Irish Fridays

[Padraig]

Don't want to break the restrictions even unknowingly, so I'll just say that I pass a cowshed this morning and immediately this Scottish classic cam intae ma heid! Couldnae wait tae share it...Andy Stewart (much maligned, but brilliant) on 'The Muckin' o' Geordies Byre'...all will become clear, I'm sure!...or., at least, cleansed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43KeyjXg4DE

Phew!

But it's wonderful what a dram or three can achieve, down on the farm.

Here is a poem from Tyrone, supposedly in the Ulster Scots language. Written by a good Ulster Presbyterian minister, it sounds to me just like a language I know well - after all, I did live an important part of my life in county Tyrone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cW3faGVqDA

[Padraig]

Here is a poem from Tyrone, supposedly in the Ulster Scots language.

Begorra! That didn't go down too well!

I'm going down a different road it would seem John. But It's the road that I see in front of me now - you never know where it will come out.

Like the time I was fishing in Mayo - ah too many years ago - and was driving home to Derry. I was given a shortcut between two towns of the sort ' Turn right at the end of the town and go for about 5 miles until you meet a crossroads; go straight on and turn right at the next crossroads but mind, turn left almost immediately . . .' Following these instructions I amazingly got to where I wanted.

In the middle of the twists and turns I came upon a little shrine built into the stone wall of a field. I stopped the car and got out (It would be at least an hour before another vehicle came along). It was a small monument in honour of a local singer who had made good, and I recognised the name - Delia Murphy. In the 50s I would have heard her on the radio even up in Derry and she had a number of hits.

She wasn't your local wee girl who got lucky - she came from a well-to-do family and married a man who was later the Irish Ambassador to Washington USA. She claimed to have learned her songs from a tinker family she befriended as a girl in Mayo, and people have disputed her status as either a folk singer or a traditional singer. Her songs are hard to classify, but popular they were and Delia was held in high esteem both in Ireland and abroad. I don't know where this road will come out, but I eventually got home that year with some fine trout and a special reason for recommending a song by Delia Murphy for our Irish Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_bDWJxdx4

Edit: Here is a picture of Delia's Memorial in Mayo. You can just see the stone wall.

https://www.facebook.com/GoodnightDelia/photos/left-to-right-you-can-see-the-monument-erected-in-honor-of-irish-singer-delia-mu/151596472181408/

[johncorrigan]

Maybe it was Margaret Barry that she learned the song from, Padraig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKJNBv4S5pM

Thanks for the tale involving crossroads.

[Globaltruth]

Begorra! That didn't go down too well!

I'm going down a different road it would seem John. But It's the road that I see in front of me now - you never know where it will come out.

Like the time I was fishing in Mayo - ah too many years ago - and was driving home to Derry. I was given a shortcut between two towns of the sort ' Turn right at the end of the town and go for about 5 miles until you meet a crossroads; go straight on and turn right at the next crossroads but mind, turn left almost immediately . . .' Following these instructions I amazingly got to where I wanted.

In the middle of the twists and turns I came upon a little shrine built into the stone wall of a field. I stopped the car and got out (It would be at least an hour before another vehicle came along). It was a small monument in honour of a local singer who had made good, and I recognised the name - Delia Murphy. In the 50s I would have heard her on the radio even up in Derry and she had a number of hits.

She wasn't your local wee girl who got lucky - she came from a well-to-do family and married a man who was later the Irish Ambassador to Washington USA. She claimed to have learned her songs from a tinker family she befriended as a girl in Mayo, and people have disputed her status as either a folk singer or a traditional singer. Her songs are hard to classify, but popular they were and Delia was held in high esteem both in Ireland and abroad. I don't know where this road will come out, but I eventually got home that year with some fine trout and a special reason for recommending a song by Delia Murphy for our Irish Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_bDWJxdx4

Edit: Here is a picture of Delia's Memorial in Mayo. You can just see the stone wall.

https://www.facebook.com/GoodnightDe...1596472181408/

Thank you Padraig - an illuminating post.

Not only will I investigate her recordings and life some more as both seem worth it but also now need to know what flies you caught the trout on... or was it “Blackbirds Fancy”?

[Padraig]

[I] now need to know what flies you caught the trout on... or was it “Blackbirds Fancy”?

Ho! Ho! You're good craic Global! No not a Blackbird but another avian - a Gosling, which is a Mayfly tied in a special way. I had to find my old fly boxes to remind me. Another trip down memory lane.

