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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music at Maddens podcast from the snug upstairs in Belfast’s home of trad. Yarns, pints and laughs with well known faces from the trad music scene. Locals, visitors are all welcome to join in the chat - with Lynette Fay.
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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music At Maddens Podcast #010 - Riverdance and Archiving with Niamh Ní Charra
Welcome to a new episode of Music At Maddens Podcast with me, Lynette Fay.
This week we welcome Niamh Ní Charra to the podcast.
This week’s guest in the snug is Niamh Ní Charra, who swapped a career in engineering for music and never looked back.
From Boston sessions to joining Riverdance and performing over 3,000 shows around the world.
She shares what life on tour was really like, how being part of such a phenomenon shaped her career, and why she’s just as passionate about preserving Ireland’s musical and cultural history as she is about performing it.
From archiving presidential papers at the University of Galway to researching the stories behind traditional tunes, Niamh brings a rare mix of perspective, honesty, and humour to this brilliant chat.
Enjoy!
New episodes every Monday.
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Dunville’s Irish Whiskey
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OK, we'll follow you. Good Music at Madden's with me, lynette Fay. We're coming to you from the snug upstairs here in the pub, widely referred to as Belfast's home of traditional music, and we make it our home here every week as well.
Speaker 1:You can watch on YouTube. Thanks for listening on Spotify and Apple. Please do leave a review and subscribe as well. Spread the word, tell your friends. You can watch on YouTube. Thanks for listening on Spotify and Apple. Please do leave a review and subscribe as well. Spread the word, tell your friends. This week I have fiddle concertina player and singer Niamh Mí Chara from Killarney and County Kerry in the snug upstairs in Maddens. Niamh has released four albums. She's toured as a soloist with Riverdance. She's also a professional archivist, currently project manager and project archivist for Conrae na Géilege and the Mary Robinson Collections in the University of Galway, and she's also a founding member of the volunteer campaign group Fair Play Niamh. She's a great person to work with and I'm sure she'll be a great help to you.
Speaker 1:She's a real special treat. That's how we entice people to do this. So, niamh, I've just read basically part of your bio. There. There's lots going on. You pack it in, girl, you pack it in. There's an awful lot going on there, and it seems like the music is there, but it's not everything that you do, and I think it's lovely the way the archives and the music must complement each other. But the music very much, though, came first. You picked up the concertina at four.
Speaker 2:I asked Santa Claus for Ellen Pipes actually and Santa. Claus is a very wise man, and Santa Claus said no fecking way, and I got a concertina. So yeah, I was young so there's a lesson there there's a lesson there.
Speaker 2:There's a lesson there. I think it may be the the short stature of me at the time that they reckoned. You know, santa reckoned that this octopus of an instrument just wasn't going to work for me, you know. But yeah, I started concertina and the fiddle shortly after actually, and I've played all my life. We won't do the maths on that one, but yeah yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 1:And then you're a singer as well. Would you always sing Under?
Speaker 2:duress that one, I have to admit, and part of it was I would be touring and, like, I toured, as you mentioned, with Riverdance for a good few years and when I came back from Riverdance I wanted to hit the ground running and so I set up my own band and I started, like I recorded my first album, kind of within a year of coming back. But you know yourself, you're touring and you're trying to kind of juggle everything and watch the money and I was thinking, okay, I can't afford a singer, so I'm gonna have to do it myself. And and I think I suppose when I was young, I would have learned songs, because I was learning the slow airs for for the flat, for the competition. So when I was going to do a slower in the fiddle, I'd learn the song, so I'd have the phrasing right. And yeah, when I was under 12, I entered the singing All right, but I think I might have won a Kerry Flaccio when I was you know nine or something.
Speaker 2:But but I you know, it's something, it's interesting, it's something I remember my granny doing, my granny, actually, who's from here. She would have left. She was just off Falls Road, I think it's at Logan Street, logan Place. Oh wow, they got burnt out when she was about five, oh Christ. And back in the day a story I think common enough she ended up eventually down in Cork via Carlingford but via either Glasgow or Liverpool. We're still trying to work out what weird route they took. But she ended up down in Cork. But she joined the Cotten and Gaelghe branch down in Cork and learnt all the songs and would be constantly singing them around the house. So the certain songs that I learnt as heirs then, because I associated them with Mammo, like you know. So I guess I kind of had grown up with it without realising. Now, that's, you know, every time I was visiting the grandparents. So that's what I remember, you know.
Speaker 1:And do you think also, sometimes the songs are there and if you've got a bit of a voice it's there, but the value is equated sometimes with the instrumental music and then maybe you don't. You, if you're an instrumentalist, that's more valuable than maybe being a singer.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I think, ironically, from an audience point of view, I think the singing is more, uh, accessible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, um, for me as well, I think.
Speaker 2:Outside of ireland I discovered that, especially non-English speaking countries that were hugely interested in Irish um traditional music, they completely got that you might be a musician who sings, as opposed to a singer, and it was all about the, the passing on of the tradition and the story behind the tune and the fact that I was singing in Irish um, which I predominantly do.
