 and if you're watching now on live and see Joe's sailor bull stuff there and it's classic to me but it's not on to do with us like ours because we have our very own Monday night sessions merch and we have t-shirts in the whole lot and they're from there they're from the last time but we're going to move on to that department now we'll be giving them away we're not charging anybody but you can make a donation of no less than 30 euros you know what I mean that's but anyway listen to 11 minutes after eight o'clock it's good to have your company as they stay with us right through until 10 we're delighted to say at the Seamus Grant weekend takes place down in Clonmane and Ballet-Liffon on the 14th Friday the 14th of October and goes on until sunday the 16th of October and I'm delighted to say from the festival we have Michael Mcdeodd we have Patsy Toland we have Evelyn McGonigal and we have Bernadette Callahan folks you're all very welcome thank you very much uh so I tell you Patsy if we just go on for a quick introduction the Seamus Grant weekend tell us a wee bit about it yeah well Seamus was a sort of local fiddle player and sort of I suppose somebody we all grew up in traditional music and played with the Clonmane-Keeley band he died sort of prematurely in his early 70s and a lot of us felt he needed to be remembered and his music and all the rest so it started off as a wee session during Clonmane Festival and had moved on to its own weekend this is the 11th one now we've been going for 11 years now did you write it sorry when you say the the Clonmane Festival is that the big Clonmane Festival on the back of that then we used to do a day on the Wednesday during it we used to have a traditional music day I never knew that I and then well I suppose that the sort of the big bands the country music sort of took over so we we moved and we know what we do during Clonmane festivals we go down to the famine village down the Isle of Dome we do a day there you know for it so but then we decided to up it and move on to and do a full weekend in early October and that was 11 years ago and it's been going ever since sort of the same format it's remembering Seamus it's also all about his music and particularly the sort of repertoire and the style he had he was a man who learned most of his music listening to BBC Radio Scotland so it's very Scottish and its music you know and the style and all the rest it's not the sort of the traditional Irish thing and and he was like that you know and he liked the music of the big players and composers like Scott Skinner and Scotland and also and he was amazing aye it was it was unusual and makes him sort of unique not totally because a contemporary has would have been Dany Midloughland and Dany Whitehall but Dany had a totally different style but Seamus and the Clonmane-Kaley band was always a big benefit as well you know so we thought that was worth keeping going absolutely well I'll tell you what we're going to talk more but we would love to get a piece of music first if that's okay aye so first up for us first up we're going to play a set of jigs Seamus played because we have a wee group too that runs called Real Trad that Michael and Evelyn and Bernadette are in with a few others and they keep this sort of repertoire going so we're going to play a couple of jigs from that one called Paddy in London and another one called Scotsman over the border and finishing off with Hartigan's fancy isn't it Michael yes so are we expecting a sort of a different slap in these tunes are these are these Seamus's tunes these are Seamus's tunes this has repertoire so if you like we're keeping the repertoire alive yes and these would have been played for Kaley dances by the Kaley band so we're sort of trying to keep them alive and that sort of doesn't change so every every week we keep this repertoire alive as much as possible yeah we're looking forward to this right okay so we'll head off with a couple of jigs after two one two yeah yeah every the Friday night is always the same we try and keep the format Friday as above so we've had over the years you know we've had Seamus McGuire with the Seamus Gibson here from the Kenny's Johnson now we've always featured a fiddle player along with some local dancing and singing as well you know so Tara as our sort of featured fiddle player will also she'll do a workshop on the Saturday sort of for people who want to sort of improve their music on that you know so you see the workshop it's very important to you for Tara in particular it would be people who can play but want to improve okay you know and a particular style Tara would be particularly known and I've seen her do workshops where she sort of gets the idea of music and dance together and I've seen her in workshops where she does both at the same time you know as well so it's all about the rhythm it's all about that you know there's a knack in that isn't there oh it's a skill like very much very much yeah because if you don't bring the people with you oh I you're sort of wasting your time absolutely yeah so that's that's and then on that night as well with some local talent Mickey and Lucy Herron along with Jacqueline McKay and Louise Daugher there is sort of a local group Mickey would be well known around playing and gigs and things like that local dancing group Valerie Harkin and then we'll have some singers and show singer circle so that Friday night is a sort of a nice quiet low-key concert you know maybe 90 or 100 and the Market House until Manny oh very good most