All those sessions are just a warm-up for the moment I’ve most been looking forward to—the chance to play with The Four Star Trio once again. Not only are they a great band, they’re also very loose and funny.
The star of the group is McCarthy. The first time I played with him, I was plenty impressed by his sterling fiddle playing, but he really knocked me out when, halfway through the session, he put down the fiddle and picked up the flute and was equally brilliant on that instrument. This is uncommon in Irish music: There are musicians who are superb on more than one instrument in the same family—say, strings—but it’s not often that you find someone who excels on instruments in two different families. McCarthy is the only one of the trio who could be considered a professional musician—he’s also a classically trained flautist—but he has a day job as well, teaching at the Cork School of Music. The others are teachers, too—Ahern of math at Cork Institute of Technology, and Ó Drisceoil of English and Irish at Douglas Community School. This is not unusual: Many of Ireland’s top traditional musicians make their living at other work, which is one indication of how deeply embedded the music is in the culture—it’s just part of life.
The music is less a part of my own day-to-day existence, but despite the time that’s passed since I last played with these guys, it feels smooth as silk. I know some of the tunes, and I’m happy to hear them again; others are new to me, but I hop aboard the chord train and they roll effortlessly along. The one time I stumble, at the beginning of a new tune in a medley of reels, McCarthy steps in and rescues me.
Between the spells of music, there is nonstop hilarity, led by Ó Drisceoil, whose nickname—Fada—means “long” and refers to both his height and his extraordinary proboscis. He is a truly funny man, and when he sings “Ben Hur,” his phantasmagoric, five-minute rendering of the story in contemporary terms, he brings down the house.
It’s good craic, but all too soon, midnight arrives. The evening ends with the medley of three tunes the Cork City Council commissioned McCarthy to write for President Mary McAleese when she came to town to unveil Cork as 2005’s European Capital of Culture. I don’t play along; I just sit and soak up the beautiful sounds.
In another ten years, will I still be able to hear—and be part of—such superlative traditional music in Cork’s pubs? It’s anybody’s guess. As Ahern says, “These things move in cycles. For a number of years, we’ve been talking about moving the music back into houses, but it hasn’t really happened. It will probably take a deliberate effort on our part to make it a reality. But I can see that maybe, in the years to come, there’ll be more people just ringing each other and saying, ‘Do you want to play a tune tonight?’—the way it used to be.”
Whatever the venue, there’s no question that the music will continue. It wouldn’t be Ireland otherwise.
The Details
Hearing Music There
Definitions of traditional music vary; no doubt some would include “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” in the category. Just because it says “Traditional Music” in a pub window doesn’t mean you’re going to hear the real thing.
Also, be aware of the tension between the pub as community center and the pub as tourist experience. As musician Pat “Herring” Ahern says, “That whole Riverdance thing has created a kind of expectation, both among Irish people who don’t understand the music in the first place and among tourists who’ve come to Ireland to hear this music. They expect Riverdance, and they’re disappointed that it’s actually a much smaller-scale, quieter type of thing.”
Schedules change from time to time, but in addition to the sessions mentioned in the accompanying article, authentic traditional music can be found at the following Cork pubs: The Lobby Bar (1 Union Quay) Sunday at 6:30 and Tuesday and Friday at 9:30; The Phoenix (3 Union Quay) Thursday and Saturday at 9:30; The Gables (32 Douglas Street) Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday at 9:30; Sin É (8 Coburg Street) Friday and Sunday at 6:30 and Tuesday at 9:30.
The Corner House (7 Coburg Street; 450-0655) also has music on Wednesdays, and Án Spailpín Fánac (28 South Main Street; 427-7949) has additional sessions every night except Sunday. If you’re fortunate enough to be in Cork on the first Friday of the month, The Corner House hosts an enormous session attended by every musician who can make it.
Eating There
Stick to the restaurants. While many pubs are starting to serve food to make up for reduced beer sales, it isn’t anything special. Also, pubs that host traditional music generally don’t serve food in the part of the pub where music is played. With most sessions starting at 9:30, you’ll probably want to eat first anyway.
Jacques (9 Phoenix Street; 427-7387), pronounced “Jacks,” and The Douglas Hide (63 Douglas Street; 431-5695) are both intimate restaurants serving outstanding food. At Jacques, fish specials change daily depending on the catch. The Douglas Hide offers a lovely smoked-mackerel potato cake for starters, and the sirloin comes with an amazing smoked-tomato salsa.
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