EBAF: LOAD OF AUL’ FOLK

03/09/2013 by borderroamer

Singer & Songwriter Alana Henderson Photo: © Michael Fisher

This was a great end to the second East Belfast Festival, on its fifth day. The promise of ‘A Load of Aul’ Folk’ attracted me to the Strand Arts Centre on the Holywood Road. The names on the bill did not mean anything to the aul’ folk of my generation so it was refreshing to hear the vibrant talent of a new generation of performers: Master and Dog, Katie and the Carnival, Emerald Armada, Alana Henderson and Mike Donaghy and Border Crossing.

These young musicians are all very talented and deserve recognition by a wider audience. Alana Henderson is a singer and songwriter who comes from Dungannon in County Tyrone. She is a cellist who released her debut EP ‘Wax & Wane’ in February 2013. Alana learned how to play the tin whistle when she was 7 and went to Armagh Pipers Club. She started playing the cello when she was 9. She now teaches tin whistle to 7 year olds for the APC herself. Her performance in February on BBC Radio Ulster’s Ralph McLean Show can be viewed here.

Mike Donaghy & Border Crossing Photo: © Michael Fisher

Mike Donaghy from Bangor in started the night with a group called Border Crossing, one of whom is from Newry. Perhaps this is why the backdrop for the stage was a glorious mixture of black and red, the Down colours (as one of the later performers remarked!). Their genre which has been described as Celtic/Americana is a blend of folk, blues, country and rock and it was very easy to sit back and enjoy their set. A couple of numbers stood out: one was a song about whiskey. The other was called The Fisherman’s Daughter, from his 2011 debut album ‘I Wish You Well’, which you can also listen to here. I notice that the proceeds from the album were donated towards the Northern Ireland Children’s Hospice.

Mike is now trying to raise funds for the band to make a trip next year to Nashville, where an American producer has invited them to showcase their music and second album, ‘No-one can hear me’. Accompanying Mike are Andrew Dorrian and Brian McClean with Lynsey Smyth. They have toured Ireland and played festivals and tours in Europe. They have also toured and shared stages with the likes of Brian Kennedy, Sands Family, Paul Brady and Finbar Furey.

Katie Richardson & Darren Photo © Michael Fisher

Katie Richardson & Daragh Gillen: Photo © Michael Fisher

The next act was billed as Katie and the Carnival. There was certainly a carnival atmosphere but it turned out to be the singer/songwriter Katie Richardson with just one person accompanying her, Daragh Gillen, who provided a wonderful sound on harp. Katie’s voice and the setting of the old (but comfortably renewed) Strand cinema transported me back to the pre-Second World War era in Berlin when cabaret was fashionable. I notice that Katie herself had just returned from Berlin and I hope she enjoyed the visit to my favourite city abroad. Her performance reminded me of when I had listened to Agnes Bernelle singing at an evening at the arts centre in Annaghmakerrig, near Newbliss in County Monaghan. But Katie plays the guitar, so that gives her added attraction!

Master and Dog: Photo © Michael Fisher

After a break following over ninety minutes of varied music, it was the turn of Master and Dog (formerly John, Shelly & the Creatures) who started up in 2007. The band’s original name came from a chance meeting with two Irish twins named John and Shelly but they changed their title this year to Master & Dog for various reasons, the name originating from one of the band’s favourite songs “Master & Dog” by Quasi.

They are made up of Kevin Carlisle (Drums, percussion & vox), Philip Watts d’Alton (guitar, vox, keys, bass, mandolin), Ger Gormley (bass, vox, guitar, mandolin, keys) and Walter (guitar, vox, keys, mandolin and drums). They say they are influenced by a wide variety of genres and are unafraid to mix things up when it comes to recording and playing live. Plenty of one-liners from Walter who played the melodica on one of the songs as he attempted to interact with the audience. Maybe he thought he was at the Empire! Good craic anyway.

