00:00 - The importance of expectations in Irish sessions
02:11 - What a session means today versus when Donal started
05:34 - Different expectations across generations and skill levels
06:40 - The challenges of meeting diverse expectations in sessions
07:10 - The significance of structure, etiquette, and environment
08:35 - Creating the ideal session environment for musicians and listeners
09:27 - The energy transfer between musicians and the audience
10:49 - The role of variety in dance music and the inclusion of songs
11:17 - Encouraging sharing of songs and dance in sessions
12:46 - The purpose of music as a vehicle for dance and community
13:12 - Personal reflections on dancing and the culture surrounding it
14:45 - Changes in session pacing with age and experience
15:22 - How tempo and mood influence performance and enjoyment
16:00 - Respecting space, inclusion, and unwritten rules in sessions
17:29 - The Belfast Trad Festival's session trail and the importance of reservation systems
18:56 - The impact of summer school and the importance of mentorship
19:09 - The role of master musicians in shaping tradition and passing on skills
20:10 - The “In Tune With Tradition” immersive experience in Donegal and Sligo
20:40 - The gender balance in Irish sessions and inclusivity efforts
22:23 - Challenges faced by women in traditional music scenes
23:50 - How social dynamics and safety concerns influence participation
25:33 - Providing spaces for younger and diverse musicians
28:20 - Curating sessions to foster learning, respect, and community
30:11 - Innovative session formats like listening sessions
31:05 - The importance of reservation and environment control in sessions
32:28 - Taking responsibility for one’s own session experience
34:01 - The value of informal jams and the social aspect of sessions
36:14 - Building relationships through music and storytelling
37:44 - The journey and shared history of musicians
38:11 - Concluding thoughts on respectful participation and community building
Conversational Transcript
*[This is an edited conversational transcript, lightly shaped for readability while keeping the spirit of the original conversation]
What does an Irish music session mean?
Tara:
Today I am in Belfast with a fantastic fiddle player and multi-instrumental musician.
Fiddle is his main instrument, but piano, guitar, you name it. He is also the artistic director of Belfast Trad Festival, and he is from the Cooley Mountains in County Louth, Ireland’s smallest county.
Donal:
Small but deadly, we say.
Tara:
Welcome, Donal O’Connor. Thank you so much for meeting up with me.
What does an Irish traditional music session mean to you?
Donal:
That is a very complex subject.
It has meant different things to me over the years.
At the moment, it means an opportunity to spend some time with people I like, which always helps.
Musicians I like to listen to and play with.
It is a chance to dust off old tunes I might never think of starting myself, tunes other people draw out of you. That is a lovely thing about a session.
It is also a chance to try out some new tunes I have been learning myself, because otherwise you forget them if you do not get playing them.
So that is what it means to me now.
When I was younger, it meant something very different.
Arriving in Belfast as a young musician
Donal:
When I first arrived in Belfast, I was seventeen. That was 1996.
I had a fairly limited repertoire.
I had my own family tunes, my céilí band tunes, and my grandmother Rose’s tunes that she taught us.
But they were not the same tunes as the tunes being played in the sessions in Belfast.
I discovered that quickly.
So I would come up and spend a lot of time with the fiddle on my knee, if I was brave enough to take the fiddle out in the first place.
It took encouragement from older, well-established musicians to invite me to take the instrument out of the case.
I think particularly of people like Brendan O’Hare, Andy Dixon and Davy McGuire.
There were also younger musicians, still slightly older than me, who were encouraging: Jason O’Rourke and Jim Rainey.
Then there were musicians my age, Ruairi O’Kane and Aidan Walsh, and we were all studying at Queen’s together.
At that stage, a session meant a chance to get out, meet people, drink a load of pints, free pints in many cases, and learn a load of tunes.
As a student, you were skint, so you were delighted to get a couple of free pints.
Listening before recording devices
Donal:
I distinctly remember nights in the Rotterdam Bar, sitting with the fiddle on the table for three-quarters of the session.
We definitely did not have mobile phones yet, and I do not think I carried a recording device around.