Speaker 2:So I think that was something that gave me a bit of confidence and actually, ironically, when I started touring first, having come back from the big RD when I released my first album, I got approached to join Carlos Nunez's band and I ended up touring with him for four years and it was really good because it kind of bought me a bit of time to get up and running under my own name, but he was brilliant at throwing me in the deep end and he had me singing in Breton and in Galician and several languages actually, when I think back French, breton, galician I think they were the main ones and a little bit of Spanish all our Celtic cousins, all our Celtic languages, yeah absolutely Brazilian, because I was on his Brazilian album, actually, and then, when that toured, I needed to learn the Brazilian songs, you know, so, of course, the Brazilian language.
Speaker 1:You know there's a big link between Galicia and Brazil, you know, so it was very very so that that, throwing you in at the deep end, though that in the moment it can feel like you're drowning sometimes. I suppose, when you come out the other side, you realize that you've learned an awful lot and it shows you maybe, what you're really made of?
Speaker 2:I think so, and I think I think it was the same with Riverdance as well. I got kind of dropped in the deep end in terms of learning the music very quickly, for I think one of the first gigs I did and, to be honest, riverdance was my first professional job, which is fairly you know, fairly up there, and I think what people mightn't realize, because there are so many dance shows out there now, people forget what it was like before Riverdance existed. And with Riverdance, I think, what set it apart from some of the copycat shows and I don't mean that in a derogative manner it opened a door.
Speaker 2:It started something. It started something. But the difference as well was that it was based around Bill Whelan's music. It wasn't a dance show. It was Bill Whelan using all his various influences to put the show together. The Riverdance segment that happened at the Eurovision. It included dancers, but it started with the choir. It was very much about the kind of music he was exploring. You know the Eastern European influence and the Spanish influence, because he was doing a lot of Spanish fusion, spanish fusion music, if you know what I mean at the time. Um, but it meant that the fiddle part of Riverdance it's a bit, it's a bit of a roaster, I think. Uh, you know, any of the fiddlers that have done it will tell you that you need to have scale, not just at trad. There's a lot of kind of classical technique needed and a little bit of jazz, and then you're running around the stage and you need to have confidence and so, like that was my very first, it's not just an element of performance, and I've only seen Riverdance recently.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I haven't seen it at its height, which you would have been involved really still in the height years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think it was two years into it being, you know, being in existence, because of course the seven minute segment was 94. Yeah, the full show came together in 95. And then I first stepped for Maureen Fahey in 97, february of 97. And then I became a full time musician with them when they set up the Lagan troupe, as it was known. We became the Lagan and that touredred north america um starting january 98, my goodness, you know. So it was. Yeah, I was 12 at the time.
Speaker 1:I was not, but we won't do any of the maths. What's what's life like on the road doing something like that? Because the you know, we've all been there. The perception is that it's glamorous and it's fantastic, but you don't see the maybe the hard work that has to be done and just how long the days are and how relentless maybe the hamster wheel is. Fáil comhaith gó an ish o ar a hóirí an fáil críil to seo.
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Speaker 2:It's really interesting because for me as well, there was a stark difference between me touring with Riverdance and then me touring in my own band. So me touring with Riverdance, this was a company, this was a production and we were all employees and in the very early days people couldn't get enough of Riverdance and I think there was maybe six weeks off a year. So you'd go out in January, you'd come back in June, you'd have three weeks off.
Speaker 2:You'd get sick for the first week because adrenaline was keeping you going in the road and your body's touching the lesson Exactly, you'd go back out in July and home at Christmas, and what you did is you traveled on a Monday, you did a sound check on a Tuesday Show, tuesday night, wednesday night, thursday night, friday night, two shows Saturday, two shows Sunday. And you travelled on a Monday and if you were staying in a place for more than a week, your Monday was off, but otherwise you were going full on. There was no such thing as weekends and you were living with the people that you were working with. You were travelling with them. There was no, you know, it was a bubble, which meant that you were a little bit excluded from what was happening everywhere else, but there was no getting away with the people you were around either, which, luckily for us, I think it really was a lovely family.
Speaker 2:I mean, that sounds like cliche, but when I was touring first, it was like 111 of us on the road counting the crew was big with it, you know, and and that was after some reductions already at that point, yeah, and because they realized, okay, there's, there's sustainability in this, there's, you know, this could go for longer than a few years. We need to plan this a little bit better logistically. So so, even with the reduction you were talking about touring maybe 111 people altogether, but all of that said, you didn't have your own moments really to get away, um, you didn't have the switch off. I I still find it hard to get used to the idea of a bank holiday or a weekend. You know, and that's my work as an archivist, which I'm at now nine years, but yeah, so that was Riverdance, it was full on, but you weren't dealing with any of the trying to get the gigs.
Speaker 1:Yes, the work was just there, and you were getting your pay Exactly.