To see what they sound like I would recommend a video they made for their song ‘Canada’, which I would have called ‘Take My Hand’ based on the chorus. The video has been shot in Dublin. If you look closely enough at the road signs, you can see that the opening scenes were filmed around Chamber Street in the Coombe area. The closing sequence is shot around Irishtown, not far from Sandymount Strand as you can see the Pigeon House chimneys. The Pigeon House ‘B’ electricity generating plant is now redundant and the landmark chimneys are no longer sending plumes of smoke into the sky above Dublin Bay. Their track ‘Long May you Reign’ was used in television advertisements in Spring 2009 to promote Northern Ireland tourism and featured on The Late Late Show on RTÉ.

The Emerald Armada: Photo © Michael Fisher

The Emerald Armada brought the folk night to a wonderful close. The members are Neil Allen, Gary Lynas, Ben Hamilton, Dermot Moynagh and Tony McHugh. Their song ‘I Don’t Mind’ the title track of their new EP was released a year ago and can be viewed here. Great bodhran playing by Dermot.

In summary, a great opportunity to listen to a new generation of musicians performing live in a very relaxed setting. With a bit more advance promotion this gig would surely have attracted a lot more punters to the cinema complex, where two previous nights were ‘Sold Out’ for Kandu Theatre Company’s ‘The 39 Steps’. My thanks to the organisers of the East Belfast Festival for giving me access to the different performances, which I enjoyed. Sorry I did not get to see any of the events on Saturday or the one man show by Noel Magee ‘I, Kavanagh’.

EBAF: WOMAD MUSIC & ARTS

31/08/2013 by borderroamer

WOMAD Flags flying at Skainos Centre Photo: © Michael Fisher

OK, first I had better explain all these acronyms. For the past few days my blogs have concentrated on EBAF, the East Belfast Arts Festival, which runs until Sunday (1st September) and is now in its second year. The Lord Mayor of Belfast Councillor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir paid tribute to the “hardworking committee at East Belfast Arts Fest” when he met them at Belmont Tower. On his twitter account @newbelfast he described their five day programme as “a magnificent event, lifting the entire city”.

Getting ready for the concert Photo: © Michael Fisher

WOMAD brought to the Skainos Centre (East Belfast Mission) on the Newtownards Road the World of Music, Arts and Dance (sorry, I couldn’t fit the dancers into the title!). It was founded by rock icon Peter Gabriel in 1982, when he envisaged a concert involving artists from Africa. Since then concerts have been held in over 20 countries in front of live audiences totalling over one million people. It is now officially recognised in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s biggest international music festival.

WOMAD: World of Music Arts & Dance Photo: © Michael Fisher

Beyond Skin are delivering an outreach programme using international music, arts and dance to bridge cultural relations and promote cultural learning. The all day event ranged from Uganda Gaze Dance to South American Charango & Ukulele to Indian Warli Art displays.

Brazilian Dance at WOMAD Photo: © Michael Fisher

Brazilian Dance at WOMAD Concert: Photo: © Michael Fisher

The outreach showcase culminated in a concert that brought a range of unique world culture never seen before in East Belfast.

Brazilian Dance at WOMAD Concert: Photo © Michael Fisher

The event featured performances from two of the most exciting musicians to come out of Senegal in the last decade, Oumar Sow (best known lead guitarists with Youssou N’Dour) and Singer/Guitarist Laye Sow. Supported by guest artists and the Reggae & Ska group, Boss Sound Manifesto. The five are Marty Malone on drums, Kieran ( sauce) Mc Curry on Guitar, Máirtín Ó Briain on Bass, Brendy Mc Curry on organ and guitar and Cormac (Buzz) Ó Briain on vocals and tenor sax.

WOMAD Concert Boss Sound Manifesto Reggae & Ska Band Photo: © Michael Fisher

WOMAD Arts Music & Dance Photo © Michael Fisher

The event was part funded by Belfast City Council’s Creative Legacies project supported under the Belfast PEACE III Plan by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund through the PEACE III Programme and East Belfast District Policing & Community Safety Partnership.

