February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
To shake off the pall of fiddler Paddy Reynolds’s death earlier in the day, I headed out to the White Plains, N.Y., pub where 1986 All-Ireland senior champion fiddler Brian Conway has held a popular Wednesday night session for the past eight years. His special guest this evening was Joanie Madden, the 1984 All-Ireland senior tin whistle champion and leader of Cherish the Ladies.
When I arrived, Louise Bender, dubbed Nora Hogan for the event, was reciting a poetic passage from the beginning of “Ulysses.” A rake of tunes followed from Conway, Madden, 13-year-old fiddler Gene Bender (talented son of Louise and Gene Bender), fiddler-concertinist Colin Lindsay, and others. Sitting around a table near a dartboard were six fiddlers, two flutists, a tin whistle player, and guitarist-singer Gabriel Donohue, who came in not long after.
In honor of this literary-musical occasion, the house specialty of Se_n Dunne’s “Moral” Pub was burgundy wine, Gorgonzola cheese, and brown bread. As patrons drank and ate, Conway and Irvington’s Liam Murphy, the organizer of the readings, maintained a festive atmosphere.
In the persona of Blind Hogan, Gene Bender sang a song associated with Joyce and recited a passage from the Nighttown sequence in “Ulysses” that had the audience joining him at times in its risible cadence.
As Nora Hogan, Louise Bender recited a “tall English” passage from the
“Cyclops” chapter of “Ulysses.”
Boria Sax, an instructor at New York’s Mercy College, read from the last few pages of “The Dead,” Joyce’s classic story from his first book, “The Dubliners,” published in 1914.
Interspersing these recitations were such tunes as “The Bucks of Oranmore,” “Sean Sa Cheo,” and “The Bird in the Bush.” Songs from Galway-born Gabriel Donohue, who just issued a solo CD, “Shannon Road,” included the title song that he wrote, plus “Boys of Barr na Sraide,” backed by Conway on fiddle and Madden on flute, and a sentimentally winsome Victorian number.
Adding her voice to the session was Margaret McCormick, who gave a lovely rendition of “I Wonder What’s Keeping My True Love Tonight,” an Ulster song collected by Se_n O’Boyle (1908-1970).
But the most poignant moment of Dunne’s Bloomsday Eve came from fiddler
Brian Conway, who played “Gaelic Lament,” a slow air he learned from Paddy Reynolds in 1978 and dedicated this night to his memory.
All those session veterans and “young whippersnappers” would have probably elicited a bemused smile from Longford-born Reynolds, whose influence on Irish traditional music in New York City will undoubtedly endure long after his passing.
Catskills Irish Arts week
With the demise in recent years of some outstanding Irish summer schools and festivals, including Boston College’s Gaelic Roots and the Washington, D.C., Irish Folk Festival, so-called “trad heads” along the East Coast have scrambled for a viable alternative. Where can you go to hear fiddles, flutes, and whistles not marginalized or mauled by Spinal Tap-like Stratocasters and full drum kits?
The Catskills Irish Arts Week in East Durham, N.Y., has been neatly filling that felt void. For the past decade it has showcased many of the finest traditional and acoustic musicians in Ireland and America, and the upcoming 11th annual edition will be no exception.
From Monday through Friday, July 10-15, daytime classes and evening lectures, concerts (7:30-9:30), ceilidhs (9 to midnight), and sessions will be in full swing at CIAW. More than 60 workshops will be led by a faculty out of Ireland featuring Jackie Daly, Maeve Donnelly, Paul McGrattan, Tim Dennehy, Matt Cranitch, Brian and Ray McNamara, and M