00:00 Introduction to Irish Traditional Music Sessions
03:04 The Essence of an Irish Traditional Music Session
08:40 The Role of Dancers and Listeners in Sessions
11:12 Challenges for Beginners in Music Sessions
16:25 Navigating Intermediate Challenges in Sessions
22:23 The Importance of Listening in Sessions
26:18 Session Etiquette and Group Dynamics
32:23 The Architecture of a Session
37:41 The Collective Experience of Music
42:56 The Disconnect Between Dance and Music
48:11 The Impact of COVID-19 on Music Sessions
56:59 Commercialisation of Traditional Music
01:02:19 Closing Thoughts and Audience Engagement
Conversational Transcript
*[This is an edited conversational transcript, lightly shaped for readability while keeping the spirit of the original conversation]
Tara:
It is a pleasure to be back in Ennis.
I was just thinking earlier that three of us on this panel have been former committee members of this festival. Myself and Carmel ran it a long time ago, and Siobhán has only recently given it up.
So it is really good to be here.
Hello and welcome to In Tune with Tradition. I am thrilled to have three amazing guests here today. The format is that I will ask the first question I always ask, which is: what does an Irish traditional music session mean to you?
Then we will go through a couple of other questions and open it up to the floor.
One of the things I have been thinking about in the last week is that Irish music has created a sort of void around etiquette because we have avoided the subject. And when you avoid something, you create a void.
I think the reason this podcast has taken off is because people are craving a little bit of knowledge, or a little bit of conversation, instead of it all feeling hush-hush and behind closed doors.
So I will start with Siobhán.
What does an Irish traditional music session mean to you?
What does a session mean to Siobhán Peoples?
Siobhán:
It depends.
There are the sessions I play at every week, and then there is the session you join into when you are not working. You have two different heads for those.
When we are doing a session, it is important to keep it going and be in good shape if possible. You have to be on the ball and try to get everyone into the same headspace if you can.
But if I am joining a session, I have different criteria altogether.
I have the speed I like to play at. I like playing for dancing, so it is lively.
If I sat into a session and it was at a more relaxed pace, I would be very conscious of that. I would not start tunes and launch into my own speed. I know I would build it up, even subconsciously, because you go back to what you know.
That is one thing I would hate to do: impose myself unwittingly on someone else’s session.
A session is a great social gathering where people come together. You might have five people, or you might have fifteen people, and all those voices from different instruments are hopefully aiming for one place where we all come together.
It is like a choir.
You do not want to be the person who takes off and gives it socks like a soloist in a group.
It is very important to be aware that it is a group effort.
Because it is Ennis, and Ennis is well known for sessions, we get a lot of visitors. I call them musical tourists. These are people who save up to come to Ireland to play in as many sessions as possible.
But sometimes people come into a session thinking about themselves, or what they can get from it.
A session is a combined effort. If it is not, it can be an awful struggle.
It is important that everyone is listening. Really listening.
What does a session mean to Autumn Rhodes?
Tara:
Autumn, what does an Irish music session mean for you?
Autumn:
For me, as an American, it is kind of the backbone of Irish music and the Irish musical scene.
We do not have as much of a set dancing or céilí dancing infrastructure, so often the only representation of Irish music in a town or city might be the local session.
It is one of the few times where people of all ages, walks of life, political views and philosophical viewpoints can come together, keep their differences out of things for the most part, and just play.
That is something American society is lacking. People do not have many intergenerational spaces.
It is nice when people can come together in that format and respect each other’s musicality, listen, not showboat, and explore the music while leaving space for conversation and connection between the tunes.
Not having it chock-a-block with tunes started every time there is the slightest breath.
For me, it is a very important social thing.
What does a session mean to Carmel Greene?
Tara:
Carmel, what about you? What does an Irish traditional music session mean to you?
Carmel:
If I was to use one word, it would be the lift.
Not the elevator now.
You know when you walk in and you hear the blend. You recognise the tunes, you know the changes, and it just lifts off. People are moving their shoulders and it is happening.
You do not really need to think about it.
Everybody is in it together. There is no showboating.
It is that bit of lift and nyah.
Sometimes there might be a song, or someone might stand up and dance. The music takes it away and finds its own pathway through the couple of hours.
But the one word would be the lift.
The listener’s body knows before the words arrive
Tara:
Carmel, you are a dancer, but you are also one of Ireland’s best listeners.