EBAF: GAP IN THE HEDGE

30/08/2013 by borderroamer

Stephen Hall tunes his guitar Photo: © Michael Fisher

If you have heard ‘The Wee Wee Man‘ from County Antrim on the radio, you would have enjoyed the ‘Gap in the Hedge’ night at the East Belfast Arts Festival. Before I go any further I should explain to readers outside Ulster that ‘wee’ is merely local dialect for small and a common expression in this part of the island of Ireland and in Scotland. Stephen Hall who wrote the song is a graphic designer who now devotes his time to storytelling and songwriting. He has written, illustrated and published popular books that look at the theme of identity through popular myth, using accessible styles and writing techniques to introduce these works to a broader audience.

Randall Stephen Hall Photo: © Michael Fisher

Stephen sometimes uses a Kenyan drum to accompany his songs. The programme told us that he has a deep interest in how we see ourselves as a community in Northern Ireland. I notice that one of the songs on his album, released in 2010, is called The Reiver and the Gael, which refers to the period before Plantation.

Randall Stephen Hall Photo: © Michael Fisher

One review remarked on the “melodic mandolin and catchy chorus” of that particular track. As John Baucher explained in that article in culturenorthernireland.org:-

“What Hall is doing, in my view, is asking people to look beyond the obvious and politicised traditions by arguing that we are a mix of the old and new. We are of a mongrel bloodline: a hotchpotch of Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English, to name a few of the obvious strands of DNA flowing here in Northern Ireland. As Hall states in the musical poem ‘The Lang Staine’: ‘So culture vultures listen. Listen long and hard. Ulster Scots a hybrid. Nae dull aul lump of lard. A shiny shiny dappled thing. A mongrel through and through’. “

The album is “an inventive mixture of poetry and song in the Ulster-Scots Irish tradition”. The CD with 21 tracks of songs and poems was recorded in a work East room at the top of Stephen’s house, his ‘moon shed’, and was launched at The Black Box in Belfast in September 2010. Further details are available on BBC Northern Ireland’s Ulster-Scots page.

https://myspace.com/randallstephenhall/music/song/the-wee-wee-man-71577431-78868353

EBAF: ‘THOU SHALT NOT KILL’

29/08/2013 by borderroamer

Post-performance discussion with actors Photo: © Michael Fisher

Sectarianism, racism and homophobia are alive and well in our schools in Northern Ireland. That’s the view of a former teacher Jim Arbuckle from London/derry, who works as a Good Relations Facilitator alongside the Smashing Times Theatre Company, who performed tonight in the East Belfast Arts Festival.

Jim Arbuckle

The group which has carried out a lot of reconciliation work in border areas through storytelling and drama staged a performance of Thou Shalt not Kill tonight in the BMC campus at Tower Street, off the Newtownards Road. For the second night running I was in a part of Belfast I would not usually visit at night. The College building is beside a flashpoint area at the Short Strand, where there have been disturbances in the past and where a police car kept watch in case of trouble. A block away is a road junction where I remember a man was shot dead eight years ago (and seven years after the Good Friday agreement) by the UVF during a loyalist paramilitary feud.

Fiona Bawn-Thompson, Smashing Times Theatre Company Photo: © Michael Fisher

I thought of those times as I watched the performance. It began with Fiona Bawn-Thompson portraying in dance and mime a ghost of the past. Dressed in white. she appeared like a Greek muse in an Athenian tragedy. Her role at the start, in the middle between the two monolgues and at the end was a useful device in tying the two stories together, around a wreath of red roses. Fiona is a dance teacher and has used her skills to good effect in facilitating specialist workshops on racism, sectarianism and childrens’ rights.

Cathy White Smashing Times Theatre Company Photo: © Michael Fisher

The two other members of the cast gave very strong performances telling stories of two different victims of the ‘troubles’, one on the Protestant/loyalist side from Belfast which was counterbalanced with the story of a former republican paramilitary from Strabane. Cathy White is from Belfast but is living in Dublin and has worked for the Abbey Theatre and the Lyric. You might have seen her in the TG4 and BBC NI series Scúp, an eight part drama series by Colin Bateman, set in a Belfast newspaper.

