IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
991114
In their heyday there were hundreds of cŽil’ bands on this island. In demand by dancers they encouraged musicians and put money in their pockets, creating a professionalism that is mushrooming at present. Boosted by the law's insistence that dancing be done only in licensed halls after 1935, and by the Gaelic League's policy of promoting only 'cŽil’' social dance, the bands varied in size from a half dozen to a dozen and more members playing various combinations of fiddles, accordions and flutes, sometimes with uilleann pipes, or perhaps a double bass, but almost always a piano and Jazz-style drumkit. With the rise of Popular music taste by the 1950s however the needs of the dancing public were satisfied by the showbands. Yet the cŽil’ band survived, partly for dancing, but also given a purpose by fleadh cheoil competitions and î Riada's focus on the music's artistic dimension. Part of this milieu in 1959, an era when musicians were keen to play good music 'for listening', such a band was formed by teenage boys at the Drimnagh Castle CBS school. Chieftains fiddler Sean Keane and brother James joined, with flute player Mick O'Connor, and out of the initiative the Castle CŽil’ Band was born. Over its years it incorporated some of the 1960's iconic figures - John Kelly of Capel St., Dublin, ex-Chieftain Michael Tubridy, Liam Rowsome and John Brennan. Uniquely of its time, perhaps the Castle's success lay in its combination of these more mature, ex-country exiles and the young bloods: "We had experience and youth together" said Mick O'Connor at last weekend's Castle reunion in Co. Dublin, "we never repeated ourselves, even in playing three or four hours for dancers." The band's only album - with unhurried calm and sweet repertoire - came in 1974; for the re-union O'Connor and the Keanes played with Mick Hand (piano), Martin Garrihy (drums), Joe Ryan, John Kelly jun., Kathleen Nesbitt and John Dwyer (fiddles), and Michael Tubridy (flute, an original member). RTƒ 1's CŽil’ house was the focus for this in a concert at CCƒ's Cultœrlann in Monkstown where SŽamus and òna Mac Mathœna, their children Lorc‡n and êde were the singers, with Mick O'Connor's own offspring - fiddlers Darach and Liam, concertina player Aoife - demonstrating great talent from a new generation. Thirty three years in New York, and now in Ireland to promote a new album, accordionist James Keane preserves in an exile's aspic his memories of their early, eager music-making forays: "Sometimes we travelled in hired buses, but more often I might see us driving to Lixanw in my six-volt VW, arriving back just in time for work the next morning". Ciar‡n MacMathœna was guest of honour for the concert which will be broadcast in two parts, the first on Stephen's Night - the veteran CŽil’ House programme's last fling of the century.
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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