Speaker 2:So then when I was doing it with my own band, I was doing everything and you know you'd reach out and you try and get on a few agents' rosters. But I think my timing was epically awful because it was just around the time of the recession and a lot of rosters were full. They weren't taking any others, so I was doing a lot of it myself. So, leading into a tour, I was already tired, I was already exhausted with the preparation that would go on and then you'd be driving around and navigating and dealing with sound engineers and doing all of that aspect as well as what you were doing yourself on stage.
Speaker 2:But it was my music, my arrangements, it was my name, so it was swings and roundabouts. There was a huge satisfaction in that, you know touring under your own name and getting to play the kind of tunes you want to do. I mean, I loved Bill Whelan's music and it was a real challenge to play it, and there's certain favourites of mine that I still every now and then the fingers will start going, you know, but I did over 3,000 shows, so you know it was good to start playing some other stuff.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing, though. When you look back at something like that, when you're in it, you don't see all this stuff, you're not weighing it all up in the way you are now, with the benefit of hindsight and time, you know, and also an older person, you know, looking back on the things you do in your youth. We all, we all do that and we jump into things, and you're in the moment you're very but, but you were like, you were involved in something that was the absolute zeitgeist of the 90s like, so I can't imagine just how exciting that must have been when you were in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really was, and I think a year or two into it we realized we were it. This wasn't something that I mean. Yes, absolutely. In terms of looking back at at some of the experiences, you're kind of going god, I wish I knew at the time how special that was. But an overall understanding of it, absolutely we knew. I mean, there were jokes comedians were making that referenced Riverdance. It was a word that got into the dictionary. Yeah, you know, it was in Shrek, you know. Do you know what I mean? There were all of these kind of cultural references and we were kind of going, my God, like that's us they're talking about you know, so that was really special, and I think there was an Olympic skater that skated to one of the pieces in Riverdance.
Speaker 2:So it was funny where it would start coming up and that's when you realised, oh yeah, I'm part of something special.
Speaker 1:And also you know at that stage of your career to have that exposure to international audiences and that exposure to touring, seeing how this can travel like. Do you think that river dance opened the doors for the exploration of other types of music? Did it whet an appetite with audiences you know globally for a little bit more and did that make things easier?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think me personally as well. It did um like so, and this is not in the bio at all, but I didn't do music in university, I did engineering. I'm an electronic engineer and I had started work as an electronic engineer.
Speaker 2:That should be in the bio, my bio would be way too long um, I had grown up with traditional Irish music but I'd never considered it a career and of course, when I was growing up, riverdance hadn't existed, so I'd never considered it a career. I went off and did engineering. My mom was my physics teacher, so science is in the family. I grew up with that. But it was when I was working for an Irish software company in Boston and all these Irish bands started coming through and stopping off in Boston in Tommy Louise's pub, the Burn.
Speaker 2:That's where I started kind of meeting a lot of musicians coming through but also kind of going yeah, I need to get back to the music. And so I made a decision which was risky but I felt, ok, I have my degree in my back pocket, I'm going to give this a go for a year or two and see how I get on. And I went back to Ireland and I did a course in Cork. It's a bit it's a bit like the ballet ferment, uh course, but this one's down in Cork, it's called Stéphane Neffa. Sinead Lone did it actually. Um, it's called music management and sound.
Speaker 2:It's kind of a taster of everything you need to know about the music business um and in the middle of that I got a call to audition for Riverdance and what had happened is that the Danon had been passing through. Ringo was there, saw me playing in the session the night before um went back with my name to the Riverdance powers that be going.
Speaker 2:You should look at her as as a potential fiddle player and I got the call and I ended up getting called in to cover for Maureen and and that was that, and then so I started touring full-time January of 98 and my parents got to come out, finally, I think the summer the following year, but for about a year and a half. Um, you know, they thought what I was doing was fantastic, but they had no concept of really how big a deal it was and they thought, you know, this is great. You know, they thought what I was doing was fantastic, but they had no concept of really how big a deal it was and they thought, you know, this is great. You know, but when are you going back to the engineering? You know, this was in the back of their minds all together and they came out I think it was Calgary they visited and they came out, saw the show and I'll never forget it because my father, he was always a very affectionate man.
Speaker 2:He'd always give us hugs at the train station when we arrived in and you know he had no problem showing affection, that kind of way. But he came out and he didn't know what to do. He, he didn't go like he, he didn't know whether to hug me or shake my hand or whatever, and I never forget it, like I was visually watching my father trying to get his head around what he'd just seen and the very first question he was asking then it wasn't you know, when are you going back to the engineering? It's when are you recording your first album. And that had completely switched, and that was because of Riverdance. It suddenly opened up these, you know, possibilities.
Speaker 2:It's got a value in it, absolute value in it. And, like as I said earlier, had Riverdance existed when I was growing up, maybe I never would have gone into engineering, because it would have been a possibility.