Cathy plays the role of Alice Thompson from a loyalist area in Belfast. Alice worked in a flower shop on the Lisburn Road from the age of 17 and soon afterwards met a young Catholic lad Eamonn, who delivered flowers including red roses for her on Valentine’s Day. They started going out with each other, but her family was then threatened by loyalist paramilitaries who sent her a bullet in the post with her boyfriend’s name written on a note. Alice attempted to get the threat removed by going to a paramilitary in her area ‘Robbie McFarlane’. His response was that by going out with a Catholic, she was spitting on the graves of his colleagues and other Protestants who had been killed by the IRA.

It was a few months later as they began to plan a low-key wedding that her fiancé Eamonn was shot dead as he made a delivery to a shop on the Holywood Road. As two RUC members brought her the news, Alice described how the earth had opened up and swallowed her. She was wrapped in a comfort blanket of love by family and friends yet she could not be comforted. There were more twists in the story before the end.

Adam Traynor Smashing Times Theatre Company Photo: © Michael Fisher

Dubliner Adam Traynor played the role of Tom Mulhern, a republican from Strabane who had been a member of a paramilitary group and had been involved in attacks on the RUC and planting a bomb in Magherafelt in which a child died. He was on the run in Donegal and could not cross the border when his father died of cancer, in case he was detained at a checkpoint in the North. This was another very moving story and the topic of racism was also subtly introduced through the person of Audrey, a black woman fro Chicago who lived in Letterkenny. The story was also quite topical as it included a mention of Castlederg, where a republican march earlier this month to commemorate two IRA bombers led to protests by relatives of security force members and others killed by the IRA.

Thou Shalt Not Kill was commissioned by Smashing Times Theatre Company. It is presented in the form of ‘living theatre’ installations to explore themes of conflict and trauma. Using the body as a site of performance, memory and emotion and centering on peoples’ experience of living in Northern Ireland, ‘Thou Shalt not Kill’ imagines the future through a remembrance of things past and explores themes of trauma, conflict, forgiveness and moving forward.

Created by Mary Moynihan
Written by Paul Kennedy
Performed by Fiona Thompson, Adam Traynor and Cathy White
Directed by Mary Moynihan and Bairbre Ni Chaoimh
Discussion Panel

As part of The Memory Project, Smashing Times Theatre Company is making a television documentary showing how the creative processes of drama and theatre can be used to explore memories and experiences of conflict and to promote peace and non-violence. This project is run by Smashing Times Theatre Company in partnership with Corrymeela Community and in association with CAIN (Conflict Archive on the Internet) and the University of Ulster INCORE International Conflict Research Institute. The project is funded through the EU’s PEACE III Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.

EBAF: GAEILGE/IRISH IN EAST BELFAST

28/08/2013 by borderroamer

Linda Ervine at East Belfast Arts Festival Photo: © Michael Fisher

‘Fáilte roimh’ were the Irish words of welcome Linda Ervine used at the start of her interesting talk in the heart of loyalist East Belfast. The venue was the ‘Skainos’ centre on the Lower Newtownards Road. The name comes from the Greek word for tent or dwelling. Skainos speaks of the importance of practical engagement with a community by figuratively pitching a tent in its midst, and it hints at the notion of hospitality and the extended family. The East Belfast Mission (Methodist church) has been closely involved with the development of this cross-community facility.

Attentive audience for Linda Ervine Photo: © Michael Fisher

This area is known as Ballymacarrett. As Linda points out, Irish names are all around. It comes from Baile Mhic Gearóid meaning “MacGearóid’s settlement”. Linda started her ‘turas’ meaning journey or pilgrimage or even tour about the Irish language a few years ago after the death of her brother-in-law David Ervine, former leader of the Progressive Unionist Party who had served time for a UVF-related offence in the Maze prison, where he came under the influence of Gusty Spence. Gusty had an interest in the Irish language (Gaeilge) and wore a silver fainne in his buttonhole, awarded to Irish speakers.

