 is the sound of Rachel Good and as I say Rachel, we hope to get Rachel up in the new year Jimmy, don't we? We're really looking forward to actually performing with Sean Keane. And I can just imagine that collaboration and actually it'll be brilliant night in Balmerslow in December so you're more than welcome to check it out. All right Monday night sessions as always yeah and I'm delighted to have your company by the way as I said we are streaming everything on all our platforms and I just want to thank Joe Dex by the way too for last week I really got a chance to chat to Joe much about it but with his professionalism he carried the show right through for us and thank you very much Joe, very much appreciate it. Well I move on to our first guest on this Monday night and I'm delighted to welcome and Seamus McGuire born and grew up in Slego in a family which fostered a great love of music especially the art of fiddle playing and I love that Seamus good evening to you. Hello there how you doing Paul? I'm very well thanks. When it says that how many were how many, that quote there, many were in the family Seamus. Six, I'm the eldest of six. You're the eldest of six. Two boys and four girls. So as a music and all the children? Yes although not all of them play as much as myself and my brother do but yeah my sisters all played as well and we had a great time as kids and was it a very musical home? It was my parents both musical my mom played the fiddle and dad played the piano and they came together through a great love of music and you know they encouraged it and interestingly enough they kind of encouraged both classical and traditional music. Traditional was probably the number one you know the love of traditional fiddle playing from Slego but we all kind of got a chance to train classically as well which kind of gave it an interesting um you would be sort of now if maybe I'm wrong and I don't know nothing about it but I would imagine there would be a more um complex area of the classical more um I don't know what you call it the strictness maybe I'm very worried what I'm looking for. I think that's fair enough more um more formal. I'm more than I always imagine if you could get away with things if you're playing them in traditional whereas the classical there's no room for error very true that's absolutely true. You know Slego was interesting and from that point of view because I you probably know that Slego has um a feshkeol which is kind of like a classical stream yeah which encouraged young people to play at at that level and that very very good um standard competitions every every eastern Slego feshkeol and like top of classical adjudicators from Dublin would come down and um assess the young players and you know give them pointers and all this kind of thing well at the same time Slego has this you know world famous fiddle tradition named like if you're into trad music named like Michael Coleman and Paddy Cullor and James Morrison they all came from Slego and emigrated to New York and they you know in the 1920s and 30s. Is fiddle playing synonymous with Slego in such a way? Well it's very closely linked yeah Slego and Donnie Goleman as well as a different style of fiddling and Claire there's three big countries for fiddle music in Ireland like Slego probably Donnie Goleman. I don't know if you know Paddy, McMahon and one? Yes I do. Well Paddy was Paddy was a great friend of ours and we were delighted he we were out to leave last Monday night and I seen Paddy coming on and oh I was delighted to see him because it was good oh the crack was good and very very humble honest man oh honest to God yeah it's lovely being in his company and Paddy who done a couple of reels and things for us and it was just great it was great to see him. Yeah he is and hopefully we'll get him back up again some more and we'll do that. Yeah but Seamus the background like you studied classical music? Well I did until I was about 17 or so and I did think about doing it as a career but I was also interested in school I was interested in science and that kind of thing and my parents were a bit I suppose like a lot of people wondering was music going to be a great way to make a career you know and I took an interest in as I said in science and medicine and I decided to go down the medical career route so I went to Galway to study medicine and I loved it I did really. Well you just mentioned all very you're retired now what you had a long career distinguished career here in Latter-Canary? I worked here for almost 30 years in the University Hospital of Latter-Canary General as it was then and I worked in pediatrics you know in child health and I loved it it was a very rewarding specialty and great to you know to be able to help children and parents a lot of it was working with parents actually explaining things. I think the M. Rose Seamus you have to be cut out for them you know there's a dedication there as well stroke vocation you know. Well yeah some of it is hard and I think you do be able to cope with the bad days as well as the good days. Would the music be that escapism? Glad you mentioned that that is very true and after a stressful day maybe breaking bad news to parents you know things like that are dealing with difficult situations and I'd often just go and play my violin for for a half an hour to help unwind and just move your head to a different place. That's great to have that and that's probably what you know maybe comes to a lot of people they don't have that escapism maybe they've built things up maybe you need a release val there somewhere along the way. I think it's important to have something no matter what it way to de-stress or you know. I totally agree with that I find music myself any time now I don't get too stressed now but any time it was over music definitely was