So I was just listening.
Then somebody might give you a tape.
They would say, “There was a tape made of a session in the Hatfield a couple of weeks ago.”
You would listen to that and try to pick up the tunes.
You were building repertoire.
You were not thinking deeply about what a session meant.
You were just delighted to be out and doing it.
Why Donal is more selective about sessions now
Donal:
At this stage of my life, I am a little more anxious about going into town off the cuff with an instrument and landing into a pub.
I do not really want to waste an entire evening having a bad time.
There are brilliant musicians I am very friendly with and fond of, and if I see them, that is great.
But I have had experiences where you go in and it is just not that enjoyable.
It is hard to pinpoint why, except to say that the structure and notion of a session is very different now to what it was when I was growing up.
I have been thinking deeply about what makes a good session for a long time.
The word expectations is important.
Everybody comes to a session with a different expectation.
Different expectations in the same room
Donal:
The young musician, maybe out of a summer school class or weekly fiddle or flute class, has an expectation that they would love to get playing their new tunes.
The older or more experienced musician has a very different expectation.
In an ideal world, they would love a quiet corner in a bar, three, four, maximum five musicians, all with great repertoires and a bit of cop on about passing the thing around, with plenty of craic.
Then somewhere in the middle you have adult learners and intermediate musicians who just want to be in the middle of a big session, with as many musicians as possible, having a blast.
That is grand too.
The problem comes when all these different types of people arrive with very different expectations, and some of those expectations are not met.
The young musician may feel excluded.
The older, experienced musician may feel trampled upon and not given space to do what they want to do.
That can lead to a fairly flat experience for many people.
From “session etiquette” to “what makes a good session?”
Donal:
When we started Belfast Trad Festival, we had summer school classes in the morning and talks, lectures, discussions and screenings in the afternoon.
One of the things I wanted to do was have a discussion about sessions.
In the early years we called it “session etiquette.”
Over time, I found that was maybe too much for some people.
The people who came along were the people who already understood what session etiquette was.
The people who needed to hear what was being said avoided it.
“Session etiquette” can sound stuffy, hierarchical or formal.
Tara:
Pointing fingers.
Donal:
Exactly.
So we changed it.
In the last couple of years, and this year, we call it “What makes for a good session?”
That makes it a positive thing.
What are the ingredients of a good session?
A good room with good acoustic.
No TVs blaring sports.
A nice seating area.
Access to the bar.
A space where people can enjoy and listen to the session without one thing overriding the other.
The best sessions I have ever had are where the music is brilliant, the company is fantastic, and the room is enjoying it.
When the listeners are having a great time, bopping, bouncing, foot-tapping and enjoying the music, that feeds back into the music.
It gives the music an energy it would not otherwise have.
The conversation between musicians and listeners
Donal:
A session is a conversation between musicians on a musical level.
But there is also a conversation between musicians and listeners, and between listeners back to the musicians.
That energy transfer is thrilling.
As a musician, no matter where I am playing, I look around to see whether it is having an effect on anybody.
Is there a foot being tapped?
Sometimes you play music and it is background music. Nobody is listening.
You might be playing at a conference, corporate event, birthday, wedding or family occasion where traditional music is not really their thing.
That is serving a purpose, but it may have no effect.
Other times, you are playing and feet are tapping, shoulders are moving, and somebody gets up to do a step.
The best sessions are where all of that happens.
Donal:
For me, the ideal session has great dance music and variety.
Reels, jigs, hornpipes, slides, polkas, barndances, highlands, strathspeys, marches, you name it.
Song is also very important.
Many times, you find sessions where there is not even a single song.
And dance matters too.
We ran a session in a bar on the Antrim Road for a couple of years, and I actively encouraged people in the room to strike up a song from wherever they were.
They could be sitting on a high stool at the bar, and we would call them for a song.
We also encouraged set dancers to come along after their class.
It was a full 360 experience: great instrumental music, songs, dancing, and everybody having a great time.
That, to me, is an ideal session.
Tara:
I interviewed Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh recently, and she mentioned that if there is a song interjected into the session, people enjoy the music even more afterwards.