That story was one of the many surprises Linda had for most of her audience. She went on to explain how she had done some research on David’s family in the 1911 Census. There she discovered his grandfather John Ervine, then aged 36, living at Frome Street off the Newtownards Road and not far from the Skainos centre. He was head of the family at the time and he and the rest of them were entered as being able to speak Irish and English, as well as being able to read and write. Update: it has been pointed out that if you look closely at the actual census record by enlarging it, there is a fine line drawn through the words ‘Irish & English’ by the census enumerator, in the entry for the Ervine family and those in the same street.

Explaining the derivation of Rathcoole (loyalist estate): Ráth Cúile: nook of the ringfort

Linda is Irish Language Development Officer for East Belfast and is based at the Skainos Centre. She started learning Irish two years ago as part of a cross-community project with women from the nearby nationalist Short Strand. Now she runs five classes a week for beginners as well as lower and upper intermediate level, delivered by three specialist teachers. It is supported by Foras na Gaeilge, and there is a growing demand for more. Linda is passionate about helping Protestants, unionists and loyalists to dis

Linda Ervine recommends books by the Ultach Trust

Linda has found much useful background material in the publications of the Ultach Trust, such as ‘A History of Protestant Irish Speakers’. She referred to the Reverend John Feeley, a Wesleyan preacher who went round the country on horseback, died in Holywood in 1860 and who is buried at a church on the Newtownards Road:-

“The foremost Methodist preacher in Irish was Gideon Ousely (1762-1839) from Sligo, who at the height of his powers travelled 4,000 miles a year, preaching about 20 times a week. He was accompanied by John Feely (Seán Ó Fithcheallaigh), who had trained to be a Catholic priest, and thus guaranteed curiosity wherever he appeared. Together they were known as the ‘black caps’ because of their close-fitting skull caps designed to protect their heads from stones; Ousely preferred to stand in front of apothecaries’ windows to deter missiles (Hempton and Hill 1992: 41). Ousely’s strange clothes, comical leer (the result of a shooting accident), and habit of ringing a bell to announce his arrival also ensured large audiences“.

Noel McGee as Robert McAdam Photo: Aisling Ghéar

Linda mentioned other leading Irish speakers in the 19th Century who were Protestants: Robert McAdam a Presbyterian who is remembered in the former Presbyterian Church on the Falls Road in West Belfast, now known as the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich. His story ‘SEO Robert: The Search for Robert McAdam’ will be presented by the Aisling Ghéar theatre company on Sunday evening at the BMC Tower Street campus as part of the East Belfast festival at 7:30pm. Admission £5. It is a one-man show by Noel McGee directed by Bríd Ó Gallchoir and is mainly in English, with some Irish which is translated by the performer. McAdam was involved in setting up a library, a harp society, a museum and a literary society. He designed and mended steam turbines, made the windows for the Pasha’s Palace in Cairo and still found time to compose music and amass one of the largest collections of Irish cultural treasures on the island.

Having given her audience an interesting introduction to the use of Irish in Northern Ireland where 95% of placenames are derived from Gaeilge, Linda ended on an amusing note. For those who seek to use the republican slogan “Tiocfaidh ár lá”, or “our day will come”, there should be one response: “Ní ghéillfimid”, meaning we will not yield, or in the local version as demonstrated in this final slide featuring senior DUP and Sinn Féin figures,”No surrender!”.

How to say “No Surrender” in Irish!

Michael Fisher's News

Tag Archives: East Belfast Arts Festival

EBAF: LOAD OF AUL’ FOLK

EBAF: WOMAD MUSIC & ARTS

EBAF: GAP IN THE HEDGE

EBAF: ‘THOU SHALT NOT KILL’

EBAF: GAEILGE/IRISH IN EAST BELFAST

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