it about escapism and I don't know if you are one of these people when you go to music I don't know if you stick to one sort of genre or is it mood related if you listen to music my arms would be mood related no I don't want to listen to them than I do listen to them. Yeah very much so I find myself listening to classical music a good bit and jazz and traditional they're the three that I would listen to most you have certainly mood related you need in those genres like you know or different types of well you won you're a very young when you won the Fiddler of Duny competition which is still held in Slago. Yeah yeah it's ongoing it's it's named after the poem by WB8's the Fiddler of Duny and started off I think the competition started off in the 16th I think and yeah it's lucky enough to win it one year and that kind of gave me a bit of encouragement and it's still regarded as a. At 16 were you playing the instrument long at that age? Well I started when I was seven so I suppose yeah I still know but yeah and then of course you have performed with the buttons and bows. Yeah that's an interesting it was a very interesting step that happened I think that was in the early in the early 80s myself and my brother Manus who's a fiddle player as well he's a doctor too. We we joined forces with a musician called Jackie Daley Jackie is a very well-known button accordion player from Canterc and he played with Dedan and he spent a good bit of time over and back to the States and I had done some of my training in medicine in Canada and when I was there I got a chance to hear a lot of traditional fiddle music from Canada so we kind of got into exploring that kind of music we had we kind of found a common interest in in music. Is there a similarity? Yes certainly Irish music would have influenced it. Yeah you see there's a lot of Irish in Canada. Irish music has influenced music from most many other parts of the world certainly North America no question. There's no doubt about it you know and I always admire these people they come along you see the fiddles out in the corner and then they just love to get up and play and it's you know it's probably the on prepared nights are the best for them Kelly do you get involved in what's actually with yourself now? In like sessions in forms I do yeah I've got friends here locally that I play with you know who who um organ and hasn't that actually has fallen by the wayside a bit since Covid to be honest but we used to play um you know sessions and there's nothing like it it's the best of all it's very very relaxed and enjoyable and there's no pressure at all no actual performance. Do your your um your writings and your your music um I'm seeing a strong poetic uh connection alongside because your your first solo recording was uh from a Sheamus Heaney uh The Wishing Tree. Yeah yeah it um it was an album that I did for an American company called Greenlanders and um the um the main idea of it came from a poem of Sheamus Heaney called The Wishing Tree which he wrote actually in honor of his his mother-in-law and I just loved it the poem and um you know I used the viola on it and the fiddle and joined by my friend Neil Martin the cellist and that was the fact how we um got the first ideas for the string quartet was for that experience together but yeah I think and interestingly I got to know Sheamus Heaney after that. What did he? I sent him a copy of the recording and he was very gracious in his reply and wrote to me a few times and met him a few times very very you couldn't meet a nicer more down-to-earth man. He always seemed to give that appearance very very very easy very easy conversation. Very easy and very no ears and graces. Well we would love to get into a piece of music if you don't mind and I'm looking forward to chatting more um the first piece you're going to do for us. Okay well I'd like to play a tune actually a slow piece it's um it's a song it's an the air of a song from Donegal it's um I learned it from the singing of two of my big heroes in music in Irish music Triana and Myron Negonal. Yes. We've got strong connections with René Fershta and this this is the song which is called Melchie Chéandourin um translation to English at the sandy hills of Chéandourin which is over in that part of the world René Fershta. The words were by a man called Sean Ogréna and then the the air is um probably traditional it might sound familiar because it's also the air of a song from Northern Ireland called The Blue Hills of Antrim. So I'll have a go at Melchie Chéandourin. Lovely whenever you're ready. Beautiful thank you very much indeed beautiful piece of music there and that that what I like about the the violin at times you know it takes you on that journey of a of a poem you know uh do you when you're writing something like that or you're putting it together maybe or um do you have to have something in your head or what direction does it well I didn't compose that now but when I'm writing and I'm composing or writing something yeah you do have to have an idea I did write a few things during COVID and when I was um preparing for the album which an Irish viola with Steve Cooney I wrote some of the tracks for that and I was very much influenced I think by what was going on at the time and the opening track on it is called The Dreamer's Reel and it was kind of inspired by the idea of missing someone and relatives and family members during COVID because they were overseas and just dreaming of seeing them again and so yeah I think an idea you do need some kind of a spark or a when you put when you put because I'm always you see it's okay if you're writing a song because you put the words in it but if you're writing a piece of music you know I'm just trying to find the way of describing or maybe you could tell me how it goes because you know