The New Policeman (25 page)
Authors: Kate Thompson
The céilí, everyone agreed, was the best ever. There were those who didn’t come and would never come again because of what they believed had happened to Father Doherty, but they were few and far between. Three of the four missing people had turned up alive and well, and everyone was sure that Anne Korff would soon be back again, too, with her little dog at her heels. The relief of the whole district was evident in the smiling faces of the musicians and the flying feet of the dancers.
Helen was astonished by J.J. Something had happened to his playing while he’d been away. He leaned on the bow, full of flair and confidence, and his rhythm was electric. She had never heard anyone, past or present, play with such lift and such elegance.
The old fiddle, beneath his deft fingers, sang out so beautifully that she wondered whether even a Stradivarius could sound better.
But the strangest thing of all about J.J.’s playing was the new tunes. About halfway through the evening, Helen got up to stretch her legs. The dancers relaxed, assuming that there was going to be a break, and were congregating around the bar, when J.J. did a thing he had never done before. He began to play a tune on his own.
Helen had turned around to go and join in with him before she realized that she didn’t know the tune. Nor did she know the one that followed it, nor the one after that. Phil didn’t know them either, and nor did Marian or any of the other musicians who had come to celebrate with the Liddys that night. But J.J. didn’t appear to need any support. The rich tones of his grandfather’s fiddle filled the barn and set the feet of the dancers moving to a rhythm that wasn’t quite like any they’d come across before. They found a new freedom in the music; they broke out of their sets and improvised alone or in pairs, their limbs and their hearts light and free.
J.J.’s cheek rested lightly on the chin rest. His eyes gazed dreamily into the middle distance, and his lips formed an unself-conscious smile. He played like a
boy who was born to play for dancing; like a boy who had heard the fairy music; like a boy who was soon to mature into one of the greatest traditional musicians Ireland had ever known.
The other players listened, mesmerized by the performance. Only J.J. knew that he wasn’t playing alone. Only he could hear the faint strains of Aengus’s fiddle and Devaney’s bodhrán leaking through from the copse of chiming maples in Tír na n’Óg, leading him through the beautiful set of reels. When the last of them was over, he was amazed to find himself in the barn and even more amazed by the applause that followed his playing. He grinned bashfully and hugged the fiddle to his chest.
“Where did you learn those tunes?” said Helen, resuming her seat beside him. J.J. had already decided to stick to the lost memory story.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You’ll have to teach them to me,” said Helen. She finished her drink, picked up the concertina, and asked the dancers to get ready for the Plain Set. “Any suggestions?” she asked J.J.
“What about ‘Devaney’s Goat’?”
“Oh, lovely,” said Helen. “We haven’t played that in ages. What’ll we put with it?”
J.J. suggested another tune, one that he knew but couldn’t remember too well. Helen agreed and, as soon as the dancers had gotten back into their sets, tore into “Devaney’s Goat.” J.J. romped through it happily, but when Helen changed to the second tune, he dropped out for a few bars, listening. In a flash the tune came back to him. It was a great tune. How could he have forgotten it?
Through the leak he heard a hesitation similar to his own, then the joyful return of the fiddle and bodhrán as Aengus and Devaney remembered it as well. J.J. could almost see the smiles on their faces. He had a feeling that this might not be the last time they joined in with the Liddys on céilí night.
“Mum,” he said to Helen when the tunes came to an end, “have you noticed that there seems to be more time than there used to be?”
“I certainly have,” said Helen. “Everyone has. It’s amazing.”
J.J. smiled. “That was my birthday present to you,” he said. “You asked for time, and I bought it for you.”
“Really?” said Helen. She regarded J.J. carefully and decided to treat this particular eccentricity as a joke.
“Really,” said J.J. “And I just paid for it.”
“Did you?” said Helen. “And how much was it?”
“Not much,” said J.J. “Not much at all. You’d be amazed at what you can buy these days for ‘Dowd’s Number Nine.’”
DOWD’S NUMBER NINE
Trad
A few years ago a special auction was held in Kinvara to raise money for a new community center. It was an “Auction of Promises” so, instead of donating items to be sold, local people offered promises related to their skills; anything from computer lessons to music lessons, decorating to car maintenance. I was asked if I would give a promise to put someone’s name in my next book, and the successful bidder on the night was a local publisher of beautiful maps and guidebooks relating to the area.
It was some time before I got around to writing the next book, and in the meantime I met the publisher at a music session in the Auld Plaid Shawl. We had a discussion, which only just fell short of an argument, about the nature of the promise. In my opinion I was only required to use her name for a character of my choice, but she was convinced that I was under obligation to write a book which actually contained her. Afterwards I was determined to stick to my guns and use her name only, but over the next few weeks and months I realized that she had unwittingly planted the seed of an idea, which fused with other ideas already knocking around in my head and eventually became
The New Policeman
.
The name of the publisher is Anne Korff and if you have read this far, you have already met her. Apart from a couple of mentions of actual legendary musicians, such as Micho Russell, Paddy Fahy, etc., there are only two other real people in the book. They are Séadna Tobín, Kinvara’s fiddle-playing pharmacist, and Mary Green, landlady of Green’s pub.
I would like to thank Máire O’Keeffe for her invaluable help with the tunes.
Kate Thompson, 2005
A few years ago a special auction was held in Kinvara to raise money for a new community center. It was an “Auction of Promises” so, instead of donating items to be sold, local people offered promises related to their skills; anything from computer lessons to music lessons, decorating to car maintenance. I was asked if I would give a promise to put someone’s name in my next book, and the successful bidder on the night was a local publisher of beautiful maps and guidebooks relating to the area.