It is like tasting wine and rinsing your mouth before the next one.
Donal:
I agree entirely.
Contrast is a great thing.
Generally, a song will command more listening respect, if it is appreciated and managed right in the room.
The noise level and conversation come down to pin-drop silence.
Then, when the tunes start up again, there is more appreciation for them.
So I think she is absolutely right.
Music as a vehicle for dance
Tara:
And it is dance music too.
Donal:
When you ask yourself deeply why you play traditional music, I remember my grandmother Rose, who taught me the fiddle.
She would always say, “There is no point in the music unless people can dance to it.”
She was talking about pace.
If you were playing jigs, reels, slip jigs or single jigs at a pace that was not suitable for dancers, what was the point?
As a young musician, I did not really understand the significance of that.
Now I feel very much that the music has its full meaning when it is a vehicle for dance.
It gives the music full justification when you see people breaking out and dancing.
Tara:
Do you find your pace has changed as you have got older?
Donal:
Maybe a bit.
People always said the sessions in Belfast were very fast, and I enjoyed that.
I still do.
But I am not playing sessions as regularly now, so if it is high tempo, the hands can be stiff.
It can be physically demanding.
I still like to lash out a few tunes at a good high tempo if the right conditions exist.
I also like to play music slower on occasion.
It depends on your mood and the company you are in.
I would not go into a session with older musicians who do not play fast and start horsing out tunes.
I have seen people do that, and it is a bit rude.
It is like coming into a conversation people are having at a certain pace and starting to roar, shout or raise the tempo.
One thing that can be missed now is awareness of what is already around you.
Be aware of what is there before you arrive.
Respect as a session value
Donal:
Even when someone new comes into the session, be aware of where they are in their life, mood, music and pacing.
I always try to be respectful of that.
Respect is a big word in sessions and playing with other people.
Respectful, and listening as much as wanting to play.
When I was growing up, if a session was taking place and you were invited along, one thing you certainly would not have done was barge in and take a seat without being asked.
You would have hovered at the fringes with your fiddle case in your hand, hoping that one of the older established musicians would look at you, give you the nod, or say, “Sit in here beside me.”
That was how you entered.
We would not have taken the instrument out of the case unless we were asked to as kids and young people.
I know that sounds old fogey-ish.
Younger people do not like being told, “It was better in the old days,” and I totally understand that.
So I try not to do that.
The Belfast Trad Festival session trail
Donal:
During Belfast Trad Festival, we run a session trail sponsored by Dunville’s Irish Whiskey.
This year the session trail has 103 sessions.
It is growing very quickly.
The pubs in Belfast now really see the value of traditional music.
They are keen to support it and have it in their establishments.
They see that it creates a nice atmosphere, brings in nice people and invites tourists.
This year, there will be over 200 musicians paid to play in pubs.
We also have 56 tutors teaching in the summer school, and they do some of these sessions.
One challenge is that all the young and not-so-young musicians at the summer school are mad to sit into a session with Mary Bergin, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Sinéad McKenna or the other brilliant musicians we have teaching.
The session fills up very quickly.
Then the three programmed musicians sometimes hardly get to start a tune or play with each other.
They have been teaching all day and looking forward to making music with the other named musicians on the programme.
It can be a disappointment.
We started getting feedback from tutors saying, “Do not put me into any sessions. I could not be bothered with that.”
When a session becomes an extension of teaching
Tara:
It becomes an extension of teaching rather than down time.
Donal:
Exactly.
There has to be a learning element in a session, but it is up to the individual to manage that.
It is not really the responsibility of older musicians to teach people in a session.
My dad always said, “Practice is for at home.”
Come and listen, learn and appreciate.
I have heard people say a session is a meritocracy.
You defer to the more experienced, to the established people, to those who know more and have invested more of their time and life in learning the art and craft.
Why would we not sit and appreciate that?
I was very lucky growing up to spend time with master musician Maurice Bradley, who sadly passed away recently.
To listen to how he introduced different repertoires depending on the instrument he played was a huge thing.
