Wavelength Music Documentary: Éire - An Audio Portrait, Pt 2

Introduction

Simply put, Irish music and spoken word are incomparable.  Music and speech weave together into textures both refreshingly abrasive and silky smooth with an energy which, for Irish people, is like the air they breathe.

Textures to beguile you, make you laugh and always to charm you.  Sometimes, they will confront you.

Intentionally impressionistic in style, this program seeks to feel these qualities rather than narrate them.  It naturally contains a lot of folk music but it’s not all traditional - we’ll hear classical, progressive and jazz performances, and plenty of rock and instrumental music too.

It's a mark of the greatness of Irish music that despite 700 years of authoritarian and often brutal British repression, a great Irish singer can still sing an English song as willingly and evocatively as Luke Kelly sings The Unquiet Grave.

Welcome to Part 2 of Éire, An Audio Portrait.

Special Thanks:   

Anna Clark-Doyle, English voiceovers;  Rory Cosgrave, Irish voiceovers, research;  Stephanie Batt, for taking me to so many folk music sessions in 1960s Dublin;  Pat Collins, director of Song Of Granite;  my Dad, an Irishman, who planted the seeds when I was 12 by giving me the The Clancy Brothers' & Tommy Makem's  Hearty & Hellish.

Playlist

(00.14) Pól Ó Ceannabháin/Bean an Leanna (from the film soundtrack, Song Of Granite)  (02.10) Richard Harris/Too Many Saviours On My Cross  (08.28) Tamalin/Gort na Saileán (Down By The Salley Gardens)  (13.23) Brendan Behan, on the 1916 Easter Rising  (14.57) Brendan Behan/Bonfire On The Border  (16.19) Eleanor McEvoy/A Woman's Heart (live, Blue Mountains Music Festival 2010, Australia)  (20.25) Joe Duffy on James Connolly  (21.02) The Wolfe Tones/James Connolly  (23.45) Sean Carpio/High Lady (live, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, 2012)  (28.27) Sibéal Ní Chasaide/Mise Éire (arranged by Patrick Cassidy)  (32.23) Pete St John & Gay Byrne, RTE, The Late Late Show  (34.20) Pete St John/Waltzing On Borrowed Time (live, aged 87, President Higgins' Garden Party, Áras and Uachtaráin, 21/6/19)  (38.22) Spontaneous singing of The Parting Glass after St John's funeral, Beaumont House, Dublin, 2/4/22  (38.49) Lauren Kinsella & the Snowpoet Jazz Ensemble/Wool, Cotton, Lace & Snow (live, The Cockpit, for Sligo Jazz Festival, 2021)  (43.12) Gary Moore/Still Got The Blues  (47.16) Dr Strangely Strange/When Adam Delved  (49.25) The Chieftains/Brian Boru's March  (49.25) William Butler Yeats/The Lake Isle Of Innisfree  (51.01) Richard Harris/Under Ben Bulben (Pt2)  (51.15) Van Morrison/Into The Mystic  (54.20) The Christians/Words (melody adapted from the Seán Ó Riada's refrain Mná na hÉireann)  (01.01.07) Richard Harris/Under Ben Bulben (Pt3)  (01.01.25) Bagatelle/Summer In Dublin  (01.05.37) Seán Ó Riada/Mise Éire (RTE Orch, cond. Robert Houlihan)  (01.07.26) Richard Harris/Under Ben Bulben (Pt1)

rob.paul@sapphirefm.au