people don't see the Market House because it's it's hidden by the stage during the festival but they've done a great job on it and the community center have taken it over and opened a wee cafe there and we live an exhibition on running over the weekend and all and then we live upstairs there's a lovely wee venue it holds a bit a hundred people so how many of yous are involved in the whole thing Patsy as regards committee and stuff it'd be a small committee you know like four to seven eight maybe you know and then there'll be other chairlet movers and shifters and things like that and the people who do who do but it's a small committee you know and and fully enough nearly everybody in the committee is a musician anyway you know so we've sort of an interest in you know and keeping it going you know it's a script that you're doing but it's it's well important too for the music to keep going on the generations that people like yourself can do that it must be great to see young people coming on board absolutely it isn't great I'll say and I suppose we do we do a certain amount for young people but we always depend on the like of russia migrory and clothe warner cover on the other side of on the show and who do an awful lot of the teaching of young people and on the show and they do an amazing job all together they have dozens of young kids playing fiddles harps whistles accordions you know everything that you know pipes they they do with that and we would support them and they support us they'll actually be along at one of the concerts as well you know doing that so yeah thanks for that evlyn hello oh no how did you how did you get involved um well the first year I missed out I was um I kept quiet behind the scenes but I was asked to sing at one of the concerts um it was Pat McGonigal it would be a relation of mine and he was the chair man back then right and um he came to the house one day and asked me would I sing a few songs at it and I said yeah and they invited us up then to the house to join up with the likes of Michael and Bernadette and them that used to meet up and have a wee session in their house so I ended up going up to play up there maybe once a week and I kind of took off from that very good my this traditional music been in your blood for a long time it has it has my grandfather Neil McGonigal um he was one of the aunts from Cluncia he played in the Kiliband Clamani Kiliband for a while in the late 70s and then my mother's side of the house they're all singers and Gillespie's they're well known my my aunt from Cluncia Roseanne McGonigal would have been well known for the and he's shown singing circles so yeah kind of a good background so kind of carrying it on carrying it on yes and do you pick up any you know your music left the icing and do you pick up any tunes from them that they made up traditionally hard or is your sort of once you've found yourself most of them would have been from listening to music in the house mom and dad would have played a lot of tunes in the house maybe from grandis old tapes cassettes and then we would listen to a lot of fury brothers doubliners that kind of you know shanking and that would have been what inspired me but i would have learned a lot of my songs from my mother and my aunts and my granny was a singer and um the music side of it would have been from mainly picked up from the likes of the Clamani Kiliband and Sheamus's tunes well done i love that i love that the tradition of things moving carrying on you know i mean it's really really good well we'd love to get another piece of music if you don't mind do you need to tune up or anything or do you and now we're we're okay i think are we good to go yeah that's good so the next one patsy the next one we're going to do again a couple of Sheamus tunes these are highlands again a lot of the music would have been for dancing you know and if we ever play these anywhere in Clamani you'd be sure that half a dozen people will be up dancing on the floor you know they're they're just naturally that's what you want to see these are and these tunes are sort of in people's minds for generations and when they play this Sheamus used to say that you know when you played a certain tune if you were doing a kailey and you wanted to do the walls of limerick there was a tune that you had to play this is if you didn't play that tune people would stand and look at you what are you doing you know what he says after you play that first tune and they get out to know you can play anything you want to do that you know so anyway this is these are a couple of highlands the first one's called George Owens and the second one's called orange and blue oh lovely when you're ready um after four okay three times each one two three four i was in glenties today just uh for the uh well see if i get a bargain i didn't get a chance to get down to the weekend but it couldn't help as well i noticed uh now and again photographs of the one and only Jimmy Campbell and it's just dawn because you know Jimmy because it's up here it's just you know last year where Jimmy was at last he would have been involved not involved but would he took part in your no we never had any of the i suppose it's sort of i want to deliver a thing but we there's such a strong fiddle playing tradition around glenties and our drah and around you know the dorties and the camels and all this we wanted to try and show this other and the show and things which is i feel like i suppose we bit more scottish and keep it so we're always we're always trying