This is an almighty blog. I have discovered Lisdoonvarna and music in Ireland. It was me. I was the Francis Drake of my era, not content with the potato, this time sailing into Galway Bay and eyeing the huge Moher cliffs 210 metres high and saying just beyond there I shall invent Irish music. And a festival. In 1978 until 1983 they held festivals there. This is my version of events…
Sessions in the local pubs were at boiling point – musicians tipping into every street and drunk, still-playing. Propped against farmers rubble walls in fields come daybreak, squeeze box and fiddle in hand. So they extended the spirit to a full-blown festival a bit further back up the hill, at Lisdoonvarna, the town then famed for match-making lovers festivals.
The hotel waiter gave me the keys and told me to go into the bar and see the photographs as testimony to that time, with mine own eyes. Indeed there was Teresa, local girl, now landlady of the b&b true to her word – snogging in a sleeping-bag with a man who shall go nameless. Has she lost the twinkle in her eye? No of course not, despite the 24 years since.
Why did it end in ‘83? I asked, with Rory Gallagher headlining Saturday and Van Morrison in his mystical peak headlining Sunday?
“Because the hells angels (from Wexford) turned up with their chains, beat the farmers, burnt the bales and each others bikes. To top it all with real tragedy eight youngsters were drowned in the Bay”.
So the licence has not been renewed, although there was a festival with the same name held in Dublin since. I get the feeling that it’s star will rise again, especially if some Mean Fiddler got their hands on it!
There on the posters (and in the photos on the wall) evidence to 6 fabulous summers featuring Jackson Browne, Richard AND Lynda Thompson, Clannad, Emmylou Harris… look they are all here and more mentioned in the lyrics, sang by Christy Moore (who was a headliner back then).
How’s it goin’ there everybody,
D C
From Cork, New York, Dundalk,
Gortahork and Glenamaddy.
D
Here we are in the County Clare
C
It’s a long, long way from here to there.
D
There’s the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher,
C
And the Tulla and the Kilfenora,
D
Mike O Russell, Doctor Bill,
C
Willy Clancy and Noel Hill.
D
Flutes and fiddles everywhere.
C
If it’s music you want,
You should go to Clare.
CHORUS
G C
Oh, Lisdoonvarna
G C
Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoonvarna!
Everybody needs a break,
Climb a mountain or jump in a lake.
Some head off to exotic places,
Others go to the Galway Races.
A cousin of mine goes potholing,
A cousin of hers loves Joe Dolan.
Mattie goes to the South of France,
Jim to the dogs, Peter to the dance.
Summer comes around each year,
We go there and they come here.
Some jet off to… Frijiliana,
But I always go to Lisdoonvarna.
CHORUS
I always leave of a Thursday night,
With me tent and me
groundsheet rolled up tight.
I like to hit Lisdoon,
In or around Friday afternoon.
This gives me time to get me gear together,
I don’t need to worry about the weather.
Ramble in for a pint of stout,
And you’d never know who’d
be hangin’ about!
There’s a Dutchman playing a mandolin,
And a German looking for Liam Óg O’Floinn.
And there’s Adam, Bono and
Garrett Fitzgerald,
Gettin’ their photo taken
for the Sunday World.
Finbarr, Charlie and Jim Hand,
And they drinkin’ pints to bate the band.
.. Ain’t it grand?
CHORUS
[ Lyrics provided by www.mp3lyrics.org ]
The multitudes, they flocked and thronged,
To hear the music and the songs.
Motorbikes and Hi-ace vans,
With bottles – barrels – flagons – cans.
Mighty craic. Loads of frolics,
Pioneers and alcoholics, PLAC, SPUC and the FCA,
Free Nicky Kelly and the IRA.
Hairy chests and milk-white thighs,
And mickey dodgers in disguise.
Mc Graths, O’Briens, Pippins, Coxs,
Massage parlours in horse boxes. RTE are makin’ tapes, takin’
breaks and throwin’ shapes.
There’s amhráns, bodhráns, amadáns,
Arab sheiks, Hindu Sikhs, Jesus freaks.
This is heaven, this is hell.
Who cares? Who can tell?
(Anyone for the last few Choc Ices, now?)
CHORUS
A 747 for Jackson Browne,
They had to build a special
runway just to get him down.
Before the Chieftains could start to play,
Seven creamy pints came out on a tray.
Shergar was ridden by Lord Lucan,
Seán Cannon did the backstage cookin’.
Clannad were playin’ “Harry’s Game”,
Christy was singin’ “Nancy Spain”.
Mary O’Hara and Brush Shields,
Together doin’ “The Four Green Fields”.
Van the Man and Emmy Lou,
Moving Hearts and Planxty too!
CHORUS
Everybody needs a break,
Climb a mountain or jump in a lake.
Sean Doherty goes to the Rose of Tralee,
Oliver J. Flanagan goes
swimming in the Holy Sea.