Edit: Here is your Gosling, G. No it was no trouble. Art should never be.

https://www.partridge-of-redditch.co.uk/blog/fly-friday-86-gosling-arthur-greenwood

[Globaltruth]

Thanks Padraig. I know that style, there’s a single feather version I use during Duffers Fortnight sometime which has similarities but not that specific dressing. Love to see an old dressing - Black Gnat was my first fly some 50+ yrs ago - still same dressing. That one was so realistic it flew away...

I know of absolutely zero Irish songs about fishing, so I’m wondering if you know anyone who might????

[Padraig]

Thanks Padraig. I know that style, there’s a single feather version I use during Duffers Fortnight sometime which has similarities but not that specific dressing. Love to see an old dressing - Black Gnat was my first fly some 50+ yrs ago - still same dressing. That one was so realistic it flew away...

I know of absolutely zero Irish songs about fishing, so I’m wondering if you know anyone who might????

Global, I think you have hit a blind spot - I can't think of one either. I thought of the Shoals of Herring. . .

I think I told this yarn before: Once when I was at Lough Corrib for the Mayfly I was relaxing in the lakeside hostelry when I got the urge to play a song on the old piano. I wanted a good trout song but nothing came to mind. Undaunted I went up and played the first verse of Schubert's Trout. There was not much response from the few customers and even my two friends showed little appreciation. Then two fellows approached the piano. They politely asked me, in good German accents, if I minded giving way. I certainly did not mind and they sang the song with Schubert's accompaniment (as distinct from mine) to a resounding round of applause from the small assembly.
We saw those two lads again on an island in the lake where we pulled in for lunch. They had three trout in the boat, we had two.

That Black Gnat is a good little fly G. Black is a good colour. My preference is river fishing and my old pal spent a month fishing a river - a well known salmon river near Bundoran in Donegal - but which held very good wild brown trout. I often joined him for an evening, and we rarely caught anything worth keeping. My pal went through every fly in his box without success. We both started tying our own patterns until he had a eureka moment. From the Black Gnat he developed gradually different variants - lost the wings, lost the tail, changed the body colour - and ended up with a nymph with a black peacock herl body with silver wire, and a brown hen's wing carapace for a back. We later found that it was like well known nymphs on English reservoirs called Chompers. It was new to us and it was a BIG WINNER. We called it the Black Chomper.That was sixty years ago, G and until my friend died in 2007 and I stopped fishing we had the greatest sport on that river that even Isaac Walton would envy.

If you like, here is the pattern - in different colours that I decline to mention.

https://thefeatherbender.com/2020/03/12/tying-a-chocolate-vanilla-chomper/

[Padraig]

Darn!. I forgot about Friday, Irish and Bach. Bach was a Prelude and Fugue played on harpsichord - very good. Here it is a flute,fiddle, squeeze box and bouzouki played by a group of young lads keeping it going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULRrYowJmYw

[johncorrigan]

Darn!. I forgot about Friday, Irish and Bach. Bach was a Prelude and Fugue played on harpsichord - very good. Here it is a flute,fiddle, squeeze box and bouzouki played by a group of young lads keeping it going.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULRrYowJmYw

Bach to the future, Padraig. Lovely sound from the guys.

[Globaltruth]

Thomas McCarthy sings “Lord Lovett” in tribute to Liam Weldon from a forthcoming film about him which will include Lisa O’Neill and Radie Peat

https://youtu.be/YYlv9Qsm-t0

[Padraig]

Dearbhail Finnegan plays a love song by Carolan on a Donegal harp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubySaWX-jzI

[johncorrigan]

Enjoyed this one from Kathryn's 'Music Planet' yesterday - Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin & Ultan O'Brien perform the very atmospheric 'Tá na páipéir dhá saighneáil'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZZbpP15x78

[Globaltruth]

Still Friday here:
An Arbutus yarn by James Yorkston

https://youtu.be/ZRFTQf-oot0

[johncorrigan]

Still Friday here:
An Arbutus yarn by James Yorkston

https://youtu.be/ZRFTQf-oot0

I promise, when this whole boorach is behind us, that I will never take for granted a trip to the pub to see a bit music, Global. Thanks for that - James Yorkston is so great. This is one of my favourites of his...'When The Haar Rolls In'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxUEUj11-NQ

[Padraig]

More pubs John. In happier days for us, and for the Wisconsin women featured here, a pub in the town centre in Derry providing just the sort of surprise you refer to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcJagerw8cM