ZOE TO LEAD ST PATRICK’S DAY PARADE
Alisha and Joyce Hardesty at the Confirmation day at St Bridget’s Church, Kilcurry, on Saturday.
Fiddle player extraordinaire Zoe Conway is delighted to have been invited to act as Grand Marshall for this year’s St Patrick’s Day Parade,
‘It’s a great honour and I’m very proud to have been asked.’
ANd it’s not just Zoe who is looking forward to travelling in a vintage car at the top of the parade as it makes it way through the streets of Dundalk.
‘ The children are really excited and are counting down the days.’
Zoe becomes the second fiddle player to act as Grand Marshall for Dundalk’s St Patrick’s Day Parade as she is following in the footsteps of the legendary fiddle player and teacher Rose O’Connor who led the parade in 2005.
‘I went to Rose for lessons and know all the O’Connor family,’ says Zoe.
And there’s a nice synchronicity to the fact that this year’s parade is sponsored by Dundalk Credit Union.
‘I got a Credit Union loan to buy a fiddle when I was 17 or 18 years old,’ recalls Zoe. ‘If it wasn’t for the Credit Union I wouldn’t have been able to buy it and I still play it every day. I love it - it’s like an extension of me. I am very attached to it and am thankful I could take out a loan when I did.’
Zoe, the second youngest of a family of five, grew up in Greenacres and the family moved to Newtownbalregan when she was seven.
‘My Mum and Dad didn’t play any music but my older brothers and sister were already playing traditional music so I was brought up in that environment,’ remembers Zoe. ‘I was playing the whistle from when I was two or three and then the piano and banjo. When I was around eight or nine, I started playing the fiddle and really loved it.’
She initially started playing it in the Irish traditional style but began studying classical music after seeing a girl playing the classical violin on television.
‘I had never seen anyone play it that way before and I was really taken with it.’
Zoe went to Sheila Thompson in Fatima for lessons. ‘It was just down the road. I went to Scoil Eoin Baiste so I was able to go after school a lot.’
She later studied with Maeve Broderick, who is regarded as one of the leading violin teachers in Ireland, making the long journey to Killiney in Dublin every week.
Zoe went to St Louis Secondary school which, she says, provided great encouragement to young musicians. ‘ There was a practice room you could go to if you had a free class and I spent a lot of time practising during school hours.’
Zoe also joined the Cross Border Orchestra, which at the time was based in the school.’It was brilliant. It gave me the experience of playing with other musicians, of following a conductor, of learning to read music. That time really really stood to me in later life. It was also brilliant criac, we went on tours and I made a lot of friends.’
At the same time as she was playing the classical violin, Zoe was playing traditional fiddle.
‘ There’s not that many people who do that as most people play either classical or trad.’
And she reveals it was frowned upon in both worlds to be playing the other genre.
‘People in the trad world thought I couldn’t play both trad and classical and vice versa in the classical scene so I spent a lot of time trying to hide one world from another.’
It was, she admits, quite stressful for a young teenager but she now feels that it’s this versatility which has allowed her be a professional musician and make a living.
And it was music which led to her meeting her husband, guitarist John McIntyre of The Revs.
‘John went to the De La Salle and we first met while at school when he came to St Louis to practice for music exams,’ she recalls. Romance blossomed years later when they met at a John Spillane gig in The Spirit Store and they got married in 2006, setting up home in Cooley.
Zoe is now regarded as one of the country’s top musicians and has performed with the RTE Concert Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the German WDR Symphony Orechestra, as well as the world famous Riverdance. She has also shared the stage with rock icons like Lou Reid and Nick Cave as well as legendary traditional musicians such as Donal Lunny and Mairtin O’Connor, with whom she performs as ZoDoMo, while Bill Whelan of Riverdance fame has composed music for her.
She travelled with the RTE Concert Orchestra for their first tour of China at the end of December.
‘It was an amazing experience and although I don’t like to be away from home for more than a few days, I just couldn’t turn it down.’
Zoe also plays with her husband John and the couple have released two albums together. They organise the Feile na Tana traditional music festival each spring as well as a series of summer concerts in the Carlingford Heritage Centre.
Zoe says she loves travelling and getting to see the world. ‘I don’t want to live anywhere else or move away from home but I love being away and experiencing different cultures, people and food.
‘As we have young children at the moment, we don’t like being away from home for too long so we mostly play gigs in France and Germany as we can get short flights and only be away for a couple of days.’
‘ The good thing about the business is we’re there to do the school runs, help with the homework and cook dinner.’
Not surprisingly, Eoin (9) and Fiona (7) are both learning music so perhaps in years to come they will join their parents to form a family super group!
‘ They are so excited about the parade and can’t wait for St Patrick’s Day to come along,’ says Zoe.