to sort of show that there's that there's more than just the one sort of style in donnie gall people talk about donnie gall fiddling but she must sort of shows that there was another but there are much more sort of formal scottish style to it so but although we had we had uh and we were up here with him paddy mcminamon was was was here he was great one year he he was our featured fiddle player so we have have had quite a few fiddle players up and paddy was up with oh god he's a great great great great great great yeah i'm going to start all night for him just oh no oh it's stories and talks and tunes and a great man to arrive at russian glories to say great man to arrive just when you were thinking of finishing the last one was 2017 wow that's the last time i got to my but come here so if people want to get involved people not involved people want more information you're on the social media and notice you have that all sorted and already i i uh our facebook and evland's the woman behind the facebook with the facebook page for contacting evland and all the rest for tickets locally and then we have a very good website that we've been working on over the past year which we're really proud of because alone doesn't have a festival page but we have dealt into sort of old tapes and tunes and things that and we have a we have an archive of shamus on video playing tunes then we have a tutor page where people have come along and and people we know and they've come on and done video lessons of shamus shamus's tunes so that people want to learn the tune they can see a fiddle player and a accordion player so we've been working really hard on that to make it a sort of a really top class sort of resource you know for people it's well done on yourselves um i just think i think it's amazing the thing about her too is this unique style of playing as you say and carrying that forward it'll stay around these parts for long enough i'm sure it will lie and and the uniqueness of it again is this connection because like our our our big guest this year is ali bain who'd probably he's from the shetland islands but he would be known probably as as the best known fiddle player and traditional musician in sort of scotland england and all the rest he was the man behind the transatlantic session you know that took american folk or country singers over to scotland and melded them with irish and yeah it was a long running series they used to have so he was the man behind that there and ali's written tunes he's just an amazing character all together and then along with him phil conningham who's a scottish guy as well plays accordion and has composed some beautiful tunes so we've actually been trying to get them for a couple of years to come but then covid hit so and and that sort of prevented it but um he was he was a real favorite of sheamus sheamus just to listen to the radio now and again if ali bain was on it'd be shush here's ali bain playing a tune you know so shenus would be a good cracker if he was here you know and one of the reasons why we kept after ali bain to see would he come over because we think it's pretty special you know that's nice pretty special so he's he's performing they're they're both performing on the uh saturday night in the bali liffen hotel that's a big concert oh and that'll sort of sell out we've already sold maybe a hundred of the 300 tickets they're on the right and on the website so if people want them tickets they can get them through event break they can go straight to event bright or they can go to the facebook and contact evalyn for local tickets as well if they want you know for the saturday night or the friday night as well you know evalyn you're under pressure with a social media stuff are you slightly you have multi roles here a few a few jobs to do yes all right have to start getting promoting it now from now on but you have to don't you really because that's that's the sort of modern way forward now you know everybody's honouredly and if you're not you're sort of missing the trick i think the website page is a brilliant idea bright how did you how did you manage during the pandemic did you school uh what do you call it well we took the live finger we took the brave step i don't know maybe i sort of pushed people if we're doing the brave step of going online and for two years we had two online festivals yes which in a way was brilliant for us particularly last year because the one thing about online is you can reach people like from around the world and we had for example last year probably the best known k britain fiddle player ever natalie mcmaster and her family huge names and they recorded piece for us and they did an interview with us who went online way back as well to just the year in 2005 before shameless tidy recorded there's only one cd and there was a k britain piano player called ryan mcneedle with them who now lives in south africa and i tracked him down and ryan did a performance for us online and sent it to us so with an amazing year last year in the year before of people you'd never get and we could never afford to bring to clon manny and they were there on it you know sort of every cloud as they say but it's it's good to do that because you're talking to so many artists and the question they always ask is well how did you get on during the pandemic and some people didn't go online because they didn't feel right but the amount of people that tell you people listening in on america and there's people that you know they were just blown away it was