Ireland

Watch Myles O’Reilly’s “A City Under Quiet Lights”

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

The team behind Cork’s premiere fireside-folk festival, ‘Quiet Lights’, is very excited to present to the world the digital release of ‘A City Under Quiet Lights’.

Filmed over the course of 2021’s festival, A City Under Quiet Lights traces an outline of Cork City through performances by Lisa O’Neill, Joshua Burnside & Laura Quirke, Niamh Regan, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Kate Ellis & Caimin Gilmore, Junior Brother and Rachael Lavelle.

The film, shot and directed by Myles O’Reilly, captures intimate, one-song performances by the artists in iconic spots all over Cork City, such as the a romp at the Shandon Bells, a flurry in Triskel Christchurch and a Lee-side song just under the Shaky Bridge.

A City Under Quiet Lights premiered at 2022’s Cork International Film Festival, screening again as part of a one-on-one installation during this year’s Sounds From A Safe Harbour.

Finding its way to the digital realm, this release paves the way for the reveal of another, as of yet unseen second Quiet Lights film that will be finding its way to the public soon!

Lankum: False Lankum review

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Without diluting their power or abandoning their gothic intensity, the Dublin group’s fourth album lulls the listener with songs of exquisite softness and deeply affecting harmony

By Jude Rogers

Lankum’s fourth album goes to new extremes, and not simply by dredging more trenches of their trademark gothic intensity. Four years after 2019’s raw-skinned The Livelong Day, with its exploratory epics, False Lankum teems with similar moments of iridescent bliss. But the 12 tracks here also unfurl into each other without a break, alternately lulling the listener then casting them into storms of shuddering sounds.

Recorded in Dublin’s Hellfire Studio by day, while the band spent their nights sleeping in a Martello tower on the coast, False Lankum begins with Radie Peat, the best folk singer of our times, instructing us to Go Dig My Grave. When Peat sings she magically straddles realities, sounding both like an uncompromising everywoman and a mystical instrument of bellows and reeds – a magic she employs to spiritual effect on the beautiful 17th-century ballad Newcastle.

Lankum: The New York Trader – video

Other tracks, such as Netta Perseus and Clear Away in the Morning (by US folklorist Gordon Bok), underline the band’s incredible facility with harmony. Their version of the latter is as accessible as Fleet Foxes’ White Winter Hymnal, full of exquisite softness – at least until their take on Master Crowley’s arrives, a menacing concertina reel that sounds precision-tooled to jar devils awake.

There is so much to revel in here: three instrumental fugues that are more about atmospheric discombobulation than repetition; Cormac Mac Diarmada’s sweet vocal debut on Child ballad Lord Abore and Mary Flynn; their deeply affecting turn through Cyril Tawney’s On a Monday Morning; the way hurdy-gurdies, hammered dulcimers and bowed piano strings create enveloping filmic canvases.

On recent form, Lankum could have become a hardcore drone band very easily, but they’ve done something braver by allowing their gentler sides a bold voice in the mix, while managing not to dilute their power or compromise their ambition. With a 3,300-capacity Roundhouse date later this year, they remain a radical band while making music that is reaching out to the mainstream – while also giving off the thrilling sense that there is so much more to come.

Source: Lankum: False Lankum review | Jude Rogers’ folk album of the month

Dai Bando’s Music Room #14: Saint Paddy’s Day / Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

By Dai Bando

“It’s an Irish trick that’s true

I can lick the mick that threw

The overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder”

I dislike most of what I call “green beer” St. Paddy’s Day music, but this one is an exception. My dad used to sing “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder” on St. Paddy’s Day and also whenever my mom made her awesome white clam chowder. Coincidentally, the lady who lived across the street was named Mrs. Murphy and my dad had convinced me that the song was written about our neighbor. Why not?

Now, Mrs. Murphy was lovely, but her husband was a different cat altogether. I myself would have gladly thrown my overalls in that old geezer’s chowder. Never did I get even a ‘hello’ from Mr. Murphy, even when hand-delivering his Sunday newspaper.

The Murphy’s only child Margaret was a rare thing, “fine as a beeswing” as Richard Thompson would say. Even in grade school, she was ethereal and somewhat precocious. I remember once Margaret informed me that female kangaroos “have bosoms.” I think I was in 3rd grade and didn’t have the slightest clue what the fuck she was talking about. (I did know what a kangaroo was.)

Margaret died far too young, bless her soul.

Mr. Desautel lived across the street from the Murphys, and that old bastard was so mean, he made Mr. Murphy look like Fred Rodgers. Mr. Desautel once challenged the Ice Cream Man to a fistfight because a few popsicle wrappers had blown onto his lawn. (I did witness Dougie Neederlitz brazenly toss his popsicle wrapper, though I didn’t rat him out.) Mr. Scotti, our ice cream truck driver, would’ve volunteered to throw Mr. Desautel’s overalls into the chowder with Mr. Desautel still wearing them.

“Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder” was written by George L. Geifer way back in 1898. Bing Crosby had a hit with it in 1945. I prefer the Maxwell Sisters performing the song in this short film (above) from the late 1940s.

