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| MidWestIrish.com is deeply grateful to Dearbhail Finnnegan for her willingness to share so much great information in support of the ideals put forth on this archival website. Below are Dearbhail's thoughts on coming to North America (particularly the Midwest and the Missouri Ozarks), the current state of traditional Irish music in Ireland, as well as a bit of Irish culture and of growing up in County Meath. It's articles like these that I envisioned for MidWestIrish.com more than a year ago. — the editor |
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The first time I ever came to Missouri at all was in 1998 and that was to be part of WorldFest [at Silver Dollar City]. It was a whole new experience. The last time I'd been into the United States was touring with The Chieftains and it was very different to come into this part of the world in comparison to be just jetting from one city to the next.
So the first time I came here to see the area, the mountains and even to meet the people was a very different side of America than I'd ever seen. And also it made sense for me to understand why this part of the world is connected with Ireland more so than the cities.
The cities are mostly people that — from my experience — came from Ireland and set up a very different lifestyle whereas the people who came here [the Ozarks] settled the same lifestyle as what they had in Ireland already. That's what I think makes this part of the States different. It's not city life. You could be at home if you wanted to be. You could have the same yard and chickens and all the rest if you wanted to.
I came out here for three different seasons of WorldFest and as a result of that we came back then for the Christmas season. And that was a totally different experience.
I know the Christmas in Ireland has changed an awful lot (as in commercially) over the last five years. There's now houses with lights on outside and the roofs are decorated but when we first came [to the States] we never had anything like that.
So to see the houses decorated — all of that and to see Silver Dollar City the way it's decorated. It was that magical kind of experience . And when we first came here, I thought I was going to play Christmas music for the people but when I asked them what they wanted to hear, they always wanted to hear Irish music. And they didn't just want to hear it, they wanted to understandthe music and the instrument.
[Also] From what I could understand, they weren't even as interested in hearing the dance music. They wanted to hear the pieces that were legend — something that had some meaning behind it rather than just being composed as a dance piece. So that was interesting to hear and that's what led me to do a lot more of that in music than just dance music.
Then we come back in a couple of years with different types of shows: The Sound of Angels and then last year with Eire the Show and then this year with Mystical Ireland. And that's just to give you a background of our coming to Silver Dollar City.
[Now] From a personal experience, my grandfather was a fiddle player. So we grew up right beside my grandfather and he played all the old kind of style of songs, like Shoe The Donkey and simple little tunes like that. And he taught us all how to play fiddle. And actually, to tell you a funny story, my brother wanted a guitar and my grandfather said that if a guitar was brought into our neighborhood, then he'd stop teaching us all. That's how alien a guitar was and wouldn't be seen played by any one of us.
That was how strict he was that we were going to learn traditional Irish music and nothing else. But that's not how it has stayed. But I suppose I'd be grateful for him that he did that because at least we had some grounding in traditional music.
[My grandfather] played fiddle and was known as the Fiddler Finnegan and he lived until he was 93 years of age and played his fiddle right up until the end. He taught us a lot of simple, basic, mainstream tunes and that meant a big difference to us. My brothers play accordion, uillean pipes, concertina, and fiddle and my sister as well so there was a lot of music in the house all the time.
[Where I grew up] Is where I'm still living. It's in County Meath, it's North County Meath. It's very close to the borders of Cavan, Monaghan and Louth.
We were not brought up in an Irish-speaking area— not completely. My dad wasn't an Irish speaker. He was brought up in a time where it wasn't forced in his area, but my grandfather was a native speaker. And he tried as much as he could to get us to speak Irish all the time.
Back in history, they literally brought people from native-speaking areas into English-speaking areas, trying to get the community to speak. But that really completely failed and stayed as an isolated area. It didn't work hugely at all. [And where we grew up is] not that far a Gaeltacht-speaking area — only about seven miles away in Gibbstown.
Those areas are still there. Those people did keep a'going, but it didn't work to integrate the rest of the communities around it. But there are still native speakers. And if anything, I think the Irish language — for the younger people — has come on. But it still hasn't taken back first place in Ireland since.
But you need to understand the language to understand the music because the words of the laments — unless you can understand them — is faceless to you. So you need to be able to; or if you can't understand the language, then at least research and find out what the meaning is of a lot of the pieces.
Like our local town, our place. We have a joke with [it]. Nobber is a ridiculous name. It makes no sense. It's just spelled N-O-B-B-E-R. But in its olden days it was a blacksmith village where the train would arrive in and the horses would be re-hoofed in the area. And it was known as An Obair, which is the Irish version of it. It actually means The Works — The Works Place. So the blacksmith — The Works. So the village was known as the blacksmith's village.
But when the name got transferred into English, it lost all its meaning and became a ridiculous name called Nobber.
And I think it happened to an awful lot of the towns and villages and when people drive through them they think, "That's a ridiculous name" and it is! Most times it is! Most times it doesn't have a meaning. But if you found out what the Irish — which in Ireland they'll have the signposts with the Irish underneath — and if you can understand the Irish then and make sense of it, it normally reflects what the village was, maybe who the people were who lived in it, or what it was used for, or what its industries were. [So] It does make sense, but not in English!
Traditional music in Ireland is changing a lot. Commercially music in Ireland is doing better. But first of all I would say there are so many young people in Ireland learning to play music it's amazing. And the standard and the ability they have is incredible. They really are some fantastic, very young musicians and that shows that the renewal is there. And I think it's because an awful lot of younger people in their 20s and 30s are now going back to teach so there's a lot of people sharing music. And there's a lot more support there, too, through the arts councils and that for people to get started from music schools [as well as] aid to buy instruments.
But the amount of musicians who are now — if you want to say — full-time musicians has grown hugely. And the amount of recording that has been done in the last even 10 years is huge. I mean an awful lot of musicians are now producing their own albums and it's bringing out music that they've been brought up playing. It's brought out different styles of music.
Now there is a lot of influences of other world music coming in on Irish music, but I think that's healthy. I think as long as you know [and] learn the traditional elements of Irish music and you know where that is and know how to go back to it if you need to, then it's healthy — as long as you're not being driven and brainwashed into one thing.
Experimenting with music is good, you know. Why not? But [traditional music in Ireland is] very healthy. I would say it's in a very healthy situation. It's still not taught in schools, which I think is a shame. It's still not an element of basic school education and it would be nice to see that everyone would be. But maybe that would be brainwashing people, I don't know, not giving them their freedom to choose music! But it would be nice if there was some basic element of music taught in schools — in the primary schools at the lower, elementary level.
May 17, 2006
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| Above, Dearbhail Finnegan performs Brian Boru for WorldFest guests, Branson, Missouri, April 2006. | |||||||||
| For more from Dearbhail, see also: History of the Irish harp, from Dearbhail Finnegan The Homestead Pickers, from Dearbhail Finnegan |
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• MidwestIrish.com is a part of Lucky13Studios Design Family. For more information, see JoshuaHeston.com•
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