As a fiddler, he had County Derry and Donegal music.
As a piper, he had a different repertoire.
I even heard him play accordion on occasion.
To defer to him made sense.
To respect him and listen to him was why you were there.
Tara:
Some of the greats you mentioned earlier, like Andy Dixon, were so generous.
I remember coming to Belfast in my twenties, and they were just lovely.
Donal:
Andy was very encouraging.
But Andy would also let people know if they were doing something that was taking away from everybody else’s enjoyment.
So would Brendan and some of the others.
I think things have changed in the age of mobile phones and people being more careful.
People are more afraid now to say something to somebody who has come in, taken over the session, played all their own repertoire and does not care whether anyone else joins.
People are afraid to call that out.
When I was growing up, you would have been called out.
Now people often say, “I do not want confrontation. I do not want a row. I do not want to be accused of being a snob.”
So they let it go.
Or they put the instrument on the table and go to the bar.
Or they put the instrument in the case and leave.
If younger musicians see an older musician pack up and leave, it might be because they are not having a great time.
Teenage musicians and lack of performing spaces
Tara:
I have seen festivals where groups of young musicians go into one pub, play a load of tunes, do not interact with the musicians already there, then move to the next pub and do the same.
It is not enjoyable for the kids or for the people whose session has been taken over.
Donal:
There are a couple of things at play there.
At Trad Fest, we hear that teens do not have a space to go and play.
The pubs in the north have different rules to the pubs in the south.
Unless a pub serves food, young people are not supposed to be in, and if it does serve food, they are supposed to be out by nine o’clock.
So we have tried to provide spaces for teen sessions, junior sessions and slow sessions.
We have sessions in places like Ulster University and Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, so people of all ages can go and enjoy that.
I understand the situation where parents drop kids into a session or into another corner of a pub where there is already a session.
The kids play, get up, leave and do the same somewhere else.
That comes from lack of understanding.
Some people involved in traditional music in a teaching or school environment think a great session is piling all the kids into a bar and having them play tunes.
There is no real engagement with the older musicians.
That goes back to expectations.
That might be their expectation of a really good session, but there may be a lack of awareness of other expectations in the room.
Belfast Trad Festival and the listening session idea
Tara:
You have talks and discussions during Belfast Trad Festival.
Donal:
We have done that from day one.
We have had brilliant musicians sit in on discussions and give their viewpoints.
Some of the best conversations have been where musicians had very different ideas of what a session should be.
Some believed in peace and love, and that everybody should be allowed to do whatever they want.
Others had very strong opinions the other way.
One thing we had to address was feedback from tutors who did not want to be put into sessions because they had too much hassle.
I consulted widely and asked if anyone had experience of rules or structures being put in place to help this.
Tara:
The last thing you want to do is put extra rules in place.
Donal:
Absolutely.
Then somebody has to enforce them.
But people mentioned a festival in the States that had something called a listening session.
It was severe.
Only the three booked musicians were allowed to play, and everybody else sat and listened.
That puts more pressure on the three musicians and becomes more performance-focused.
So I wondered if we could have a hybrid.
The céilí house style session
Donal:
We decided to introduce something we call the céilí house style session.
It is a listening session for the first half of the session.
We programme two-hour sessions, though they can run longer if people are having a good time.
For the first hour, it is a listening hour.
The master musicians set the scene and play.
They are encouraged to invite other people to join at any point.
It does not have to last the full hour.
They might play one set together, then invite someone in.
But we hope a culture develops where people realise these three musicians have been asked to come, they have been programmed, and they have been looking forward to making music with each other.
So leave them at it for a little bit.
Then the invites come.
Someone starts a tune, someone else comes in, and it flows into a more normal session, but with respect for the three programmed musicians.
Reserving space for programmed musicians
Tara:
Did you find that seats were taken up and the musicians could not even get in?
Donal:
Yes.
We now have a team that goes around in advance and makes sure seats are held.
One of the worst things as a programmed musician at a festival is to make your way to the pub to play with two other musicians, and find there is no seat for you.