Speaker 1:Very clearly. Then the music was just always in your heart and there was something like you were mentioning there about the pub in Boston, and I've got this picture of you going in and just you lighting up like a spark, the eyes sparkling at the thought of this, chatting to these people, imagining what their lives must be like, and obviously you were missing something. There was something in you that just wasn't clicking. It wasn't right, like how important do you think it is in general, niamh, to follow that gut instinct? Do you know just to to tune into that and do what you're? You know your?
Speaker 2:your gut's telling you to do. Yeah, I have no regrets that I took the risk. But I suppose what I would also admit to is the fact that I did have a safety net of having my degree, so it didn't feel as big a risk to me at the time, but certainly it was a decision. It was a conscious decision. I want to give this a go. I'm not loving the other. I had loved physics in secondary school. Thanks was a decision. It was a conscious decision. I want to give this a go. I'm not loving the other.
Speaker 2:I had loved physics in secondary school, thanks to my mom. She was a fantastic teacher. She left teaching early, ironically, and went off and is a landscape artist. She's been selling paintings since her late 50s. So, yeah, science and music and science and arts very much kind of linked there. But um, I think it was. It was just once I went into college. It wasn't about electronics, it was about engineering and it really taught me a way of solving problems. But I didn't love it and when I went to Boston I made sure I brought the fiddle and it was a very small.
Speaker 2:It was a Dublin software company that sent out maybe three, four people, five people actually from the Dublin office to the states so that they'd have somebody on US hours. So it was a very small group of us going out. So I brought the fiddle with me, landed out, and somebody I knew from university who had been out there ahead of me, um lovely box player from ballast low called noel scott or nullig. I always knew him as um gave him a phone call um, I'm in boston, I'm going to be here for a while. Um, are you playing? Are you still playing? I'm in.
Speaker 2:And he'd list out the pubs for every night of the week and he used to play with Killian Valady. So I ended up kind of sessioning with Nolik and Killian quite a lot in Boston at the time and a lot of other musicians. There was a real music scene, very strong music scene and, as I said, lots of musicians coming through as well and, as I said, lots of musicians coming through as well. So, like Solace were only a year or two old and you know they'd passed through a few times and I think Nomos passed through, you know. So all of these names I've got to imagine myself now, but it was just a fantastic time.
Speaker 1:But they were all. Also, they were all the big bands, like that was the big band era. That's when it was all getting really sexy, niamh, like let's call it what it was like. Do you know, when you, when you think back to all of that and not just that, but the music that they were making was there was something really exciting about it as well.
Speaker 2:There particularly solace what they were up to you know because it was based in the states. Yeah, I think as well. You know the way you always say it, but when you take a step away and you look back at where you're from, you realize the richness of it. But I think there's another layer to it. In Irish traditional music, not so much now but back in the 90s and the 80s, the musicians from our Irish diaspora didn't have the inhibitions that we had in Ireland and I think some of those inhibitions were put on us. Like I gave a talk at the Belfast Trad there about women in music and one of the areas I talk about is compositions. And I remember it wasn't until I was touring abroad touring in the States and in Canada and in Scotland even that I was starting to see young bands playing their own tunes and proudly doing so and not seeing any issue with it, whereas I had always felt and I wasn't alone in this that God, if I play my own tune, they'll be thinking who does she think she?
Speaker 2:is which means that there was much more of a kind of conservative slant within Ireland and that was part of it then. So when you're looking at the bands that were set up in the States, like Solace, there was a freedom, I think, that they had. That I recognised and I won't say envied, I appreciated, I think, and it made me kind of view it all a little bit differently, I think.
Speaker 1:It showed you what you could be yeah. And you just needed to see that and understand that it was possible. That's it exactly, yeah that's it exactly.
Speaker 1:We'll take a break, niamh Ní Chara. This is fascinating and we will hear a message now from our sponsors. And now we have a couple of words from our sponsors. A níos agaibh a couple o fachal fúi ar hóirí an fáilte chéilta siá. A couple of words about our very kind sponsors, ríra Irish lager Níos Ríra.
Speaker 1:If you haven't heard about it, it kind of sums up the unpredictable devilment that Irish people are so very good at, particularly here in Maddens, in the heart of Belfast. So Rí Rá celebrates the best bits of being Irish by creating reasons to talk, to meet, to grá, to bant, to hear, to be heard, to be le chéile just that little more often. So music at Maddins, dig it. And now a couple of words for you, for eight teams and over, and please drink responsibly. A couple of words now from our friend and friend, music at maddens. Music at maddens is sponsored by mackleroy guitars perfectly balanced, superb craftsmanship, wonderful clarity and tone, a truly unique sound. It's only natural to want one michaelroyguitarscouk for more details. Niamh Ní Chara is the guest this week on music at madden's and we've just covered how she is a qualified engineer, left engineering and followed the dream of being a musician. But there's a big connection between mathematics and music there is.