I was talking to someone last night and mentioned who was on the panel. They said, “Carmel Greene has the best life in the world because she has been to every session all over Ireland for the last thirty or forty years.”
When you were talking about what it meant to you, I could physically see you changing. You were getting excited. It was oozing out of you.
What are you feeling when you talk about the lift?
Carmel:
I do not know if I have a word for it.
It is just there. You know it.
You know the tunes in your head. You have heard them all your life. They work together. Brilliant musicians can bring that and put it all together.
It keeps you a happiness.
Tara:
I can see the excitement in your whole body. Maybe that is what keeps us all going back to sessions. You are looking for that excitement.
Carmel:
I think it comes together when the listeners are part of it too.
It is not them and us. Nearly everybody there wants to be there for that session, and they are nearly all part of it.
Tara:
Siobhán, what challenges might newcomers face when coming into a session for the first time?
Siobhán:
We all did it, so I can only speak from my own experience.
I was very lucky in Kilfenora. One of my best friends is one of the Nagles, Michelle. I could call to her place, and there could be a session hopping in the bar on a Tuesday morning at eleven o’clock.
I would go straight down for the fiddle and come back up.
You were always welcome.
There was no snobbery. Snobbery is the wrong word, but sometimes when you are a kid, people see children and think, “God, it is a pub. Has she any parents? Get her out of here.”
We never had that around Kilfenora.
It definitely was not like it is now, with so many children playing, which is fabulous to see.
But it is a very scary thing to walk into a session for the first time.
I have students, and I say, “Come in and sit beside us. I know what tunes you play.” Then we play some of those tunes.
If someone can bring you in for the first few times, that helps.
But everyone has the same challenge.
I could walk into a session in Gweedore and sit there for an hour and not know anything.
Just because it is your first time does not mean that will improve dramatically. If you want to play all night every night, stay in the same place.
It is like vocabulary. It is the local lingo.
Dancers, rhythm and the way into the tradition
Tara:
Carmel, what is a good entry point for dancers?
Carmel:
It depends whether you are a beginner or someone pretending they know seventy sets, which I definitely do not.
For a beginner, a class situation is good. A broad mix of experience in a set dancing class, where you are taught the rhythm, not just all the figures.
If you are doing a reel, it has to be to reel time and not polka time.
If you have that from the beginning, you will settle in anywhere.
There are loads of people who will take you up for a set.
But in some larger céilís, the floor can be full all the time and people keep the same place for the whole night. That lessens the opportunity for new people to join in.
If everybody is a really good dancer, you might be nervous.
You have to do loads of dancing at different levels.
If you get the rhythm at the start, and you can do one, two, three to the right rhythm, you will fit in anywhere.
If you cannot do it to the rhythm, take more classes. Hold back.
Tara:
Are there many opportunities to dance at sessions?
Carmel:
I do not want to be difficult here, but I love when that feel is there and someone wants to get up, even just for a few steps, or two people doing a bit of around the house.
I think it is really lovely.
It is less and less now, because spaces are crowded. But if the music gets you dancing, the link between the music and dancing is really important.
Tara:
I realised recently that I am actually a dancer longer than I am a musician, even though I am a bad dancer.
I love the rhythm. My dancing teacher used to bring out the good dancers and show them off. Then once she took me out and said, “Dance your hornpipe step there, Tara.”
She said to a musician, “Listen to this rhythm now. Never mind the feet.”
So I did not have feet, but I had rhythm.
When I am playing, I always feel like my feet are dancing.
Carmel:
There is a video of the West Clare Half Set from the seventies. The best way to watch it is with your eyes closed. It is just so together.
The rhythm fits in with the sound. Not one bang on the floor. Just pure dancing.
Challenges for intermediate musicians
Tara:
Autumn, what challenges do people in the intermediate stage face?
Autumn:
A lot of the issues at the intermediate stage come from trying to find a balance in the repertoire you are working on.
You have learned The Kerry Polka, you have learned The Kesh Jig, and then what do you learn next?
I did not have much guidance, so I was learning a lot of crazy modern tunes that the older men in the nearest city were frowning upon.
Even as an intermediate player, there can be barriers to entry if you have not had much experience joining sessions.
If you are travelling, you have to know how to approach it, how to read the room, and whether you can comfortably contribute to the session.
You have to work out whether you should start a tune, whether you are at the right level, whether it is even an open session.
There is so much body language to read.
