo, the use of glissandi (often in association with bowing across the beat) and the small crescendo over tones of longer duration as in bars 9 and 14.

Martin Rochford’s

From Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill, 1999: Live in Seattle Green Linnet.

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