Speaker 2:It was a running joke between myself and Eileen Ivers because she had honours maths, um, and I can't remember. It just became a conversation. Then we were, we were going through the list of fiddlers, I think, specifically, and discovering this other life that we all had at one stage. Yeah, I think she, she had a master's in maths, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know a couple who would agree with that. Most definitely, and I can see it's just the language of it and it all just clicks into place Most definitely. So we've spoken, then, about Riverdance and touring, getting the bug seeing that being your own person, your own musician, was possible for you. And here you are, numerous albums later sitting in front of me as an archivist as well. So you're a musician and an archivist, but that sounds to me like a further extension of the music. Are they interlinked or complementary? How did you get into it?
Speaker 2:I think I suppose, before I talk about how I got into it, I think one of the things that I, for a while, I was very quick to clarify is that no, I'm a professional archivist.
Speaker 2:In other words, everybody would think if I said I'm an archivist, oh you must work for the it's a hobby, you're a collector, you must work for the Irish tradition music archive, um, and, by the way, anybody working for the Artistician Music Archive and, by the way, anybody working for the Artistician Music Archive is blessed. But I was always trying to separate it out and go, putting the music aside for a moment. This is my archive work, which is very different because it is a profession in its own right and people might not realise it, and actually the material that I'm working on it's Mary Robinson's archive that I'm archiving at the moment. So, like a lot of human rights material and everything, and we'll get to that in a minute, I suppose. But what got me into it?
Speaker 2:One? It was, I suppose, practicality. I had been touring for the guts of 20 years and no pension, you know um, no weekends, body getting tired, body getting tired of touring, and mainly because I was doing so much besides the playing. The playing on stage was about 10% of what I was doing, um, and I was recognizing I will burn out and I will hate this if I keep going like this. I need to do something to protect that, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Um, and physically it's tiring, you know um, when you're doing it full time it's a it's a decision and a point that every musician must come to or want to plan towards or possibly should plan towards yes, and I think that's the key.
Speaker 2:The trick is to make the decision early enough.
Speaker 1:It's a conversation that's not happening, isn't it?
Speaker 2:no, and I think it's interesting when you see some bands coming back on the road having been gone for a while and and for various different reasons. But, um, I think if you plan early enough, you can. You can, I suppose, look as part of it too, but you create your own look. But I am very lucky that I have found this other career that I really really like as well. My heart is in that as well, and they do complement each other. And one of the reasons I had considered archiving I didn't want to go back and do another degree. I didn't want to start all over again. I didn't want to be somebody starting a career 10, 15, 20 years older than others in the same position.
Speaker 2:The archive world your previous experiences is is a bonus. It's, it's considered a really good thing to have and it's interesting that quite a few archivists it's very common for people to move into that world kind of mid-career, and so that attracted me. But the real thing that attracted me and I think anybody who has my, my albums they'll know I write tomes and so any, any album you get from me there would be lots of eating and drinking in the sleeve notes, if you know what I mean, that I put a lot of work in there and it's what I appreciate in other albums as well you get plenty to read out on the radio programs definitely it's fantastic.
Speaker 1:It's not even that it puts things into context. It brings it alive in so many different ways. It opens the door to something perhaps you didn't realise existed. Then you go down the rabbit hole of that particular stage in history or this event or this person. They're so important and I think it's so important to know where things come from as well and understand the context.
Speaker 2:That's really it, and there's two parts of that. One is the passing on of the tradition and the other is like this idea of provenance, and that's where the archive world and the music world are very, very similar. You need to know the provenance of these records to show that they are authentic, that you can stand over them, and that's a huge part of our work as archivists. In terms of me getting into archives, the real turning point, I suppose, was the CUS album.
Speaker 1:Did you just wake up one morning and say I want to be an archivist? Kind of, Really Kind of. How did it become a career that was on your radar?
Speaker 2:Two reasons. One was that CUS album and me doing so much research ahead of releasing it, and I'll chat about that in a minute. But, um, nicholas carlin basically saying you could be on this side of the table, and because he appreciated what I was doing in the research, uh, that the care I was taking to track things down, um, but also, I guess, and and one of the reviews actually called me an archivist and I got very embarrassed because I realised I'm being called something I actually haven't trained for and I want to go and do that. But also, ironically, linking back to Riverdance, one of my best friends, eimear Murphy, if she's listening, she was a stage manager on Riverdance but she works in the Abbey Theatre. She is the prop master there. She introduced me to the Abbey's archivist, murray Delaney, and I was in between tours.
Speaker 2:It was kind of the Christmas lull and archives are always under-resourced and Murray suggested if you're interested, come in and do a little bit of work experience. So I did this was quite a while ago, maybe two years before I did the course, um, so I did some work experience there for a while just to get a bit of a taster, and moray was saying so have I put you off it. Nope, love this, this is great. So I think I think working with moray's really, really helped, but I think it was actually Nicholas Carlin and then the review afterwards of the Cause album that kind of planted the seed firmly in my head.
