Yesterday, a news bit came over my Twitter feed, letting me know that it's Irish Music Month and linking to a message on it, delivered by Ireland's President, Michael Higgins. The president of Ireland is popularly elected, but the role is largely ceremonial. As a master of ceremonies for his country, Michael Higgins is a brilliant choice. In addition to being a politician, he's a sociologist and a poet - and excellent combo. At 80, he's a complete charmer. So I listened to the English version of his little speech on Irish Music Month, which talked about how music is so ingrained in the country's culture, etc.
I've been to Ireland enough times to know that! No trip for me is complete unless I've looked in at a few traditional music sessions.
Anyway, this being Irish Music Month got me thinking of my own love for Irish music and how it came about.
Growing up, in mid-century Worcester, Irish music was whatever they played on The Jimmy Dooley Irish Hour, a radio show our family tuned in every week. I have zero recall of the music that "Jimmy Dooley" played. This was the 1950's, so I'm guessing it was standard fare sung by the likes of Carmel Quinn, Bing Crosby, Dennis Day, and Morton Downey (Senior, not Junior). What I do remember was "Jimmy Dooley's" brogue, which my father declared as phony as a 3-dollar bill, complete Blarney. To my ears, that brogue was completely alluring, and I just adored "Jimmy Dooley." In fact, one of my two imaginary friends was named Dooley in his honor.
There was, of course, no "Jimmy Dooley." He was a Worcester Irish guy named Tom Power. He had family in our parish, and one of his nieces was in my grammar school class - the most famous person I knew! For a big city, Worcester's a small town, and my father may have known Tom Power in real life. Anyway, my father - perhaps attuned to the authentic brogues of his grandparents - was right about the brogue being fake. Sigh.
We listened to "Jimmy Dooley" when we lived in one of the flats in my grandmother's decker. Once we moved up the hill and around the corner into a home of our own when I was six-and-a-half, I don't remember ever listening to him again.
For a while after that the only "Irish" music I heard was what was sung on "Sing Along With Mitch." (And, yes, my family did sing-along when we watched the show every Friday night. We also had a few Mitch Miller albums, which came with sheets containing the lyrics to all the songs.) Irish music according to Mitch was pretty much of the hokey Vaudeville variety: "H-A-R-R-I-G-A-N," "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?", "If You're Irish (Come Into the Parlor)."
My grandmother played Irish-y songs on the upright in the parlor, most notably "(I Wandered Today to the Hills,) Maggie."
At school, around St. Patrick's Day, we sang the classics like "My Wild Irish Rose" and "Paddy McGinty's Harp."
It's safe to say that by my teen years I had been exposed to pretty much every cornball Irish-American song out there, but precious little that was authentic.
Then along came The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.
What a revelation!
Sure, they included a lot of music hall numbers in their repertoire, but when they crossed the pond in their Aran sweaters, they brought with them plenty of authentic (or at least authentic-adjacent) tunes.
I loved The Clancy Brothers, and my sister Kath and I bought their albums and saw them in concert when they came to
Other than that, I mostly didn't listen to Irish music.
The first time I went to Ireland, in 1973, we didn't even go into many pubs. Way too smoky for the lungs of a couple of American girls.
In the mid-1980's, my husband and I started going on vacation to Ireland pretty regularly, every year or two. And we hung out in pubs, especially after they were made non-smoking, and heard plenty of Irish music. Back home, we started attending sessions in one or the other of Boston's many Irish pubs.
I started buying Irish (and other Celtic) music.
The Chieftains are often scorned a bit for their commercial success, but I think they're great. I have well over a dozen of their CDs, and wish I'd seen them "live" during their prime.
Mary Black - as much folk as Irish - is one of my all-time favorite singers. I love Christy Moore, Dolores Keane, The Cranberries, Enya (okay, a little goes a long way). Sinead O'Connor. De Dannan. Luka Bloom. Planxty. The (late, lamented) Bothy Band. Et al.
When my husband died, his (completely secular) memorial service was held in a Unitarian Church. The organist they introduced me to - a self-described "Polish guy from Chicago" - turned out to be an expert in Irish music. He played a glorious version of "The Limerick Lament." (They don't call it a lament for nothing.) And he closed the ceremony out with some lively ceilidh (party) music.
In between, a Unitarian minister in training, who had a wonderful voice, sang "The Parting Glass," one of my favorite Irish songs (even if its roots are in Scotland), and a perfect song for Jim Diggins' send off. The rendition performed was almost as gorgeous as when it was sung by Liam Clancy.
There's a radio station in Boston that plays Irish music on Saturdays and Sundays. A lot of it's terrible; a lot of it's great. The truly terrible thing about it is that the station these shows are on is owned by a right wing (think Christo-fascist) network, and the ads are quite something. Still, once in a while I tune in, telling myself that whoever's doing the advertising for the latest from Danish D'Souza is wasting their money.
I listen to Irish music all the time. I'm counting the hours until I get back to Ireland, where I've been so many times and is so much my heart's home. (Come on, how could I resist a country whose president is a sociologist and a poet.)
So happy Irish Music Month.
To celebrate, I hope you enjoy this beautiful song performed decades back in Galway, I think at the Kings' Head, where I've been many times. The song is "Jimmy Mo Mhile Stor" ("Jimmy My Thousand Treasures"), and it goes out to my own personal Jim, and - how could it not - to "Jimmy Dooley," whoever you were, wherever you are.
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