But I like the music and the open air,
So every Summer I go to Clare.
Coz Woodstock, Knock nor the Feast of Cana,
Couldn’t hold a match to Lisdoonvarna.
Christy Moore wrote so much about the Irish experience. He is still alive but with a heart condition. He has loved in excess.
This song, though not quite about what it may seem to be about, I hijack further…
In my imagination it is about Christy , wracked with a heart-complaint, no longer able to perform, responding to a letter from a fan called Sam who is sad he or she will never get to see Christy sing live. Christy for a fleeting dagger-moment begrudges the youth of this other. And begrudges the IRA and the UDA and all the wasted wasted years and youth.
Sam’s letter even hopes they will (in a perfect world) go walking in the Wicklow Hills together.
Imagine Christy on the edge of his yielding bed, looking out through the cross of the frame of the window… Sam meanwhile walking hands in pockets down the concrete streets of an anonymous town full of crap shops wondering if his letter had ever got past the postie – the mere sending it was a fine thing.
On my way to the Mull of Kintyre Cradle of The Nation music festival, I picked up two hitchikers on the road aside Loch Lomond.
Australians, Mark had been in the country some while and was now showing his big sister the ropes. Guitar over the shoulder. Mark spoke of busking and which town and cities fared the better as far as he was concerned. Bournemouth had told him to leave! Exeter and beautiful Oxford loved buskers.
“Buskers and Busking have received a lot of attention in the media recently due to the recent licencing trial on the London Underground Railway. We have received several queries and the following article aims to answer the most frequently asked questions on the subject and there are some excellent dedicated sites for buskers available on the internet which are listed at the end of this article.
The term ‘Busk’ means to play music or sing in a public place so that the people who are there will give money (Cambridge Dictionary). “Busker” means ‘itinerant musician or actor’ although nowadays it is used to describe any form of street performer. Buskers are also referred to as travelling musicians, street musicians, sidewalk musicians, subway musicians, minstrels or bards.
Busking is a time honored tradition going back to medieval times when wandering minstrels and bards travelled from place to place and acted not only as entertainers but also as news reporters and message bearers. The term ‘Sing for your Supper’ probably originated from around that era, when it was common practice for inns and stall holders to pay the busker with a meal and/or a bed for the night instead of money.
A performer can be any age or standard, although in the western world there are laws that restrict or limit any form of employment for children under the age of 18. A ‘Busker’ is now defined as any form of entertainer including (but not limited to!) solo singers or musicians, one man bands with multiple instruments, carollers, duos, trios, bands, magicians, clowns, balloon artists…... Likely venues to see buskers (or find a pitch) include parks, fairs, fetes, subways, train stations, bus depots, shopping centers, street corners or any open space where there are enough passers by to hope for an interested reception and possible donation into the hat. There are even dedicated Busking Competitions, Festivals & Events!
In the last few years it has become more regulated with many countries local authorities requiring performers to apply for a license to publicly entertain on designated ‘pitches’. Favourite areas for buskers in the UK include major towns and underground stations where a high amount of walking tourists and travellers may be persuaded to stop and drop a few coins into the collection.
The standard of performer varies considerably from the enthusiastic amateur to concert virtuoso. How much a singer or musician can make busking depends on several factors including, musical style, proficiency, image, location, weather and time of day! The variables may differ from country to country, but generally, people are more likely to part with their cash if the busker is reasonably presented and plays with a modicum of competance. Covers of popular songs may gain more financial reward, but…
When music is played in public the owner of the copyright is entitled, by law, to payment from the music user. The Performing Right Society is an organisation that collects and distributes this money (known as ‘royalties’) to it’s members – the owner of the copyright (usually the composer or their publisher). This means that buskers who perform cover versions of popular songs are required to pay royalties to PRS, but on the up side, if you are performing your own original works and are a member of PRS you may be entitled to receive royalties! (Information courtesy of Performing Right Society).”
Meanwhile in Campbelltown capital of Kintyre, Mark drew a small crowd outside the boarded up bakery singing all his own songs. Although as one car of lads kept driving past yelling for “Oasis” so Mark obliged with the first few notes of “Wonderwall” then broke back into his own songs.
Although there was to be a festival that weekend, the Mulls of Kintyre didn’t seem to know how to react to a singer opening up in front of them without rehearsal, appointment, commentary.
I eventually dropped the travelling duo off at the ferry to Ireland, where they were to go in search of “the sessions” in County Clare. “The Scots” afterall had originally arrived from Ireland in the 6th Century, landing here in Kintyre – so it seemed only right our wandering minstrels took the return journey in search of the epicentre of the Scots arousal.
As I prepare for showing “Scenes From A British Summer Country Pop Music Festival”, at 10 major museums in the UK, I am on the look out for 50 buskers a time to play each venue, surrounded by all the photographs and an audience assured.