Speaker 1:When you get a recommendation like that. I'm sure you that's it, it lands doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It does, and I think so that Cause album. I suppose I need to give a bit of a background. That's album number three, yeah, of my, of my solo albums, yeah. So Coz Teehan came from Cordial, just outside Castle Island, right in the thick of Slea of Lorker country, and he immigrated to Chicago in the 20s. In his 20s, and he's a name synonymous with Chalévaloca music. He was taught by Pála Gó Cífe.
Speaker 2:He composed loads of tunes himself and what I think was his last visit home, but certainly one of the last, he was brought to a show put on for tourists in Killarney, which is any musician who's rare in Killarney. They earn their pocket money playing for the tourists and sure enough, that's what I was doing at the time when I was like knee high to a grasshopper I was maybe 9 or 10, I think he saw me playing. He saw me playing Fiddle and Constina specifically, which he was really taken with. And he went back to Chicago and he sat in his kitchen and recorded a full hour of music and he talked to me, um, like to the cassette recorder, as if I was sitting opposite him and it's a tape I absolutely treasure and still have, and that was something that was in the back of my mind as a musician that I wanted to return to that tape and do a tribute album to him. But I didn't want it to be my first album because I wanted to have good experience under my belt. But also if I was going to be my first album because I wanted to have good experience under my belt, but also if I was going to do a tribute for him I needed to have some bit of a name myself so that I could spread the word and also get some great guests on the album.
Speaker 2:So I did a lot of work for that album, tracking down tunes, because it was really funny. He was there sitting at that table and talking to me and he'd be telling me you know, this is a tune I wrote and no one knows I wrote it. And then he'd talk about another one. This is a tune I wrote. This is a tune everyone thinks I wrote. I didn't write it at all. It's too hard.
Speaker 2:Had you spoken to him at all, or you know, I was introduced to him I'd say I had about 10 words, but he saw something in you he did.
Speaker 2:He was really taken with me and, like he made two predictions at the time, he said you know, music is going to be a big part of your life and you'll win in all ireland. And I ended up winning the all ireland and the canteen, I think, the following year, you know. But I think one of the reasons he was taken with me was that I stood out on that stage because I was very young and everyone else I was playing with with, you know, 17 year olds, 18 year olds, 19 year olds that kind of age group and that does make a difference but the other thing was the combination of Fiddle and Constitina, because he'd grown up seeing that as the combination in his area and every time he was coming back you know, visiting that was getting rarer and rarer and certainly when I grew up it was all box.
Speaker 1:I was surrounded by box players, so that's a whole other conversation yeah, and when you, when you think sleeve, look right you think box as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Synonymous with it.
Speaker 2:So, um, so yeah. So I took great care to make sure that all the tracks I had in the album were definitely his and had the right name, which in some cases was impossible because he himself couldn't remember. Or he'd give a tune a few different names, or he'd give a tune, a name thinking it was his and then afterwards second-guess himself. So you know, you couldn't depend on him all the time either. But it was in the middle of researching that in the Irish Digital Music Archive that Nicholas was asking me what I was up to and it kind of went from there Like he actually launched it for me in the cobblestone and I donated a recording, a copy of the tape that Cos made for me. I donated that to the archive.
Speaker 1:Um so it's so, it's all there. You can see it all coming, you can see the path.
Speaker 2:Now it makes sense by the time. Yeah, you know, yeah, um, and even like when I went in to do the first album with Tony O'Flaherty down in Killarney, I brought the tape in with me at the time and said any chance you could digitize this because I'm afraid it won't play. Now you talk to any archivist now they'll be telling you make sure, if you've anything that's you know, like cassettes or VHS, get them digitized fast digital preservation.
Speaker 2:Little did I know that I was thinking that you know that that is one of the talents of it.
Speaker 1:So you had the brain, you had the foresight. This was just meant to be.
Speaker 2:I think it was written on the wall, it was.
Speaker 1:And that brings us. Then like, honestly, you could talk to sit here now that we've got the snook, like just order the pints, we'll sit here all night. But tell me about the work On the Mary Robinson Archive In. I was going to say UCG, national University of Ireland, college of Galway. It's back, it's back to University of Galway now, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, but it's no college, so it's University of Galway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's my alma mater. It's University of Galway. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's. I wouldn't exist without that place, because my mum and dad met there doing science.
Speaker 2:They both did the science degree together and I have a lovely photograph of mum and dad and both sets of parents at their graduation. They were in the same class and I said that's very rare when you think about women doing science degrees as well. So, yeah, that's where I'm working, and I'm working on Mary Robinson's archive, which is the biggest archive in the university. It's about 700 boxes of material. It covers everything. It's not like it's not just her presidency, but it's the 20 years before that when she worked as a lawyer and like precedent setting cases in Ireland. So actually the bit that I have catalogued that's released currently is all of her legal cases. Um, well, material relation to all of her legal cases and her presidential term. She was our first female president. Hard to believe. We've only had two since her. It's 28 years since she um, 28 years since she finished, 35 years since December since her inauguration.