If other musicians are in the seats, you do not know whether it is out of place to say, “By the way, I am one of the named musicians.”
It feels horrible.
If regular drinkers are in the seats, it is also awful to ask them to move because you are a musician.
They may be disgruntled.
So we try hard to ensure seats are reserved.
There might be a reserved sign on the table.
That helps the musician have as good an experience as possible when entering the session.
If everywhere smells of poo
Tara:
It goes back to what you said earlier, that if you do not get out to sessions often, you want the one you go to to be good.
Donal:
Yes, although much of that is up to ourselves.
You can go around with a dark cloud where every session is bad.
Somebody said, “If everywhere you go smells of poo, it is time to look under your own foot.”
That is very good advice.
You can go out to a session in bad form and you are not going to have a good time anyway.
Or you can go to what might be a bad session in good form and make a good night of it.
But as you get older, if you have a young family, work and other pressures, and you take an evening out to play tunes, you do not want to sit there having a bad time.
Playing with friends without guilt
Donal:
At this point in my life, the best sessions in Belfast are often when I have a Friday afternoon or evening free and I text a few friends.
Ruairi O’Kane, the brother Maguire, Darragh Murphy, whoever it might be.
We might go into the American Bar or Madden’s Bar, find a corner and play tunes.
Nobody is getting paid. There may not even be free drink.
Sometimes the publican will throw up a few drinks if people are enjoying the music.
I find that very pleasurable.
It might seem exclusive, like we are just playing on our own and not interested in playing with others.
It is not that.
It is just that if you take the time out, you want to have a good time.
Tara:
That is not something you should feel guilty about.
Musicians who have been playing for thirty years should be allowed to enjoy it too.
Donal:
Yes.
But there is also an onus to pass on the music.
The work I do at Belfast Trad Festival is about passing on the tradition, promoting it, preserving it, cherishing it and celebrating it.
So it goes back to expectations.
If three people arrive with three different expectations, two may be disappointed.
Or all three may be disappointed.
Or maybe they find a way to compromise and all have a great time.
The tapestry of a session
Donal:
When I was growing up, there were sessions in Dundalk where my father played.
We would be brought along.
There were amazing musicians, and there were local musicians who were not amazing technicians or brilliant instrumentalists.
But they generally had something to offer.
Maybe they were characters.
Maybe they had a funny story or a song.
Maybe they were just really good company.
Everybody brought something different to the table.
That tapestry of different perspectives, characters and influences is the enriching thing about a session.
Donal:
The chat between tunes is equally as important as the tunes.
Sometimes that is forgotten.
You can be in a session where one set finishes, and before you have lifted your glass, another tune sparks up.
That is okay occasionally.
But if it happens all night, it can drive people around the bend.
You need a break.
The little asides, chats and stories matter.
At the end of a set, somebody might ask, “What was the name of that last tune?” or “What was the name of that first tune?”
Then people think deeply, and suddenly a whole conversation sparks.
That is enjoyable.
Tara:
And that conversation sparks other tunes.
“Do you remember so-and-so used to play that with that?”
Donal:
Exactly.
It is the journey thing.
People drag tunes out of the back of your head that you did not know you remembered, or had not played in twenty years.
That is thrilling.
You are trying to get your brain and fingers to communicate, trying to remember versions of tunes you played with different people.
If it is just pump out tune after tune after tune, it misses that discourse and journey.
Awful sessions and hard comments
Tara:
Can you describe a session that was pretty awful?
Have you ever been the person to deliver the bombshell to somebody and say stop?
Donal:
I have been in lots of scenarios where there has been confrontation.
Some were not too confrontational, and some were quite dangerous.
I remember a session where a good friend leaned into a rather out-of-time bodhrán player and said:
“I am sorry, sir, but time is not on your side.”
I thought that was a great line.
It seemed to resonate, and the bodhrán went back in the case.
A percussion instrument is there to keep time.
If it is not keeping time, it is a problem.
Tara:
They are like a heartbeat when it is clocking in behind the music.