There is still the social aspect. And as you improve, there are newer experiences, like playing for dancers, sets or sean-nós dancers.
You are trying to figure out what path you are taking to get to your next stage. What kind of player you want to be. How you want to fit into the community.
And you are trying not to come across as a showboater by playing complicated tunes you did not realise were complicated.
Sometimes you think you are ready for a complicated tune because you like the sound of it. But maybe keep that one for home until you are comfortable with it.
Flashy tunes and accidental solos
Tara:
One of my friends once heard somebody playing a very flashy hornpipe and said, “That sure sounds a lot more fun to play than it is to listen to.”
Autumn:
There are a lot of tunes like that.
You need to know when it is okay to do one of those tunes, when there is space for it, and when you should blend into the background and play the normal tunes.
Even now, if you start a tune that not everybody knows, it can be awkward. If you are not trying to show off, you may simply have made a bad call and not realised other people did not know the tune.
If you have not been to a lot of sessions, you will not necessarily know that.
It can be awkward accidentally doing a solo.
It is about reading the room and reading the people.
Tara:
If I am going into a session, I probably will not start a tune unless I am really comfortable with the people.
Autumn:
I consider myself a vampire at sessions.
Not that I suck everyone’s blood, although I do that as well.
But I do not tend to play unless someone specifically invites me in, unless I am hosting the session or on the gig, or unless it is a small session with good friends and we are not worried about twenty-seven people feeling included.
The dangerous intermediate
Autumn:
Some music teachers and I in the States call it the dangerous intermediate.
That is when someone has got past the beginning stage. They have gone beyond other beginners in their area and start thinking they know everything.
Then they feel, “I need to start everything now. I need to get all my tunes in tonight.”
They have not quite copped on that it is not about getting every tune in tonight.
There will be other sessions.
I grew up in a tiny area. The nearest session was more than an hour away. I struggled with that as a teenager. I did not get to play with people most of the time, so I wanted to play all the tunes.
But I figured out quickly that less is more.
It is not fair to other people in the session if one person keeps starting tunes all the time.
Tara:
Maybe we all go through that teenage phase, even adult learners. You get excited. You want to play as many tunes as possible at the fastest pace.
Autumn:
Absolutely.
It is the case with any subject. You start off knowing very little. Then you learn a bit and think you know loads. Then when you get advanced, you realise how much more there is.
The more you learn, the more there is to dig into.
Then imposter syndrome takes over after the dangerous intermediate phase.
Imposter syndrome in Irish music sessions
Tara:
What phase are you at now?
Autumn:
Always imposter syndrome.
Any time I hear myself on my own, not in a session, I think, “Oh my God, you go out in public like this?”
Everyone is their own worst critic.
The more you know, and the more you play, the more you get into the intricacies, variations and pulse. The better you get, the more you realise how deep it goes.
I feel overwhelmed sometimes by how much there is still to explore while remaining sane and doing my part.
Tara:
Does the imposter syndrome lessen when you know the people in the session?
Autumn:
Oddly, no.
If they are really good musicians, sometimes I feel it more because I know they know.
Also, being an American, I have this built-in inferiority complex. I worry I am doing something wrong or playing in a way that is not socially acceptable.
When I am playing in the States with people who are more intermediate, I do not have as much imposter syndrome.
But when I am with good friends who are really good musicians, I listen to the cool things they are doing and try to play off that. I am more conscious of my own playing and more self-critical.
Tara:
Siobhán, what challenges do more experienced musicians have in sessions when they want to be welcoming, but something happens and someone does not understand the etiquette?
The etiquette is not just for learners. It is for everybody.
Siobhán:
When I was young and joined sessions, you did your best to blend in.
For me, it is respect for the music.
It is not about any individual in the session. It is not even about all the individuals in the session. It is about the music.
If you are making a dog’s dinner of that, some people cannot hear it because they have not learned how to listen.
You can only play as well as you can listen.
If you cannot hear it, you cannot play it.
You should be listening twice as hard as you are playing.
Generally, if you do not panic too early, things tend to come together. It is like making bread. Eventually it starts to stick.
It takes time. You have to have patience, cigarette breaks and a few deep breaths.
We are lucky. We do a session at three o’clock on a Saturday and there are always loads of kids. It is great to get them to play their tunes and watch them come back every week more confident.
That aspect of being one of the old heads is brilliant.
