'Tis handed down to you...
'Early Music' and 'The Flower of Maherally'...
Early Music
I learned to make music when I was alone,
revering the moment before I began
to sing, then break the solitary silence.
I learned to love my own voice,
making a friend of it,
fashioning a fountain pen to master
the phantom language,
each Brandenburg concerto
furrowing ground, turned up
loud, while my father drilled
his impossibly strong fingers
on the steering wheel,
careening the back roads
of Birdhill.
My mother would sing alone for hours,
Hildegard and sean nós, seamlessly sung.
Light would stream in the sash window
while she scribbled illegibly,
preparing for a performance.
I would drum my hands on my thighs
till they were hot and red, repeating
the same beat thousands of times,
honing the same phrase.
And in the evening we would gather
around two candles and
Early Music on cassette.
Before the dissonance and serialism,
an early music to keep us company.
An instrumental combination
to unlock conversation and
make the silences dance
like shadows in candlelight.
No vocal music to deflect and distract
from a small family huddled
around only food and flame,
and the warm faint sound
of wood and gut string.
Deepening every narrative,
sharing harmony and conversation.
A family that feels safe is sacred.
Embryonic echo soundings
still bounce back,
reflected in the sound
of Early Music.
I first heard the song ‘The Flower of Maherally’ at a song circle in County Clare. 2017 was a profoundly fallow time for me emotionally and creatively. I rented a small cottage in Ballyvaughan, in the heart of the Burren, for the autumn and winter seasons that year. I was in retreat. In solitary conclave, composing my first book of poetry, which came to be named ‘Early Music’, released 5 years ago at the pandemoniuous height of the pandemic.
In this cottage I lit peat fires, watched the mountain, and healed. I wrote poetry about lighting peat fires and watching mountains and healing. I set a simple and virtuous goal for my time there in that cottage overlooking Galway bay. To grant myself permission to speak for Ireland in my personal and artistic voice. Poetically, that is a full time job.
I have an artist friend who lives in the Burren. A genius painter born in Beirut, raised in Dublin, and is now a local of county Clare. His wife just planted a chilli farm in the limestone landscape and runs a Thai cookery school out of the back of her van. The locals line up in their droves in wet car parks to sample her sun kissed gastronomy. A limestone power couple these two…
While I ruminated in my cottage, attempting to poeticise my life and disparate identities, attempting to become a poetic medium for our shared experience, this limestone power couple extended a rich invitation. Daly’s pub in Bell Harbour were having their weekly song circle. County Clare boasts some of the most humble and virtuosic traditional music sessions in Ireland. They can be hard to find without the right invitation.
This particular gathering of musicians and locals however was not the typical ‘pure drop’ of Irish music, but more of a mad hatters tea party of tradition and innovation. I don’t remember so much from that night for this particular session took place shortly before my life was embraced by the merciful arms of sobriety. But I do remember sitting with my artist friend and his wife, the alchemical taste of Guinness and crisps and witnessing a small community of locals immersed in listening and merriment.
It became my artist friends turn to break the silence and with grace he lifted his chin and began to sing. The Ulster love song ‘The Flower of Maherally’.
It’s a classic Irish song of yearning for a love across a social divide, a chance encounter of a summers morning that gives rise to a secret oath of love and admiration. I knew I would commit this song to memory and ‘make my own of it’ as my mother would say when she would pass on a song to me after dinner.
It then became my turn to offer a song, which I did gladly. Strangely I cannot remember the exact song I sang but the small crowd there would not let me away with singing just one, as is often the case when I begin to sing. The sound generated when I sing has a quality and virtuosity that belies almost every other facet of my life. It’s excellence and finesse cannot be questioned. The reaction I provoke when singing has changed my life. It’s a part of me where I feel courageous, a naïve bravery even. Daly’s Bar in Bell Harbour got the full tilt of my talents that night as I devilishly embellished Irish songs and a poetic recitation or two with cheeky hilarity. Maybe it was the Guinness and crisps fuelling the innovation…god be with the days.
At the end of the night, during our protracted exiting process, a short elderly pot bellied mystic approached me outside the door of the pub. I enter a mode common to many artists when encountering praise. A deft sidestep with stock phrases. He complimented my singing voice and my talents, saying he had not seen the likes for a very long time. ‘Thanks very much, it’s quite an engine, ‘tis a gift really’ I said, bashfully. ‘Tisn’t!’ he exclaimed, ‘tisn’t a gift’, he said. He looked deep into my eyes without missing a beat. ‘’Tisn’t a gift, sure tis handed down to you!...tis handed down to you’… and as he waded off into the darkness, I turned, broadened, emboldened, buoyant. ‘Tisn’t a gift, sure tis handed down to you’…
The below recording is a recent version of ‘The Flower of Maherally’. I recorded with my brother, Owen Ó Súilleabháin, and the Buffalo Philharmonic String Quartet, from our album entitled ‘For Ireland I’ll Not Speak Her Name’. You can download the full album here.
Thank you, dear reader, for continuing the journey.
M
Early Music
I learned to make music when I was alone,
revering the moment before I began
to sing, then break the solitary silence.
I learned to love my own voice,
making a friend of it,
fashioning a fountain pen to master
the phantom language,
each Brandenburg concerto
furrowing ground, turned up
loud, while my father drilled
his impossibly strong fingers
on the steering wheel,
careening the back roads
of Birdhill.
My mother would sing alone for hours,
Hildegard and sean nós, seamlessly sung.
Light would stream in the sash window
while she scribbled illegibly,
preparing for a performance.
I would drum my hands on my thighs
till they were hot and red, repeating
the same beat thousands of times,
honing the same phrase.
And in the evening we would gather
around two candles and
Early Music on cassette.
Before the dissonance and serialism,
an early music to keep us company.
An instrumental combination
to unlock conversation and
make the silences dance
like shadows in candlelight.
No vocal music to deflect and distract
from a small family huddled
around only food and flame,
and the warm faint sound
of wood and gut string.
Deepening every narrative,
sharing harmony and conversation.
A family that feels safe is sacred.
Embryonic echo soundings
still bounce back,
reflected in the sound
of Early Music.
oh the path never straight and full of missteps of our human-ness. the harmony and melody stirring conversation. will you come and sit by the peat fire and converse. some listen. some listen again. some never listen. some start to hum. if not from their throats then from their heart. The verse is there. maybe not for our listening ears but our willing hearts. will you come and sit by the peat fire and converse.