you could tell a story about that first piece of music and you could tell me the same story about another piece of music you know how do you define you know what's what is where's the creative part what's it's a big big topic that a big question not that easy to answer you know but you certainly it's mood related it's it's idea related yes and it needs a little kernel or a spark of of creativity you maybe it might even be two or three notes but you must you must be in a very sort of uh not intense but you know your vision is to say once again I'm going to be a song whereas someone's writing a song they say oh I need a guitar sound nice and narrow a drum in there or something but you're you know you're singly say writing a piece of music for just say for the single instrument that's available yeah you have to be very much engrossed in it yeah that's true certainly engrossed and you kind of get into it you get you get stuck into a different place you get you go to a different place yeah yeah well I can see me wandering there with that first piece of music because I was kind of going you know just to see could have picked something up in my head so what what did you pick up well a traveling I felt like traveling um like emigrating it's an emigrating song emigrating song well that's what I you know and that's the first time I've really kind of took respect at that or appreciated that moods the words you know it's interesting you say that because before I came out I you know it's a song the words are in Irish but I read I read the translation of it as well and it really is a love song but not to a person to a place so so the poet who who wrote the um the words the lyrics is talking about this place Candoor which is over near Renifers and he he remembers playing there as a child in the sand dunes and he writes very lyrically about you know his memories of that but then towards the end I think it's the third verse he's talking about now that he has left you know like so many Irish emigration songs he misses it dearly and he remembers back the days in the sandy hills of Candoor and so we can actually see him I'm picking up something I'm learning here you're not wasting your time no Evelyn McLaughlin sent a beautiful message in here she said you're blessed as a great musician and you're also a great children's doctor sending love from Dunlop oh not lovely that's really that's really nice thanks Evelyn very much indeed very much appreciated I have no doubt well Simmons McGuire is our company this evening and he's already played it a tune for us we're going to talk about the album shortly but in the meantime we're quick I'll break don't go away it's the Christmas Cracker we've all been waiting for join Highland Radio for a star-studded Christmas concert on Monday the 11th of December in the Mount Erigal Hotel letter Kimmy starring Michael English and his band Claudia Buckley John McNichol Ryzen star Jack Q and myself David James this is a Christmas night out not to be missed tickets 25 euros available from the Mount Erigal Hotel reception or online from the outlet at highlandradio.com dinner bed and breakfast packages also available that's the Highland Radio Christmas concert on Monday the 11th of December hi Tommy Bow here get in store to check out my new 15 Kings clothing collection available in premium gents outfitters nationwide and at 15kings.com Sheridan security now introducing zero wire smart alarm systems zero wire zero mess and a real peace of mind with a simple press of a button your alarm can be set or on set or download the free app and control it from your phone call us today on zero seven four nine one two six zero two five and get your alarm from two hundred and ninety nine euro stay local stay safe and protect what you value most with Sheridan security systems it's Black Friday a little bird he told me very have some fab deals oh yeah like what like mega offers on big brands like Dyson and Calvin Klein and massive deals on gifts for the kids and home wow the online store for fashion home and more plus ways to pay that work your way very let's make it sparkle event ends 30th November 2023 as temperatures fall so do Nissan's prices the price of the Nissan Leaf has been reduced by 5000 euro plus you can get a great finance deal for a limited time only there has never been a better time to go electric with a price drop of 5000 euro and an unbeatable finance deal that Nissan Leaf is Ireland's best value EV to find out more contact your local Nissan dealer or visit Nissan dot ie terms and conditions apply Nissan innovation that excites the effects of personal debt problems often go beyond just financial what we don't want to face can cause us to unravel stress eats at you relationships unwind it can feel like life's falling apart but support is available get back on track with the insolvency service of Ireland an independent organization that helps untangle personal debt problems see back on track dot ie supported by the government of Ireland bingo every Monday night at the halfway house burn foot doors open 730 with eyes down at 830 2500 euro Moscow snowball is now 1950 euro on 45 numbers or less if you're not in you can't win that's the halfway house bingo tonight at 830 transform your home with a visit to McGilley's furniture letter Kenny located at the port link business park just off the port road you'll find a huge selection of top quality suites beds and mattresses also slide robes and custom made dining and occasional furniture with prices to suit every budget see the great choice for yourself at our showroom McGilley's furniture port link business park port road letter Kenny click McGilley's furniture dot com for real choice leave diesel behind and make the move to Toyota hybrid electric at Kelly's Toyota letter Kenny and man charles world-leading