Speaker 2:And we've only had two since then because of course it's two blocks of 14. She completely transformed that presidency, partly because she was a constitutional lawyer, so she understood what could and couldn't be done. But in a lovely, lovely arc she ends up as president signing bills into existence that improved the rights, the civil rights of irish people that had come directly from cases she herself had been working on as a asister. For example, she was the legal you know, the senior counsel that brought Ireland to the European Court on behalf of David Norris. And then as president, she signs in the bill that decriminalizes homosexuality. That's just one example. You know Ireland is a very different place now because of her work. The bill that decriminalises homosexuality, that's just one example. You know Ireland is a very different place now because of her work and not just the presidency. And people know about her presidency, although they forget just how much was done by her. But they don't realise just how much she had already done at that point and how brave she'd been as well.
Speaker 2:How brave she'd been. She got brave she'd been. She got excommunicated from the pulpit in her in her hometown, in balana um. Her parents were literally in the church um in balana listening to priests, you know, giving out stink, and this was because she was fighting to have um contraception the contraception ban lifted. She got a lot of hate mail like really, really bad hate mail. They burnt a lot of it initially and it's something they regret. They didn't burn subsequent hate mail, which is great because we now have it in the archives.
Speaker 1:What's it like to go through? Like are you going through those letters, those correspondences and reading them and I know you've got a very mathematical mind looking at it, but you can't help but be emotionally attached to what you're reading as well.
Speaker 2:You can't help it. I mean, you're also, I suppose, seeing some of this material for the first time since like the first time since she read it, for example and what you're doing is you're obviously preserving for the future and you're cataloging, but you're also considering, okay, how much of this can I open? Can I do I need to close it for now, but it opens in 20 years. Do I need to open it in 75 years, after people have died? I'm balancing this whole. Do you make those decisions? Um, as archivists were trained to make a lot of those decisions, but at the same time, I would always have somebody to bounce off and check. And mary herself has been a fantastic donor in the sense that she's very much warts and all. She absolutely values the, the, the power of people being able to see authenticity and integrity and that you know she she doesn't want to have the story told, she wants all the story told.
Speaker 2:Now obviously there would be gdpr issues, there'll be legislation that I'd have to adhere to all of that, but there is an element of balancing the good for society of this material being available versus the individual's um rights if that's the journalistic code.
Speaker 1:Really, you're making that decision similar.
Speaker 2:And you know, you also have this thing where, okay, well, that person wasn't working in a private capacity, they were working on behalf of a company or or a political party or whatever it may be, and therefore they're fair game and that it would be understood that they would be fair game. You know, and in other cases, what you're doing is actually showing what they, what they went through, and you're giving them a voice to go.
Speaker 1:Look, see, this is what I was dealing with it's a moment, it is, it's a it's a moment in time, isn't it?
Speaker 2:really is, and we quickly forget what happened?
Speaker 1:yesterday, five years ago, even, you know, 35 years ago, 1990, 1990, when Mary Robinson was inaugurated as president, our first female president.
Speaker 2:Our first female president, and you're looking at what I find fascinating about that whole presidential material. It includes the presidential election, so you're seeing all of the articles in the press and the language used, even how interesting is that?
Speaker 1:now, when we're in the middle of well, we'll be leading up to a presidential campaign. That must be just fascinating it.
Speaker 2:It really is and it's it's. What I love about the university of galway in terms of our archives is that one of the is the value placed on them as an asset for the university. So, for example, all of those legal cases I was talking to you about and the correspondence attached and all of that, that material is embedded in the first year um course, um, for the law students, um, in fact, it's a big part of what we do is we have academic champions in the various schools across the university that will champion an archive and will work to ensure that the students come into the archives and get used to dealing with primary resources but are also learning about all of this. So you've lost students first year law students that were looking at this material and realizing, oh my God, this is what our parents had to deal with or our grandparents had to deal with back in the day, what our parents had to deal with or our grandparents had to deal with back in the day.
Speaker 2:And that's really important because it makes it a lot more real when you're reading somebody's letter, um, or you're reading, you know, letters from politicians to each other, or you're reading, you know some of those letters were, were written to the newspapers. Um, and it's just. You know there's a lot of like. You get a lot of correspondence that are both sides, so you'll have people writing in and going. Thank you for doing this. I have felt so much on my own until you took up this cause and you know there's a lot of that in there.
Speaker 1:And then there's a lot on the other side too. Oh, niamh, that's just fascinating work, and I can see, then I'm getting an insight into how your brain works. That's a very scary thought, annette. No, it's fabulous because it makes so much sense then from reading your fabulous sleeve notes, the way you've approached albums, the concepts you've brought in, it all matters to you very much and it all makes a lot of sense, to be honest with you, and you can see the amount of work that you've put in. We've run out of time, but I did want to just ask you very briefly before you go about fair play, because you were one of the founding members of this, a volunteer movement, uh, which a group of women got together a number of years ago and thought we need to address gender equality within, uh, traditional music. Yeah, and you know, I know that you're not fully active at the minute, but there's still work going on and still a lot of work to be done. How do you reflect on the foundation of Fair Play and what it's achieved?
