I couldn’t give a f iddle about the money, making good music is what matters to me
Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, 55, is a fiddle player and the lead singer of the traditional Irish band, Altan. She lives in Carrickfinn, Co. Donegal with her daughter, Mia, aged 12.
IT FEELS to me now that winter is approaching and the thought cheers me greatly, as I think it does most women. It is the season for warmth, for being beside the fire, settling in when night falls early and the glow of home draws the family in.
The wind on this coast howls like you wouldn’t believe. There are nights when it blows in so hard off the sea that you’re sure you’ll wake up in Oz. I adore it.
There’s a part of me that feels sorry for city and town dwellers who don’t know the darkness of the countryside or the pace of days and nights in places where there are no streetlights and you rely on what light from the moon reflects off the ocean.
Mindfulness might be everywhere now, but I strongly suspect it was in the peace of the west of Ireland that it was born.
Music was in my family and all around when I was growing up.
It was taken for granted that the child of the house would eventually pick up an instrument and start playing and join in along with everyone else.
I never thought it would be my career. Back in the 1980s, I was teaching in Dublin and so too was my late husband, Frankie Kennedy. We decided to take a career break on offer from the Department of Education at the time and see if we could put a band together and go out on the road for a few months.
The reaction was great, it was national and then global and needless to say, we never went back to the classroom.
It’s 21 years now since Frankie died from cancer. He would have turned 60 a few weeks ago.
To be a widow in my 30s was incredibly strange and surreal, but it was music that helped me through and then Mia came along to complete my world again.
She’s a happy child, and each day we’re up at 7.30am to make some porridge and get her ready by the time the school bus pulls up at the gate.
Most days, once Mia is out the door, I go to see my mother who lives nearby in Gaoth Dobhair. We go for a coffee or something and have a chat, in Irish, of course.
It is my native language and living on the edges of the Gaeltacht allows me to speak it all the time, from when I’m doing my grocery shopping to chatting to the fishermen who keep us well stocked with as much fresh fish as we want every week.
When I come back to the house, I usually play the fiddle for a while, rehearsing some tunes, keeping myself well practised. It is never, ever a chore for me.
To play music is to pray and meditate all at the same time, and while it is the means by which I pay the bills, I always tell Mia and any children I teach that art should never be equated with money. It is much greater than that. Mia does play the fiddle now too, and the flute, and she seems to like them.
If she decided she didn’t want to though, that would be okay with me too.
I just hope she sees and appreciates all that is great about being able to play, the communion that comes with being in a big group, belting out a tune or two.
We were at a family wedding a few weeks ago and amongst the gathering there were a load of fiddle players — you can imagine the session we had long into the night. That’s what it’s all about.
Lunch time comes around and a healthy diet is something I am very conscious of, so I usually have a salad made with organic vegetables during the summer.
At this time of year I’ll have soup I make up from curly kale, garlic, parsnips and carrots.
I’m semi-vegetarian, but not fully so because Mia loves her meat, so I end up cooking us steak at least once a week and a roast chicken as well.
If I’m feeling adventurous I might put an apple or something inside the chicken to see how it’ll taste.
Spinach is Mia’s favourite food so it goes on everything, from the chicken to wheat -ree pasta dishes I make for her or mixed in with a load of other vegetables and quinoa. A while back I decided to go gluten and caffeine-free and I have to say it has made a big difference to how I feel.
I thought I’d never survive without my morning coffee but I’ve just replaced it with hot water, lemon and ginger and that’s lovely and comforting too. It’s also very good for my voice which I have to look after.
I try to ensure Mia’s snacks are as healthy as possible, and one thing she loves are curly kale crisps which are easily made by drizzling oil and some sea salt over the bits of curly kale and baking them in the oven for 10 minutes.
OBVI OUSLY, the nature of being a musician and in a band means I have to frequently head off on tour. It doesn’t appeal to me the same way i t did when I was younger.
I absolutely hate leaving Mia but she’s very adaptable.
If we’re heading to tour the States or somewhere and will be gone for a few weeks, I always bring her with me.
I have a very supportive family and great neighbours who help me out if I’m just away for a night or two, or doing a gig relatively locally like at the Sligo Live Festival on Sunday week.
Here in Carrickfinn we also have the wonderful resource of a regional airport so, if needs be, I can hop on a flight to Dublin and a connection to London or anywhere in Europe for a few gigs or other band r el ated business. When myself and Frankie took that break from teaching, I never foresaw this life which has been so generous to me and to the music. Nor can I foresee now for how long I will continue to tour. We have fans in pockets all over the world, from Tokyo to Toronto and to play live to all those people from different cultures is as amazing as it is unbelievable for a Donegal fiddler.
In business terms, they talk now of the global village, but it has always been so for music.
We have never known borders or boundaries.
You just pick up and play in the one language the whole world understands.
ALTAN’s new album The Widening Gyre is out now. For tickets to their Sligo gig on October 25, visit sligolive.com