Concert Review—

A Melodic Journey At The Meeting House

By Andrew Carey

The final Friday in February 2012 wasn’t the prettiest of days in Connecticut. For many people, the morning started out with clearing an unexpected layer of wet, ugly snow, and continued with a slow commute through snarled traffic. But the end of the day is what defines it in future memories, and for those who were lucky enough to be in Newtown Meeting House that evening there was a fine concert to wipe away the negative memories of the morning.

Once again, Fairfield County’s own non-profit Irish cultural organization, the Shamrock Traditional Irish Music Society, brought world class performers to the meeting house. The time, it was a melodic journey to the eastern part of County Clare, Ireland, under the talented guidance of button accordionist Andrew Mac Namara, fiddler and singer Orla Harrington, and guitarist, fiddler, and singer Ged Foley.

The concert started off with a set of jigs: “Garret Barry’s,” “The Shores of Lough Gamhna” and “The Boy in the Wood.” Mr Foley chose to start the evening on his secondary instrument, proving that, despite having made his reputation on the guitar, as a fiddler he has every right to sit in with the best in the business.

Mr Foley then took up the guitar for the next set of tunes, a pair of fine old reels: “Paddy Kelly’s” and “The Wheels of the World.”

Mr Mac Namara introduced “Joe Bane’s Schottisches,” unusual dance tunes from a musician who played around his home town of Tulla, County Clare during his own boyhood, as “two tunes from old tapes” which his father made. These were followed with a pair of reels, one a nameless tune and the other being the “Donegal Reel,” a tune popular throughout Ireland.

It was time for a song, and Mr Foley had the perfect one: “Mick Ryan’s Lament,” written by Bob Dunlap from Boston in the voice of an Irishman who escaped the horrors of the Great Hunger in the 1840s and survived the Civil War, only to die along with General Custer at the battle of Little Big Horn. Sung to a slowed down version of “Garryowen,” an Irish tune which Custer had adopted as his personal theme, the song was poignant and evocative without being at all maudlin, resting in a lovely guitar accompaniment with well-placed touches of fiddle and accordion.

Mr Mac Namara appreciates many different sorts of “old tapes covered in dust,” not only the Irish ones. As proof, his next tune was a beautiful, but nameless waltz which was recorded in the 1940s by a French accordion player named Lemarchier. After the waltz came “Moloney’s Wife” and “Banish Misfortune,” a set of jigs from Flagstone Memories, the acclaimed album which Mr Mac Namara and Ms Harrington released last year at the Tulla Trad Festival.

Although Ms Harrington is best known as a fiddler and an Irish dancer, she has a lovely voice which she used for “Barney.”

As it happened, February 24 was Ged Foley’s birthday. Fortunately, the Shamrock Traditional Irish Music Society’s Gregg Burnett had been informed of this, and had gotten him a lovely cake, which was presented during the break and shared with the audience.

Like the first, the second half started off with the twin fiddles and accordion combination, this time on a set of reels beginning with “The Hare’s Paw.” Mr Foley switched back to guitar for the next set, the jigs “Hills of Larraga” and “The Battering Ram.”

“Johnny Tar” is, according to Mr Foley, “kind of a miserable song with a happy ending, in four verses, with world travel.” A young sailor discovers that his girlfriend is with child on the very same day he’s shipping out for a voyage to Australia, and tells her to “weep no more, my own dear Jeanie, take your bairn upon your knee. When I return, we’ll be married, down upon the Greenyard quay.” Unlike the cads found in many such songs, he does return, with money, and the two of them live happily ever after.

“Orla’s going to play two tunes, and I don’t know what they are. It’s a special treat for my birthday,” Mr Foley said of the next set, which Ms Harrington described as single jigs often played for young step dancers, “The Bunch of Roses” and “Tie the Petticoat Tighter.” Despite his joke, Mr Foley had no trouble providing a perfect accompaniment.

After playing a lovely set of polkas and slides, tunes more commonly found in County Kerry, Mr Mac Namara declared he was “going to play some reels, because that’s a Clare man’s favorite pastime.”

On finishing a set of jigs, “Wellington’s Advance” and “The Leg of the Duck,” the musicians agreed they had reached “the end of the list” and launched into a set of reels: “Hughie Travers” and “Far From Home.” They left the stage for a few moments, but a standing ovation called them back for an encore, a stunning rendition of three of the most beloved reels in the Irish repertory: “Fearghal Ó Gadhra’s,” “Christmas Eve” and “The Sligo Maid.”

(Please visit NewtownBee.com and click on the Features tab, where you can find an expanded version of this review.)