Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [34]
New directors include the young-but-well-connected Kristen Sheridan (b 1977), daughter of Jim and director of Disco Pigs (2001) and August Rush (2007), and John Crowley (b 1968), who followed up Intermission (2003) with the excellent Is Anybody There? (2008), starring Michael Caine. Another bright talent is Damien O’Donnell, who debuted with East is East (1999) and went from strength to strength with Heartlands (2002) and the outstanding Irish film of 2004, Inside I’m Dancing. That same year saw the release of Adam & Paul, written by Mark O’Hallorahan and directed by Lenny Abrahamson, a half-decent portrayal of two Dublin junkies and their quixotic quest for a fix. It was a roaring success at the Irish box office, as was John Carney’s low-budget film Once (2006), starring musician Glen Hansard (whose last appearance on celluloid was as Outspan Foster in 1991’s The Commitments) as a busker who falls for the elusive Markéta Irglová.
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John Crowley’s pacey, well-scripted drama Intermission (2003) follows a host of eccentric characters in pursuit of love, starring Colin Farrell, Colm Meaney and Ger Ryan.
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Music
TRADITIONAL & FOLK
Irish music (known here as traditional music, or just trad) has retained a vibrancy not found in other traditional European forms, which have lost out to the overbearing influence of pop music. Although Irish music has retained many of its traditional aspects, it has itself influenced many forms of music, most notably US country and western – a fusion of Mississippi Delta blues and Irish traditional tunes that, combined with other influences like Gospel, is at the root of rock and roll. Other reasons for trad music’s current success include the willingness of its exponents to update the way it’s played (in ensembles rather than the customary céilidh – communal dance – bands), the habit of pub sessions (introduced by returning migrants) and the economic good times that encouraged the Irish to celebrate their culture rather than trying to replicate international trends. And then, of course, there’s Riverdance, which made Irish dancing sexy and became a worldwide phenomenon, despite the fact that most aficionados of traditional music are seriously underwhelmed by its musical worth. Good stage show, crap music.
Traditionally, music was performed as a background to dancing, and while this has been true ever since Celtic times, the many thousands of tunes that fill up the repertoire aren’t nearly as ancient as that; most aren’t much older than a couple of hundred years. Because much of Irish music is handed down orally and aurally, there are myriad variations in the way a single tune is played, depending on the time and place of its playing. The blind itinerant harpist Turlough O’Carolan (1680–1738) wrote more than 200 tunes – it’s difficult to know how many versions their repeated learning has spawned.
If you want to hear musical skill that will both tear out your heart and restore your faith in humanity, go no further than the fiddle-playing of Tommy Peoples on The Quiet Glen (1998), the beauty of Paddy Keenan’s uillean pipes on his eponymous 1975 album, or the stunning guitar playing of Andy Irvine on albums like Compendium (2000).
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US Late Show host David Letterman once described the uillean pipes as ‘a sofa hooked up to a stick’.
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More folksy than traditional, the Dubliners, fronted by the distinctive gravel voice and grey beard of Ronnie Drew (1934–2008), made a career out of bawdy drinking songs that got everybody singing along, but their finest moment was a solo performance of Scorn Not His Simplicity by band member Luke Kelly (1940–84), surely one of the saddest, most beautiful songs ever recorded. Other popular bands include the Fureys, comprising four brothers originally