Speaker 2:That's not a simple short question is it?
Speaker 1:How much time do we have left? I know it's not.
Speaker 2:Look, I think every generation has its moment, I guess, and the thing about any movement like this, whether it's women in traditional music or any other kind of civil groundswell of a campaign, is that it doesn't last by itself indefinitely. It has its moment, but then the baton has to be passed and the next crowd come in. Um, so that's very much part of it. We're very surprised we're still here and in existence and we still do a lot of posting on social media. But we've had some very concrete results as well. Um, because of the lobbying that we've done.
Speaker 2:Um, I've given a talk at the bad fast trad fest for the second time, by special request. I do this talk 100 years of women in Irish traditional music, which is a whole conversation by itself. But a big part of that is showing people the kind of obstacles that women faced historically and how much is still there and how much you need to kind of drill down. So on paper you might have a lovely, perfectly balanced programme, but then you look at it and you realise the women are all in duos or soloists or they're a Wednesday afternoon lunchtime slot versus the big gig and the big venue on a Saturday that the press are going to go to and the audience who are coming, who trust the festival to educate them on the music they need to be listening to, they're going to the saturday shows. That is still a very big problem.
Speaker 2:I also think you, you have a situation where, like earlier this year, there was a festival that posted their program and there was no woman on the program at all. But it wasn't just that the, the men in the program were, I'd say there was a maximum of 10 years between the eldest and the youngest. It was a very, very narrow view and you, you knew that was because, whatever the committee were doing, they were looking at a very small section of what is a very big scene. And if you're encouraging through, encouraging gender balance, if you're encouraging people to take a little bit more care in how they program, they're casting their net wider and further. A lot of ships get get brought up in the those same tides, you know, um.
Speaker 2:So I think that is something that can't be stressed enough. I think lived experience is a funny thing and I think for a lot of people who are privileged in our tradition, they really have a blind spot to that privilege and I think, unfortunately, that's still the case. I think we have quite a few allies. I think some of the allies feel it's not their place to speak out. That it's you know. They don't want to speak on our behalf. But actually it's the same in any civil movement it's the allies that will get everything across the line, and I think we need more of our allies to step up and speak out.
Speaker 1:Do you feel that being involved in Fair Play has given you a bit more confidence in yourself, your ability, or maybe it's just come at the right time in your life as well, though, that you were getting there anyway, Niamh?
Speaker 2:I think, ironically, I had kind of pulled back from the music. So if this had existed 20 years ago, I think it would have been a real benefit to me then, because I wouldn't have felt so isolated in a way. The irony of it, the wonderful irony of it for me, is that I have got to know an awful lot of female musicians. The awful thing is that it took me being part of Fair Play to do that, because I never met them on the road, because I was always the only musician that was female, that was on a program at a particular festival on a particular day, especially when you look at instrumentalists. You very often had you know it's the token female tick, or you'd have singers, but even then you wouldn't have that many. I was very regularly the only person in my own dressing room and then all the crack was in the other dressing room. And the problem with that is the dressing rooms and the soundcheck stages and the festival clubs. They're the golf courses of the music world. That's where future projects and collaborations get talked about.
Speaker 2:so it perpetuates the problem, I think you know, but it is wonderful, and actually for me here as well. Excuse me, I think, um, there's an element where, having so much under my belt now there's a little bit of a devil may care. I'm I'm not afraid to say this now, but I also have the safety net of another career. I'm not relying on this full time. There's plenty of women that would love to be able to say stuff and don't, because they'll get blacklisted or they'll feel they just won't get booked or you know they're, they're not in a position to yeah, and that, unfortunately, is the reality that a lot of people just don't see.
Speaker 1:But thank you to you and all your fellow fair play members for doing your bit and continuing to highlight the inequalities, because it has made a difference and you can see confidence in, uh, younger women coming up through the ranks as well, and I think that's a that's a great thing to say it's a fantastic thing to see um.
Speaker 2:I think in the, within the tradition itself, there are a lot more women that are visible and and strong and, and you know, ambitious, which I think is fantastic. I think the area I still worry about is how many of those go um to become professional musicians, because it's very similar to sport. Things fall off, you know, you see them in the competitions, you see them as teenagers um in the clubs. You know, going to going to Gare or the Camogie or whatever is very similar with the trad, and then as soon as they're off to have a professional career, it's not considered as a potential career for them, or even as something to study in university.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hopefully. Now that will hopefully hopefully change. Yeah, and a lot of work is being done to make that happen.
Speaker 2:Niamh, great to chat to you thanks lovely, as always so much for joining us on Music at. Madden's not at all, and lovely to be here in all of this wonderful space silence, except for the bells of the Angelus how bad, how bad, how bad. I'm sure there'll be.