And speaking of films – here are my Top 10 Irish movies:

Ryan’s Daughter” (1970 David Lean)

– Critics hated it, the cast hated each other. David Lean was so traumatized by the experience, he didn’t make another movie for 15 years. I love every fame, especially the ones featuring the Dingle shore. Maurice Jarre composed the soundtrack which featured the memorable “It Was a Good Time (Rosy’s Theme)”

“In Bruges” (2008 Martin McDonough)

– Great performances from Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, and Ralph Fiennes. McDonagh’s dialogue is raw, often hilarious and sometimes pure poetry.

“I Went Down” (1997 Paddy Breathnach)

– This hilarious road movie was my first taste of actor Brendan Gleeson, who might be my favorite actor in the world.

“The Quiet Man” (1952 John Ford)

– On my first trip to Ireland, a bank teller in Dublin told me I spoke “just like John Wayne.” Though not at all true, this remains the best compliment I’ve ever had.

“The Commitments” (1991 Alan Parker)

– Maybe not the best of Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy books (I loved “The Van”), it is certainly the best film adaptation mainly because of the amazing musical performances by a truly great soul band created for the film.

“The Magdalene Sisters” (2002 Peter Mullen)

– Excellent film on the subject of Catholic Church abuse in Ireland. Be prepared to become very angry.

“In America” (2002 Jim Sheriden)

– Beautiful biographical story of Sheriden’s immigration from Ireland to NY’s Hell’s Kitchen in the sixties. Two sisters age 6 and 11, Emma and Sarah Bolger, acting for the first time, steal the movie. The movie concludes with The Corrs singing “Time Enough for Tears,” one of my favorite Irish songs.

“The Butcher Boy” (1997 Neil Jordan)

An Irish “A Clockwork Orange,” complete with Sinead O’Connor as the Virgin Mary (Sinead sings a great version of the folk song of the title.) Very disturbing.

“Finian’s Rainbow” (1968 Francis Ford Coppolla)

Despite the talents of Fred Astaire, lyricist Yip Harburg, and Francis Ford Coppolla – this thing was a mess. Still, worth it if only for Petula Clark singing, “How are things in Glocca Mora?”

“The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022 Martin McDonough)

 My choice for ‘Best Picture’ in 2022. Outstanding performances from Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.

Honorable Mentions:
The Guard, Waking Ned Devine, Once, The Field, The Snapper, The Crying Game, My Left Foot, Cal, In the Name of the Father, Secret of Roan Inish, Philomela, The Van, The Boxer, Hear My Song, The General, Into the West

A little bit of history in Dingle as Fife and Drum band marches on Nollaig na mBan

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

There was a small bit of history made in Dingle this evening as the town’s famous Fife and Drum band marched the streets in celebration of Nollaig na mBan for the first time – and it was well-received despite some less-than-ideal weather.

There was a small bit of history made in Dingle this evening as the town’s famous Fife and Drum band marched the streets in celebration of Nollaig na mBan for the first time – and it was well-received despite some less-than-ideal weather.

There were heavy showers throughout the day in Corca Dhuibhne, but the band set off from their starting point at O’Flaherty’s Bar at 6pm, and after marching through the streets, they reached their end point, the boatyard, welcomed by a gathering of about 50 people – all as planned.

Before the band completed their route, many onlookers followed the music around the town, while people who’d taken for shelter in some of Dingle’s many watering holes popped outside the door again to greet the band as they passed.

“People liked it,” band member Declan Malone told The Kerryman after the parade, and he praised the stewards and guards for their help. “And we had a few Ukrainians out around the town with us for Ukrainian Christmas, so it was nice to tie in with that as well.”

 

It’s little surprise the band was given a warm reception. New Year’s Eve celebrations were quieter in Dingle this year, and not just because of a (mercifully) smaller crowd gathering at the small bridge and the bottom of Main Street before midnight. The Fife and Drum, a staple of New Year’s Eve in Dingle, did not march this year, citing the massive crowd of revellers who go to the bridge each year – and the safety concerns associated with marching in that environment – as the factor driving their decision.

But Declan said tonight’s march should not necessarily be looked at as merely an alternative to the New Year’s Eve parade.

“It’s not one in exchange for the other,” said Declan. “I couldn’t say it’s being done in place of New Year’s Eve. But we decided to go out and celebrate Mná na hÉireann, and especially the women of west Kerry, at a time when it’s possible to march around the town.”

Local stakeholders took a number of measures – such as not having a countdown clock or street-side barriers – to calm the rush to the bridge before 12 on New Year’s Eve last week, and they appear to have been successful, with numbers at the bridge and lower Main Street well down on the norm of recent years. Declan did not say there are any concrete plans for the Fife and Drum to resume their New Year’s Eve tradition should the smaller numbers seen in 2022 hold in the years ahead, but he did say the band would love to be there to ring in the New Year again at some point in the future.

“The band would love to be out on New Year’s Eve if it was possible to do it…but you’d have to be able to get around the streets without needing an army of stewards,” he said. “It would be really nice to see New Year’s Eve calm down enough to go back to a tradition that is dearly valued by the band and the people of Dingle.”

Source: A little bit of history in Dingle as Fife and Drum band marches on Nollaig na mBan