The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Irish and South Korean TV crews film ‘Patrick’
THE trees were in their autumn beauty as time slipped from autumn to winter in the blink of an eye between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
Saturday, in particular, gave us the gift of a beautiful day as Castleisland basked in sunshine for the duration of its 24th annual Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Music Festival.
TG4 confirmed, as the weekend dawned, that they would film a special on the festival for the Hup series and I was out and about with their locations scout, Sinéad Ní Bhroin on Friday morning.
Filming began in several locations over the following days. They shot footage at Hartnett’s and Browne’s bars, Crag Cave, Jackie Reidy’s Menswear and at Nana Bea’s Restaurant.
On Saturday a TV crew from South Korea arrived with Mickey MacConnell and they filmed his slots in the singing afternoon.
They are interested in the composers and singers of songs of lands divided and it’s something they know plenty about themselves and Mickey MacConnell is their man.
The town was walking with technology and I thought it’s all a far cry from a day just over 60 years ago when a young Liam Clancy took that most iconic photograph of Patrick O’Keeffe.
In the course of his illustrious musical career, the late Liam Clancy travelled many a long road. Count in a trip from his home in Carrick-on-Suir in Tipperary to Scartaglin in Co. Kerry back in 1955.
Liam Clancy’s life also touched that of Patrick O’Keeffe – however fleetingly.
However tenuous that connection may have been he still left a single-shot photographic legacy after that brief trip to Scartaglin.
During a visit to this neck of the woods in 1955 he took that most famous and enduring photograph of the great fiddle master – the one with the cork of a bottle stuck in the bow.
It showed that, in the absence of any other form of tensioning the horse hair, Patrick wasn’t found wanting in the enterprise department. The photograph was taken in Lyons’s Bar in Scartaglin. The momentous occasion was mentioned by the late Mr. Clancy in his book: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour.
In this he recalls being picked up at home in Carrick–on-Suir by American folk collector, Diane Hamilton – who was here under that assumed name.
She was an American heiress to the Guggenheim mining, smelting and iron milling fortune – a fact completely unknown to the young Clancy during this period.
At the time she wanted to record some Sliabh Luachra music and they stopped in Castleisland to find the elusive Patrick and were pointed towards Scart.
Clancy and Ms. Guggenheim toured Ireland together before he decided to go to the States with her. The amazing and turbulent nature of that relationship can be followed on the brilliant documentary The Yellow Bittern – which is on DVD.
The film is a cradle to grave account of the fulfilled life of Liam Clancy and it features all the great concerts at home and in America with his brothers, Tom and Paddy and the brilliant Tommy Makem.
For a brief spell in the early years of the Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Music Festival there was a strong rumour that Liam Clancy would visit and I’m nearly sure that the late Mike Kenny invited him.
I still can’t believe it’s 24 years ago today since the first magical evening of the Patrick O’Keeffe festival in 1993.
The festival has been building up its global following over the years. At one session at Kearney’s Bar on Friday night there were musicians from Canada, Russia, Holland and England joining the natives in the reproduction of a universal language that needs no translation.
Aileen Roantree presided over one of the best singing sessions we’ve witnessed for a long time.
To say that Tim Dennehy, Mickey MacConnell and first timer in Castleisland, Don Stiffe gave their best is quite an understatement.
Songs, and the stories behind them, flowed freely from the three men and, in fairness, I can’t see how the day could be bettered or held without their inclusion.
They were extraordinary and it was a pleasure and a privilege to be there. And the event was recorded by the South Korean TV crew and a small army of Iphone wielding devotees.
Don Stiffe has attached himself firmly to the Castleisland list and I’m going to visit the Celia Griffin Memorial Park on the next of my frequent visits to Salthill on the strength of hearing his own powerful song about the tragic, famine time story of that little girl and her ultimate death from starvation.
On Sunday evening, in a quiet ceremony in the River Island Hotel, Paddy Jones was presented with the festival’s Dedication to the Music of Sliabh Luachra Award by RTÉ broadcaster, musician and festival founder member, Peter Browne. It was at Paddy’s request that the event was a low key affair.
Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the festival in 1993. On that occasion it was to remember the 30th anniversary of the death of the great fiddle master in February 22-1963.
Plans are afoot to go to town on the celebrations of the culture and music of our own place.