But the one thing that throws me off completely, and I have actually got up out of a session and put away my fiddle, is anything that imposes itself over the music.
With some bodhrán players now, unfortunately, a lot of them seem deaf. The other musicians are not.
I sat in a session with four sets of pipes and a bodhrán player came in and sat beside me. I could not hear anything else. Four sets of pipes, and not polite pipers either.
All I could hear was the bodhrán. My head stopped working.
The same with accompaniment. If a tune starts on a D chord but is actually in G, and they hear D and off they go, then stop listening and play D all the time, I find that very challenging.
Anything that interrupts the flow of the music disturbs me.
I try to be as accommodating as possible. I am aware of how comfortable someone looks. If they do not look comfortable, I chat to them and try to put them at ease.
But you cannot come into a session saying, “What can I get out of this? This is for me. You have to make my night great.”
A session is social. People need to chat. People need a chance to breathe.
It is not entertainment. It is one of the oldest languages in the country, and it deserves to be listened to.
Listeners close the circle
Siobhán:
Listeners are so important.
I remember one night in a pub that was not ideal for sessions. It was half full, which is often when a pub is at its loudest. The noise was screeching. I was leaning in, trying to hear.
The door opened, and all of a sudden it was like whatever gap there was in the sound closed. I could hear everyone.
I looked up and saw a man who is renowned around Ennis for his love of music and attendance at sessions. He is an incredible listener.
When he came in and started to listen, it made it so much easier to hear the other musicians.
The volume had not changed. The noise level had not changed. But he sealed the room.
Listeners are vital.
Tara:
People underestimate how much musicians love listeners and how much listeners give to the music.
Siobhán:
That is it.
They close the circle and push the music back. If you have musicians playing and the music is only going one way, it keeps going.
If the listeners are there to stop it and make it go into their ears, then you create a proper circle and the music stays in the middle.
Tara:
The architecture of a session matters. Where people sit is important.
Siobhán:
A friend of ours, Antaine Ó Faracháin, talks about tractors and trailers.
The tractors are the people who can pull the trailers. The trailers contribute, but they would not drive the session by themselves.
The tractors need to be linked together so the horsepower can connect. Once that horsepower connects, it can pull a good strong amount of trailers.
If a session is organised, there is usually a corner and the regular musicians have their spot.
Sometimes we land into sessions and there are fifteen people sitting there with instruments on their laps. It is intimidating because you need to get in, settle down and get comfortable.
Inevitably, some people spend most of the session with instruments on their laps, while other musicians come in who know the tunes and are dying to play, but there are ten stools taken up with silence.
If you are taking up a stool and it is not your kind of scene, maybe consider offering it to someone else.
It will not work if you sit there saying, “You have to make this work for me.”
That is not how it works.
You need people who know what they are doing, get them together, get the engine revved, and start pulling the trailers.
Tara:
You mentioned before that sessions can feel like meditation. Tell me about that.
Siobhán:
It is pure listening.
When I tried meditation, someone talked us through it. They said thoughts run through your mind, and the trick is to let them run through without grabbing one and making a story out of it.
If you start thinking while you are playing, or even thinking about how you are playing, that gets in the way.
I tell students you have to practise, but you also have to practise playing, which is a different thing.
Playing, for me at the highest level, is just listening.
I am not aware of what my hands are doing. I am moving. It is like dancing sitting down, lazy as hell, but it is pure listening.
On a Sunday evening, we play and I might be wrecked all day thinking, “God, we have to do this again.” But I know from experience that it is just the first set. Once the first set of tunes is played, you are in.
It quietens your mind.
The more thinking you do, the less listening you are doing.
You cannot be listening to your own voice and be present at a session. It is not possible.
You are listening to one voice, and you are listening to that one voice improve.
If everyone is fully invested, the level that voice can go to is phenomenal.
There can be no “I”.
There is no “I” in team, as they say.
It is an elevation. For me, it is non-physical. Pains and aches disappear. I am not conscious of ailments or anything bothering me.
It is complete time out. You cannot do anything else, so you invest in what you are doing.
Venue, televisions and the role of the room
Audience question:
What about the venue or the host, maybe the pub owner? How important is that?
Carmel:
I like small venues.
And no televisions.
I have gone into pubs and asked, “Would you mind turning off the television while the session is on?” Generally, they say yes.
Big screens in sessions, no.
I love when pub hosts give out sandwiches. It brings everyone together, including the audience.
