òran mór

Seamus Creagh, the great fiddler who we lost too soon, about a month ago, will be remembered later today in an RTE steamed  broadcast called The Rolling Wave.

I’ve loved and learned from his playing – from the day I bought my first of his albums ‘The Dawn’ at a little music shop in Killarney – to the time a couple years ago that I was lucky enough (thanks to Mary Lou Philbin) to play with Seamus in his little session at the Pier Head Pub in Blackrock, just outside of Cork.   He was most friendly and gracious to Jim Burke and I, a couple of yanks who were keen to play a little fiddle next to the master.

I believe these shows are archived  – will investigate and update this post as appropriate.

In an earlier post, Pete told about the startup of  Trad Night at Johnny D’s.  I didn’t have to wait any longer for a good reason to go check it out – when on April 14th, he and Laurette learned their friend Martin Langer was playing bouzouki that night with  Oisin McCauley (of Danu) on fiddle,  Peter Malloy on flute, Noel Scott on button accordion.

What a unique opportunity this turned out to be.  While these guys are not really ongoing band, each is so accomplished that they can pull together for a night and sound like they’ve been recording and touring for years.

The romped through a great selection of jigs, reels, and special selections – providing a secret, fleeting peek at a trad supergroup.

What tricks are up those short sleeves?

This Saturday, April 18, the Seacoast Irish Cultural Association (SICA) will be hosting it’s Spring Ceili at the Dover Elks on Rte. 108 with Eamon Coyne and Dave Surette as the featured performers. As part of the festivities, the lads will lead a workshop on fiddle and accompanying Irish music.

I have to say that I’ve admired Dave Surette’s style of accompaniment for a while and have wanted to chat with him about his approach…so while I can’t stay for the potluck supper at 6pm (yum!) or the dance, I am definitely looking forward to learning a few tricks on accompaniment from Dave. (Let’s see how many of them I remember that night at McMenemy’s.)

For more info on the workshop or ceili, contact SICA at doversica.multiply.com.

We had a special treat on April 4, when Terry Weir joined us to fill in for the roving Peter Hale.

As he’s known to do, Terry brought a great voice and collection of songs and tunes, and his touch and tone on the mandolin, guitar, and fiddle were appreciated by all.

We get to his session at  Harrington’s Pub in Wakefield, MA when we can, and we all enjoy it when we connect ‘across the counties’ like this.

Special things can happen on Saturday nights  in McM’s Pub.  While we do have limited space at our table for musicians and singers – we make the best use of it, and we’ve been known to squeeze in a good group of players and singers – raising the roof a bit.

As Peter Hale has posted, we had an especially fun Saturday night session recently – and captured some sound clips.

Please drop in – to sing along – play some tunes – or just to listen a bit –  and help us make another great Saturday happen.