An Event at Lancaster Library on
Wednesday 18 May 2011 between 2pm & 3pm
This event has now been held
Please find an interview from The Guardian on Thursday 10 March 2011 with Thomas McCarthy, who will be appearing at Lancaster Library on Wednesday 18 May 2011 between 2pm and 3pm as detailed above: -
Music that moves:
Thomas McCarthy's Irish Traveller songs
It has been more than a century since Cecil Sharp overheard John England singing The Seeds of Love in a Somerset garden, setting him off on a lifelong quest to document and preserve the folk music of Britain, and hand-cranking the sense of a whole tradition into life in the process.
A largely undocumented song tradition does still survive among the UKs tight-knit Traveller and Gypsy communities: the role they have played in keeping many great songs alive and in circulation has been crucial in shaping the folk tradition as we know it.
"These are very private communities There are very few outsiders. Which means the oral tradition is very strong," says Sam Lee, a folk archivist and researcher. "And the nature of their being a transient community means there's this tradition of self-made entertainment. The men are not afraid to be great singers, to stand up and sing an unaccompanied song. They grew up with it, it's part of their life and they have great ownership of it."
Nevertheless, formal live performances on a stage are rare. But one who has crossed that line is Thomas McCarthy, an Irish Traveller in his 40s who turned up at Cecil Sharp House one evening in December 2008.
Just a couple of weeks earlier, McCarthy had not even heard of Sharp. "I was at a cousin's wedding," he tells me. "My uncle asked me to sing a song. Afterwards someone came over to me and said, 'Have you heard of this Cecil Sharp House?' I didn't know of it, so he said, 'Go down and have a listen – they sing all of them old songs.' 'You mean old songs like that one?' 'Yep.' That's when I got interested."
McCarthy has spent his life travelling around Britain. He grew up on the Travellers' site under the elevated A40 – the Westway – in west London, though he often spent months at a time with his grandfather in Birr, in central Ireland. "Lots of songs passed through his house. I've heard thousands of songs. It was a stop-off for many people, not just travelling people, but tradespeople, and my grandfather used to travel and picked up a mountain of songs. He wrote songs about the travelling way of life and he'd tell stories. He was a great storyteller, what you call a seanachi. Like a genealogist, telling you your background, and great stories that go on for days. Literally days. Like he'd come home and eat at five and start a story at six and wouldn't finish until two. And he'd say: 'Come back the next day and listen to the rest of the story.' That's the way it was. They were known in that town. Famous storytellers and singers. Years ago. I'm the only one now in my generation keeping the songsgoing."
Since that first live appearance, word about McCarthy and his repertoire rapidly spread through the folk scene. "I made friends very quickly, which I was amazed at. I had no idea people were interested in these old songs. I didn't even know there was a big English tradition of singing. Which is brilliant – it shows that the songs were from all the parts of these islands."
Last spring he recorded his debut album. Fittingly, it opens with Round Top Wagon, the first song he performed at Cecil Sharp House. Also on the album is the epic, richly poetic ballad Donal Kenny. This beautiful song was unknown until McCarthy introduced it. "Ron Kavana, who produced the CD, is telling me now that's become a very big song," he says. "Itwas never known until I started singing, which I find amazing. I knew it was a great song. It's about having to go away and leave the village. And now all the singers over there in Ireland have started singing it. It's gone into circulation."
For the most part, McCarthy sings unaccompanied, with a lyrical vocal ornamentation that's unique to the Irish Traveller tradition. It has been compared to sean nos ("old-style") Irish singing, a term McCarthy only discovered recently. "My mother and grandfather all sang like that. With a twist in their voice, an up and down. It's always been there," he says. "Some people will tell you that style of singing isn't meant for our ears," he adds, suggesting that such oral ornamentation was originally developed by singers at the court of the kings of oldIreland.
McCarthy's repertoire – he reckons he knows around 200 songs, with many more scattered among family members – ranges across the centuries. The Battle of Aherlow is about pitching up against the Normans in Tipperary in 1190; Clasped to the Pig, a comic song about the perilous joys of drunkenness, dates from the 18th century; his grandfather's songs from the 1940s evoke the Travelling way of life just as it was dying out.
The social challenges facing Travellers and Gypsies today are profound. Next month, McCarthy embarks on a tour of schools in the north-east, introducing Traveller tales, songs and culture to children of both settled and Traveller communities. "We're coming to a time when our way of living is dying," he says. "You need an education to get on. We'll still have our traditions, dealing with horses, our culture, but it's getting harder and harder. You have to think of new ways." For McCarthy, with his wealth of songs – many of them unknown or rarely documented – performing to a settled audience is one of those new ways of moving forward without losing the culture that's behind him. Life on the road may be over, but the songs keep on travelling. "I'm going to record for the Irish traditional music archives, songs that they wouldn't have. It's important, I think, me being the last one of my family. Even if Travelling people don't sing our songs, they'll be there for other people and they won't be forgotten. People will still sing them."
Please find original article from The Guardian: -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/mar/10/thomas-mccarthy-irish-traveller-songs