I love when there is a wall of listeners around the session. As Siobhán said, it keeps the circle together. There is no them and us. Everyone is there together.
I find you get that better in a smaller venue.
I remember one glorious day during Willie Clancy week. I was sitting in the window of a pub, and the session was so good we could not leave. Food and drink were nearly passed in through the window because it was so full.
That is what I love. It takes you on board. You are on the same wave together.
Then someone sings a song, there is a recitation, or someone gets up to dance. That all adds to it.
Dancing, rhythm and the music
Carmel:
When we were starting off, there was no formal teaching. Everyone went to the Mile Inn on a Sunday night. You danced with every age.
It was the Caledonian, a waltz and a jive. Maybe the odd foxtrot.
It was ageless. There were no tipped shoes. There was no noise. It was lovely and glidy.
When you are in that space and dancing, you should not have to think about the next figure. It should take you.
It is not about performance or showing off.
You dance to the music. You do not cover the music.
Autumn:
In the United States, there is often a big disconnect between dance and music.
If there is a set dancing or céilí dancing class, it is often run by a step dance teacher, so some of that strict order and conformity gets imposed.
A lot of set dancing groups are performing at folk festivals. They may be having fun, but it is not always understood as a purely social, lose-yourself experience.
They are often dancing to recordings, and they can struggle with live music because they are used to a specific recording.
I think it is important for musicians to learn to play for dancers.
Sometimes in sessions, people forget that this is music for dancing. The melody can get fancy, complicated, too fast, or the rhythm can go off.
For me, if you are messing up the melody or notes, that is not ideal, but if you are staying on the beat, that is the most important thing.
I would rather hear someone play the simplest version of a tune perfectly in rhythm, in a way people could dance to, than hear a very complicated tune where you can barely hear the beat.
Lockdown, social media and young musicians
Audience question:
Do you feel lockdown changed the etiquette or the rules? In Belfast, after lockdown, a very strong young group emerged. They were all connected through social media and Zoom. They are technically very proficient. Has that changed things?
Siobhán:
I think Covid gave everybody the opportunity to focus on something.
You were sitting at home. There was only so much Netflix you could watch.
I know two guitar players who locked themselves away for two years and came out like butterflies from cocoons because they had focused so much on their skill.
But I remember being a teenager. There was a gang of us who met every week. We had no mobiles, but we always met up.
There is a confidence you have in your late teens and early twenties, a misguided confidence, where you are invincible and the world is yours.
There is strength in that age group.
With Belfast, you also have the suppression of Irishness in the North for all those years. Since the peace agreement, Belfast has emerged in the most spectacular way.
I do not think lockdown changed the rules. It gave people a chance to practise and be better.
But that age group always has exuberance. It is filled with hope.
Every generation is the same. We just think ours was better.
Board blockers and silent seats
Audience observation:
What Siobhán said about people coming in with instruments on their laps reminded me of what I call board blockers. They go onto committees and boards just to say they are on them, but they do nothing while they are there.
Maybe there should be rotating seats for people not engaging.
Siobhán:
A banjo player has extra responsibility because it is a rhythm instrument. Because of the pitch, it cuts through regardless.
The rhythm has to be on the ball.
Autumn:
It is basically just a bodhrán with a neck.
Favourite tunes
Audience question:
Could you each say your favourite tune, the type of tune and its name?
Siobhán:
I like The Oak Tree. It is a reel. But I love jigs and slip jigs.
Autumn:
I am a big fan of The Paul Ha’penny or Jackie Small’s. I was going to say a polka, but I cannot think of any polka names, so I will go with one of those.
Carmel:
I might not be able to put names on them, but when we were dancing over the years, there was one man and the only thing he danced to was The Pigeon on the Gate and The Foxhunter’s.
Tara:
I like anything with rhythm that makes me feel dancey.
If I am playing solo, I love to start with highlands because they are easy on the fingers. But I love jigs because I love the rhythm of jigs.
Paid sessions and spontaneity
Audience question:
As Irish music becomes more commercially viable, there is a huge element of the gig coming into the scene. Do you feel that is killing the spontaneity and organic development of sessions?
Tara:
I think if we did not have paid sessions, there would be no place to go and listen or to play.
I am definitely in favour of them because musicians have to live, and many musicians love doing that work.
If you did not have that, there would be a huge gap.
That differs from bigger gigs, but there has to be room for everything.