Donal:
When you play with a brilliant bodhrán player and they are in the tune, the pulse, the heartbeat and the rhythm, they can sometimes dictate where it goes.
That can be a bad thing, but it can also be brilliant.
When there is synergy between instrumental players, percussion players and chordal players, there is nothing like it.
It is like floating on clouds.
You feel suspended, and the music can go anywhere.
It can be thrilling.
When people were asked to stop
Donal:
I remember being at a Fleadh with a family member, and in one session about six different people were asked to stop playing at different times.
I was maybe thirteen, fourteen or fifteen.
It was awkward and uncomfortable.
But the older musicians were very happy when those people left.
I do not know if that happens anymore.
I am not necessarily espousing it.
Now, I tend to think life is too short. I will put the fiddle away and maybe get a better session next week.
But there are people for whom this might be the only time they take the instrument out publicly that week or month, and it can really drive them round the bend.
The gutties in the tumble dryer
Donal:
I remember a bodhrán player being told he sounded like a pair of gutties in the tumble dryer. (gutties = trainers / sneakers)
That was an interesting way of describing it.
When you thought about it, you could hear it.
Again, it resonated, and the bodhrán went back in the case.
There are subtle ways things happen too.
The session can physically shift away from the player.
Shoulders turn, seats pull tighter together.
Sometimes the four or five musicians playing pack up and move to an upstairs room to start another session.
I have been in that situation.
I generally try not to offend or insult anyone or show disrespect, because it can really hurt.
I have been in situations where I was made feel unwelcome too.
I am familiar with it from all sides.
Tara:
We have all had something done to us, and probably done something ourselves.
Maybe this podcast series is to make amends.
Donal:
You are salving your conscience, Tara.
Maybe we all are.
Another factor in pub sessions is alcohol.
People can be drunk.
I have been guilty of that, and I have witnessed it.
Drink can heighten the experience and heighten anxiety.
People can behave in all sorts of ways after a couple of drinks or many drinks.
I have also been in sessions where musicians were not drinking because they were too hungover to drink, and that is a different experience.
People can be prickly.
There are a lot of factors at play.
Advice for joining a session
Tara:
What advice would you give someone who is learning and wants to join a session?
When should they think about joining, or starting a tune?
Donal:
It is good policy to enter cautiously.
Find a seat or stool at the edge of the session, at the fringe, if you are a learner.
Listen.
It is good to have the instrument out in case a tune comes up that you know and want to play along with.
But come in and listen for a bit.
Identify the core musicians.
Who seems to be leading or running the session?
Make your way towards the edge and try to catch somebody’s attention.
Ask, “Is it okay if I pull up a stool here?” or “Is it okay if I sit into this seat at the edge?”
Generally, you will get a friendly response.
It is appreciated when you ask, rather than just rocking up, taking out the instrument and starting to play a tune.
In terms of starting a tune, I think it is good policy to wait and be asked.
I would not go into a session with other people and just start playing tunes without being asked, and I have been playing far too long.
No one likes being called out
Tara:
These things are not usually discussed.
You do not sit down in a session and say, “We do not start tunes on our own here,” because people might think you are pointing fingers.
Donal:
Nobody likes calling out, and nobody likes being called out.
That is one reason we introduced the céilí house listening session idea at Trad Fest.
Musicians have something to fall back on.
It is not them saying, “You are expected to listen for the first bit.”
It is how this festival works.
It is not that somebody has contravened rule 6.1 of the session etiquette book by Tara Connaghan.
Ciaran Carson did discuss session etiquette in a mini book for the Arts Council, and he did it in a humorous way.
If you can put humour into it, that always helps.
There is no rule book yet, Tara, but I hear you are working on it.
Tara:
It might not be called a rule book.
Maybe a guide.
That is why I am doing the podcast series.
It is not just my opinion.
Donal:
That would be useful, although people will object to things.
It also depends how seriously you take sessions.
For some people, their Friday night session is incredibly serious.
It is important.
It is a social outlet.
Someone might live alone, and that is their one time in the week with people.
Others have big families, big jobs and big stress, and that is their one time to unwind.