It was some time before I got around to writing the next book, and in the meantime I met the publisher at a music session in the Auld Plaid Shawl. We had a discussion, which only just fell short of an argument, about the nature of the promise. In my opinion I was only required to use her name for a character of my choice, but she was convinced that I was under obligation to write a book which actually contained her. Afterwards I was determined to stick to my guns and use her name only, but over the next few weeks and months I realized that she had unwittingly planted the seed of an idea, which fused with other ideas already knocking around in my head and eventually became
The New Policeman
.
The name of the publisher is Anne Korff and if you have read this far, you have already met her. Apart from a couple of mentions of actual legendary musicians, such as Micho Russell, Paddy Fahy, etc., there are only two other real people in the book. They are Séadna Tobín, Kinvara’s fiddle-playing pharmacist, and Mary Green, landlady of Green’s pub.
I would like to thank Máire O’Keeffe for her invaluable help with the tunes.
Kate Thompson, 2005
T
o all the players, past and present, whose love of this music has kept it alive.
Thanks for the tunes.
The tunes in this book have been gathered from various sources. Most of them I have learned over the last few years from other musicians, and these I have transcribed from memory. Others have been taken from a variety of published sources, including
O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland
and Breandán Breathnach’s excellent series,
Ceol Rince na hÉireann
. As far as I have been able to ascertain, all the tunes I have used (with the exception of three) are traditional and the composers are unknown.
There are many different methods of transcribing Irish traditional music and the one I have chosen to use will not please everyone. However, I hope it will give easy access to the tunes for anyone interested in playing them. For anyone new to Irish music who would like to explore further, the best way to learn is to find a good teacher. If that isn’t possible, there are many excellent primers available. For fiddle I would recommend
The Irish Fiddle Book,
by Matt Crannitch.
Aengus Óg
(A-ehn-gus Ohg)—Celtic god of love, youth, and beauty.
Amadán
(AHM-uh-daw
*
n, AHM-uh-don)—Fool, idiot.
Bodhrán
(bo-rahn, bow-rawn)—A traditional Irish drum made from goatskin.
Burren
(taken from the Irish word
Boireann)
—Great limestone barrier that spans the landscape of Ireland’s County Clare.
Camogie
(cam-ohg-ee)—The women’s version of hurling, which is a very old and very fast ball game.
Céilí
(KAY-lee, KAY
*
-li-he)—A dance.
Ciaran
(KEER-ahn, KEE a rahn)—Ciaran Byrne, J.J. Liddy’s father.
Craic
(CRACK)—Fun
Dagda
, the (Dah dah, däg’du, dahg-dah)—Son of the goddess
Danu
and father of Aengus Óg, the Dagda is referred to as
The Good God
. He was the ruler and protector of the Tuatha de Danaan.
Diarmuid
(deer + mid)—Raised by Aengus Óg, Diarmuid was a warrior of the Fianna who had a magic love mark on his head. Any woman to see the mark would instantly fall in love with him, including Gráinne, the bride of Fionn mac Cumhail who ran away with Diarmuid.
Fianna
(fee + ina, Fee’awn’a, fee-anna, FEEN-oh)—Legendary army of Irish warriors who served the High King of Ireland.
Fionn mac Cumhail
(fin, FYOON, Fee’nn / McCool)—The most heroic and celebrated leader of the Fianna.
Fleadh
(Flaa, Flah)—A festival. A competition for Irish traditional music.
GAA
—Gaelic Athletic Association. The governing body of Irish sports (hurling and Gaelic football).
Garda
(GAHR-duh, gar’-da, GAR-dah, GORR-doh, gorda)—Irish policeman.
Gardai
(gar-DEE, GORR-DEE, gawr-dhee)—Plural form of policeman.
Garda
Síochána
(shee-oh-CAHN-nah, shee-uch-awna)—Ireland’s national police force.
Gráinne
(GRAWNyeah, grawn’-ya)—The bride of Fionn mac Cumhail, Gráinne fell in love with Diarmuid and cast a spell to persuade him to betray Fionn mac Cumhail and run away with her.
Hornpipe
—A dance tune in common time but with a distinctly different rhythm from a reel.
Hundredth monkey
—A scientific experiment showed that when a certain number of monkeys learned a new skill, the entire species learned it, even though most of them had never seen the skill used.
Jig
—A dance tune in 6/8 time. A slip jig is in 9/8 time.
Merrows
(from Gaelic murúch, or murrough)—Merpeople.
Oisín
(oh’-sheen, uh-sheen)—Son of Fionn mac Cumhail, Oisín was a poet and warrior of the Fianna who went to live in Tír na n’Óg for what seemed to him three years. When he attempted to return to his homeland he discovered that three hundred years had actually passed.
Púka
(pooka, phooka)—A mythical creature that appears in the form of a goat.
Rath
(rah, rath)—Fairy fort or ring.
Reel
—A dance tune in common time.
Sean nós
(shan nohs)—Literally “old style.” There are sean nós forms of singing and of dancing.
Set dance
—A dance with eight people, which has a number of different parts.
Sidhe
(she, shee)—An old word, literally meaning a hill, for the fairy folk.
Souterrain
—An underground chamber or series of chambers, commonly found in ancient Irish ring forts.
Tír na n’Óg
(teer na nogue, Tier nah Nohg)—The Land of Eternal Youth.