Autumn:
In one of the cities I lived in, they used to have paid sessions. We were not paid well, but we felt appreciated.
After the pandemic, they decided not to do that anymore, and the session mostly died out.
It used to be one of the best sessions in the country. Now it is pretty much dead.
Payment is important.
But in big cities, I do sometimes see sessions where people arrive at nine and leave right at eleven, not a moment later.
There is room for everything. Paid sessions keep things going, and I am glad for that because it is bread and butter.
Carmel:
If I have a nine to five job, I leave at five.
That should not take away from spontaneity. It depends on whether you get to the place where it works, where there is enjoyment and lift.
If you have that, it does not matter what time you finish.
Siobhán:
I do not think sessions have done much damage.
The tradition chooses its own.
There was probably shite being played a hundred years ago that nobody remembers by choice.
In a hundred years, the things we are giving out about now may not even be known. They are just experiments.
The meaningful stuff will never be killed off.
Sessions wreck my head sometimes, but I do not think they wreck the tradition.
The milk, the carton and the ego
Siobhán:
I talk when I am teaching about the cow and the cereal.
I learned in chemistry that energy cannot be created or destroyed. To me, all the energy in the world is always there.
I believe we can communicate with it.
The music is the milk. Our job is to get the milk from the cow to the cereal.
We are just the carton.
We are never the milk.
The egotists think they are the milk.
But I can taste cardboard from milk, and I can taste plastic from milk. That is our flavour: our thoughts, our being, when it combines with the music.
That gives us our sound and our taste.
That meaningful stuff is never going to die off.
Comhaltas Interruptus and session therapy
Tara:
Autumn has a Facebook group. Am I allowed to mention it?
Autumn:
Jesus, do not. It is not for the faint-hearted.
It is called Comhaltas Interruptus.
It is slightly tongue-in-cheek about Irish music.
It is a bit of therapy. If you do not talk about the things that drive you mad at sessions, you can end up exploding out of anger.
Sometimes you try to gently talk to the culprit and help them amend their ways. Some people will not hear any of it.
So we go in there and make jokes and memes about it.
There was a shaker egg epidemic for a while.
There was also a bodhrán player at a paid session who went to the seat where the leader usually sits. When asked to move, this person said, “No, I need to have a central seat. I am the bodhrán player. I need to be heard.”
Tara:
They need to become the carton.
We all need to become more carton.
Festival sessions and regular winter sessions
Audience observation:
Festival sessions are different from regular winter sessions. The thing I enjoy most is the dark winter night regular session, where the two paid musicians say, “Look who is here tonight,” and that changes the whole thing.
Sometimes there is bedlam. But sometimes everyone is listening, and you are transported to another place.
Tara:
The vibes have to be right, as the young folks say.
Audience comment:
I wanted to say thank you for the podcast. I teach quite a few people who need this, and I have been able to pass it on. It has inspired and educated them.
Autumn:
A lot of us, especially non-Irish people, would really have benefited from this podcast when we were younger. It would have helped us avoid making some very embarrassing mistakes.
Tara:
Thank you very much.
Thank you Siobhán Peoples, Autumn Rhodes and Carmel Greene. Thank you to the Ennis Trad Festival for having us here, and thank you all for coming.
This live conversation at Ennis Trad Festival keeps circling back to one central idea: a session only works when the music, the people and the room begin to listen to each other.
Siobhán Peoples speaks about respect for the music. Not respect as stiffness or politeness, but as deep listening. Her point is blunt and useful: you can only play as well as you can listen.
Autumn Rhodes brings the perspective of the travelling, non-Irish musician trying to read the room, find the right repertoire, avoid showboating and survive the dangerous intermediate stage. Her honesty about imposter syndrome matters, because it shows that etiquette is not only about rules. It is also about uncertainty, judgement, confidence and humility.
Carmel Greene reminds us that the listener and dancer are not outside the session. They are part of the circle. Her word, “the lift”, may be one of the simplest and best descriptions of what everyone is chasing.
The audience contributions add another layer: the role of the venue, the danger of televisions, the beauty of small rooms, the importance of rhythm for dancers, the effect of lockdown on young musicians, and the difference between festival sessions and regular winter sessions.
https://ennistradfest.com
https://www.facebook.com/ennistradfest/
https://youtu.be/tPwfGJEJb0c?si=fffXwuQ75DMv3FEY (West Clare Mullagh Half Set)
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