hybrid electric technology lower emissions driving with the widest choice of hybrid electric models from Ireland's best-selling car brand with flexible payment options available make the move today at Kelly's Toyota letter Kenny and man charles Toyota built for a better world it's not just that Sammy has had his phone just getting carried away you're welcome back Monday night sessions we are joined in the studio by Seamus McGuire and he's really played a lovely piece from us and the Seamus if you don't mind we can talk about the uh the west ocean string quartet and uh that uh originated in 95 is that right yeah i think maybe 99 actually i think okay okay um it started off kind of as a conversation in the studio i was working on an album we mentioned earlier the Seamus Heaney uh wishing three of them and one of the guest of musicians on it was Neil Martin he's a he's a very well-known very uh distinguished musician from Belfast and he plays the cello and he plays the illan pipes brilliantly and he's also a composer and we were just chatting in general as you do in studios with time to spare between tracks about you know ideas and all that kind of thing i mentioned to him the idea of um a string quartet that might play traditional Irish music or Irish music and he was very interested in this idea and we he thought about it for why we both thought about it and a few years later we eventually got four people together and had our first rehearsals and recorded a total of uh five albums together and we've done a lot of um he's a great composer and arranger and he kind of keeps the trad side of things but nonetheless it has a classical format so there are two fiddles two violins there's a viola and a cello and um the music is carefully planned and organized so that it allows the musicians to express their background i mean i'm i'm mainly a trad player so i play i take would take the melody on the trad tunes and Neve Crowley who's the other violin player from Sligo she classically trained Kenneth Rice plays with the Irish Chamber Orchestra he's the viola player and Neil is um a bit like myself a mixture of classical and trad and his background it's a kind of an unusual mix and that's very much so very unusual and it kind of um has it took taken off very well and we've done a lot of interesting gigs and places and been to nice places there's one place here in particular just from seeing the notes here and you heard you've held your first rehearsals at the Tarongotry McCarrick yeah Anna Anna McCarrick was in County Monaghan and it was donated to the state by Tarongotry who was um you know a playwright a producer and all that kind of thing and it's now um a centre for artists rehearse and writers and visual artists and musicians it's a great place well if it was handed over to you know the state or whatever yeah has that i have no doubt and it's one of them places has great acoustics great atmosphere and at the end there's you know it has to have that doesn't it and one of the big things i remember about it is that um we all you won't eat together in the evening in the house itself so um you've got people who are musicians and writers and poets and dancers and you know all at the same table and it's it's a very creative very very good very conducive to um and a very relaxed money relaxed oh yeah and everybody works very hard that's taken very seriously it's quite hard to get in it's um uh you know takes a long time to get a place in there is that right yeah um but it's um very stimulating to meet people from other branches of the arts isn't it isn't it lovely uh that someone had the force to leave their property like that and and not only is it just like say a visitor centre but it's carrying on such great music and bringing such music together absolutely well i'm just wondering was the owner of that turongotry was involved in music or was it no he was he was involved in drama mainly oh right all the arts and yeah yeah very good theater holy story that's a place i never heard tell of ana we're working out ana mccarragas and ana mccarragas do you know what i'll certainly we'll do that yeah turongotry just to see we'd love to get another piece of music um see us if you don't mind um i'd like to play it shown by one of my favorite composers he's is is the greatest of all the Irish composers in my opinion turlo co carlin uh-huh he was born in 1670 right and um he as a young man unfortunately he got smallpox and at that time there were no immunizations or vaccinations so he was severely affected and became blind so he was a blind harpist and composer and but he became very famous and very sought after as someone who would compose music in honor of wealthy clients wealthy you know benefactors so these tunes were known as planxity so planxity the word planxity refers to a piece of music which was composed in honor of someone it's a bit like the more modern commissioning idea you know so you've probably heard of planxity this planxity that well i've heard of planxity but in the band i never i never knew that's what that's what the word means so i'd like to play a planxy it's not one of the better known ones it's called planxity um madame maxwell she was a woman who um originally came from wexford and her husband um became a lord or some kind of title person and they owned a place which is now the far in the moustache and cavern oh very well known and who owned that you say they did way back like in the i don't know what year early late 1700s or something early 1700s early 1700s so it's called madame maxwell it's not the new album that i recorded with steve cooney we'll talk about that after this thank you very much indeed thank you um the album this album we're looking at this is the current album we're uh recorded recorded down with uh billy robison correct down at the the groove