If somebody comes along and wrecks that experience, they will not be pleased.
Not all disruption is accidental
Tara:
I am sure people do not mean to wreck it.
They are not doing it on purpose.
Donal:
Sometimes they are.
You can be oblivious or ignorant once, twice, maybe three times.
But if you do it consistently, it is not really oblivious anymore.
It is just not caring.
Of course, there are many people who are oblivious and do not mean it.
How can you learn these things unless there is somewhere to learn them or somebody talking about them?
That is why the podcast is a worthwhile endeavour.
It will be a great source for people.
I am sure you will get very different experiences and opinions from everyone you speak to.
But you will probably find a common thread around what constitutes a good experience and a good session.
Belfast Trad Festival and Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann
Donal:
We have 104 sessions in our session trail, in over twenty of the best pubs and non-pub spaces in Belfast.
There are over 200 musicians on the trail.
The summer school takes place in Ulster University, where we are in partnership.
They have a brand new building in the city centre, in the Cathedral Quarter.
It is a beautiful space for a summer school.
The student accommodation is directly across the road, so if you come here, you can park up for the week, sign up for the classes and potter around the Cathedral Quarter, the bars, restaurants and venues.
It is a different summer school experience.
It is an urban summer school, with classes in the morning, talks, lectures, workshops and family céilís in the afternoon, and concerts and céilís throughout the city at night.
It all kicks off with the Titanic Céilí on the Titanic Slipways.
It is a free family event with music, singers, bodhrán circles, pipe bands, and then everybody dances a céilí at the end.
Next year, we may put in for a Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest céilí.
Belfast as a UNESCO City of Music
Donal:
Fleadh Cheoil is coming to Belfast in August, which is huge for the city.
We could not have imagined it ten years ago.
Belfast is a UNESCO City of Music, and that is a useful label for attracting people to the city.
Belfast is becoming famous for music of all shades and hues.
Trad Fest is a pop-up circus in the summer, but we are trying to reflect and amplify what happens in the city throughout the year.
There is brilliant work being done by Belfast Trad, the Glengormley School of Traditional Music, Andersonstown School of Traditional and Contemporary Music, Ards Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, Scoil na Fuiseoige, Music Service for Pipes and Drums, the RSPBANI and many others.
We are a cross-cultural, cross-traditions charity and festival.
We have been trying to bring people together through traditional music of all kinds.
Piping and drumming are a big part of the summer school and festival.
We have people from the marching band tradition involved in talks, lectures and events.
We are trying to break down perceived barriers.
Before the Troubles, some of those barriers may not have existed in the same way.
But the Troubles polarised many things here, especially in urban centres in the north.
Music became perceived as belonging to one side or the other.
Pipe and drumming was seen as one side, while fiddles and flutes were seen as the other.
Through the work we are doing, we are getting to know people from different worlds of traditional music, building relationships, making friendships and bringing people together through traditional music.
Are men more likely to display poor session etiquette?
Tara:
The previous guest left you a question.
Are men more likely to display poor session etiquette than women?
Donal:
My answer is going to be biased because I am a man.
I have seen bad etiquette by all genders and none.
It is interesting when you look at the numbers.
We have just programmed 104 sessions and worked very hard to get gender balance.
If you go around sessions in Belfast, the majority of the musicians are male.
However, there are more female musicians learning traditional music in Belfast than male musicians.
We see that across the board when teaching.
So we have to ask why that is.
We work very hard to programme proactively, and even with that approach, we got to around 190 musicians and about 70 of them were female.
We are nearly there, but not at fifty-fifty.
It is something we need to keep working on.
Why do girls fall away from sessions?
Tara:
I have always wondered why in a fiddle class there might be 80 percent girls and 20 percent boys, but later maybe 50 percent of the boys continue and only 5 percent of the girls do.
For me, I needed friends who played.
I met Meabh O’Hare at the Frankie Kennedy Festival when I was about sixteen, and we clicked.
This was before mobile phones, so we wrote to each other or phoned on landlines.
She became my session buddy.
Maybe girls find it harder to have session buddies.