shack yeah and uh you have 13 pieces of music in total and uh who who's yourself and uh steve cooney were involved in this and i just see from all the tracks um you're played violin all the tracks and guitars and that um what inspired this album well it was very much a covet project to be honest with you and the viola is an instrument that i even though the fiddle the violin is my first instrument and always will be the viola i've i've loved for a long time as well and the reason i think i like it so much is because um it has a deeper resonance and you know it it's described as the instrument which is closest to the range of the human voice and i found that it's a very good way of expressing certain kinds of emotions and a feeling in music so i wanted to um to do an album of viola music which hadn't actually been done a full album of traditional music irish music hadn't been done on viola before like it had been used in backing tracks and you know in other forms but not as a solo i think so i chatted to steve about it steve is from australia but he lives in tilan he's been living in dunagala now for many years and we had met many times before and i knew him very well we got on well together and he was up for the idea of collaborating on on it it was a bit tricky during covet to do that as you can imagine of course absolutely um but it gave me it was a great distraction and you mentioned earlier it's a concept of having something to escape using music as an escape and it was very much an escape from me from covet i think and um the inspiration then came from that do you think the lockdown situation and and things that got to inspire any sort of feelings that you put into music yes well i mean certainly i think we mentioned the dreamers really earlier which is the one one of the tracks that i wrote about the team of missing loved ones during covet that you couldn't see because they're overseas and and that kind of thing so certainly it was covet related but then it was more than that as well i mean it was an exploration of of the viola as an instrument in irish music it wasn't all about covet to be honest but so i mean i had to look through a huge range of traditional large music to see which pieces might suit the viola and i narrowed it down eventually to 13 tracks and worked with steve and rehearsals and we're very happy with working with billy was great too because i worked with billy on many of the west ocean albums which were recorded out there great very very easy to work with very easy work very talented terrific well the album's called an irish viola viola gaelic gaelic yes an irish viola it features yourself and steve kuny and there's 13 are they all written by yourselves no no not so many of the tracks are traditional i compose some of them and um arranged all of us but but some many of the tracks are the last piece you play there is on it madame maxwell madame maxwell is on it yeah well uh we've got a couple of uh father patty dunce is you're a wonderful legend given my best wishes oh i love it here from patty how are you doing father patty all right and such a lovely lovely caring man dr sheamus says we meet him we met him in pediatrics pediatrics in 90 day seven from the frill family and convoy thank you so much you know it's wonderful to hear back from parents of children that that i was looking enough to look after and it's so fantastic to get in you know well you have a conversation with you you certainly have that just coming across very much so is that and enjoying your company definitely am um say hello to sheamus a great musician and was so good when looking after our children in peds from frank and ailing thanks there you go thank you so much thank you very much indeed and uh the album is available you you get on the or t playlist or the or t a bit folk award shortlisted fat last year yeah it was a nice big night out in vicar street oh i love vicar street great place i never forget the night it was a great night but i got covered that was back a long time ago but it was it was good and um we were delighted with the response to the to the album and um if anybody's interested it can get on the website sheamus maguire music dot com yeah see that's your music page sheamus uh we could chat forever with times against us uh i just want to say thank you very much i've enjoyed your company i've enjoyed uh even as i say i picked up on something tonight which uh i didn't think it had on me that's sort of poetic where it's taken me so give me give me a journey so i look forward to i look forward to listening to this album and thank you and the tranquility of my own thank you very much place and uh maybe i'll come back some more time i'd love to listen as an absolute honor sheamus thank you very much indeed thank you tax payer use ross revenues online service to pay and file online by wednesday november 15th if you are not yet registered for ross do so today at revenue dot ie avoid a surcharge interest penalties and a possible tax audit don't miss the november 15th deadline pay and file on time is the appearance of your staff important to your business it's the first point of contact for customers when entering your premises at c&m embroidery and letter kenny they have a huge range of clothing covering all areas of the workplace it's widely known the customers warm to and trust employees that present themselves well have your company name embroidered or printed on all your work uniforms contact c&m embroidery on 07491 28097 and get your staff looking their best house to home bridge end dunny gall our modest front door opens on the two floors of iris made furniture suites beds mattresses dining and occasional furniture step into our showroom and see how we can transform your house into a home house to home furniture flooring slide robes and interiors