Donal:
It is like swimming against the tide.
If you go around Belfast, it is not a fifty-fifty split in sessions.
If you are the one female going into a session, that could be intimidating.
Tara:
Whereas I would have thought that was brilliant when I was young.
Donal:
There are different ways of looking at it.
I know a lot of brilliant young female traditional musicians who come to Belfast for university and do not take out their instruments.
In the same way, I came to Belfast in 1996 and maybe did not take the fiddle out for a year.
There may be intimidation, confidence and resilience involved.
There is also the element of danger or threat around walking home alone at night.
I do not know how you counteract that.
Safety and session access
Tara:
Saoirse Ronan was on the Graham Norton show with Paul Mescal, and someone mentioned having something in your pocket in case somebody attacked you.
Saoirse said that is what girls have to do all the time.
As a fiddle player, I always carried nail scissors in my trouser pocket because my nails needed to be short.
But I would have my hand on them if I was walking home alone.
Donal:
That is not the same for men.
Walking home alone at night in Belfast during the Troubles was something none of us really did without being careful.
But it is obviously a factor in why brilliant young female musicians may not come out to sessions, and why some fall away from the music.
You need the session thing.
It is good for your playing and repertoire.
It is also a network-building exercise.
You meet musicians, get opportunities, and maybe put a band together with people you have played with in sessions for years.
Tara:
I never felt threatened in sessions.
Most of my male counterparts, or those I looked up to, were like father figures.
They looked out for me and would offer me a lift home.
Donal:
I think males and females can misbehave in sessions.
Because there are more males in sessions, maybe there are more males who misbehave.
That is a statistical question.
Maybe we need a study on this.
Tara:
That can be your project.
Thank you so much, Donal.
I am looking forward to the tunes tonight.
Donal:
Thank you, Tara.
It was great to chat.
Likewise.
Donal O’Connor brings one of the clearest words yet to this conversation: expectations.
That word explains a lot.
A session can go wrong not because anyone is deliberately trying to wreck it, but because different people arrive wanting completely different things.
The young musician wants to play the tunes they have just learned.
The adult learner wants to be included.
The intermediate player wants the buzz of a big shared session.
The older or more experienced musician may want a smaller circle, deep repertoire, good listening, chat, space and musical lift.
None of those expectations are automatically wrong.
The trouble begins when nobody realises the others exist.
That is why Donal’s perspective as both musician and festival director is useful. He is not only thinking about one person’s good night out. He is thinking about rooms, pubs, programmed musicians, tutors, young players, adult learners, listeners, bar staff, session trails, safety, gender balance, teenagers, dancing, singing and the wider cultural life of Belfast.
A session is not just a pile of musicians in a corner.
It is a social structure.
It needs space, timing, room awareness, respect and some shared understanding of what kind of session is happening.
Donal is clear that master musicians need space too. That is not snobbery. It is not exclusion for the sake of exclusion. It is recognising that people who have given their lives to the music also need to feed their own musical hunger.
At the same time, he is equally clear that the tradition has to be passed on.
That is the difficult balance.
Make room for learners, but do not turn every session into a class.
Respect younger musicians, but do not let them trample the people already there.
Honour the elders, but do not freeze the tradition into a museum piece.
Let the music be open, but not shapeless.
For me, one of the strongest parts of this episode is Donal’s description of a full session: tunes, songs, dancing, listeners, chat, rhythm, humour, bar staff, room energy and musicians feeding off all of it.
That is the thing we are trying to protect.
Not rules for the sake of rules.
Not hierarchy for the sake of hierarchy.
The shared conditions that allow the music to become more than the notes.
*Produced & recorded by Tara Connaghan and edited by Anita Alvarez Santos
*Intro music: live recording of Donal O'Connor and Tara Connaghan
https://www.belfasttraditionalmusic.com/
https://fleadhcheoil.ie/
Sé Mo Laoch, TG4
Glengormley School of Traditional Music
https://rspbani.org/
Ards CCE
Scoil na Fuiseoige
Session Etiquette Questionnaire
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