lovely we had a lot we had a family from anna and clon manny you know a fellow who who actually shame is taught and himself and his three kids play and they they live uh and uh was boston boston and they did a wee show from their sitting room and recorded it and they were part of it too so it was just amazing so when you look at that they couldn't have really took part of it boston very good bernadette your role once you're rolling all this just uh according to you see bernadette didn't think i'm part of the committee as well bennett doesn't think we're going to talk to you see we who'd went to there nap on you're part of the committee too and are you there from the start yeah that's good you enjoy all that we do that's good and obviously you're an accordion player well i give it my best oh no no no you have to you have to be no point being modest but listen that's all i'm going to ask you because i'm the only picture on the spot you know but you're welcome and michael mcdaya hello to you michael i'm doing good come here uh you're rolling it as a commodity members of michael no well at the moment i just play in and support right now and i'm there if i'm needed i was on the committee so so now i'm there when i'm needed so good you join it michael and join it i have very much music i'll be lost without my music so how long you playing the banjo playing probably about 15 years now i was playing a good while before i came out sort of out of the closet very good very good played along with like patsy a lot of and all the man mcdonnief and i learned a lot of tunes from mcdonald and little potent tunes together and you know i've done for keeping a go on a script i'd be respected and appreciated well done to you because it's a big thing you know it really is you probably maybe don't realize until you sit back and think about what you're doing great to work it's amazing and who had a request or maria howards says good man patsy well maria a connection with maria you know her husband's fits howard he makes yes and he made this tenor guitar that i'm playing like i was looking for a long time so yeah no maria well me and jimmy can down to down to see these guitars be made we were talking to him we just roughly talked to him on saturday maybe sunday yesterday i was just gonna have to get these you know what i mean it's amazing amazing guitar they are maker and repair unbelievable and uh fair play to them indeed and thanks for getting on touch right so once again at the shimmy's grand weekend and at the 11th annual festival and it takes part on friday the 14th three until sunday the 16th of october and say everything's included there'll be workshops as a workshop sorry i know you told me there's a workshop with tara is there a workshop for the other workshops what we're going to do is we're going to put those online for the people who contacted us last year in the year before so we're going to have some online workshops as well excellent so that people and we had people from all over the country and england and all the rest coming in for workshops so we thought we'd keep a bit of that as well that's very good but you know you just didn't drop them no you couldn't no you couldn't do that and then we have a lovely day then it's a sort of a a wind down on sunday what we do then is in the market house we have a sort of an open session it'll start about two o'clock for younger people who want to come and play or sing or dance and then from three to six it's a sort of a family anybody come along sing a song do a bit of galey dancing but you know just because it is really a family sort of a weekend you know as well as then of course it's great to have sessions we have sessions in the square bar and McFeely's and the Baliffin Hotel after until the wee years you know when everybody gets together and we have to be done now I mean it doesn't sound as good if it's not finished enough but accommodation wise and stuff do you find um you know in your local area do you find people send you know the bookings are up here because of the ones come with the festival or well particularly say the Baliffin Hotel who who would look after us as well for that you know yeah you do get that as well you know when you get inquiries then from people but a lot of people would know would know people in the area like I have there's six or seven people coming from Dublin and that yeah they booked they booked airbnb and things they got and of course a few have booked into my own house because they they they said we're not paying for accommodation when you have a spare bedroom we just come to your house so yeah no and it's good it's good it's a good accommodation wise and then all the other you know food twice and all the rest it'll be it's a wee bit of a help anyway coming on to the you know as I say once again you know you're bringing a lot of you know extra money into the area I'm not saying you're bringing the fortune but you know what I mean that people are gladness nice to see that no and it's lovely and people come back to us because we have a lot of sponsors you know as well as the people who are involved with us you know we do get some money from the arts council as well yes and and then just the the pubs and the local post office and otherwise they would all sort of help and in terms of and do you find them good days in that area I got you you nearly don't even have to ask we've actually people are wrong so I'll say oh you're on again this year put me down for the program we sponsor you know like pat down the famine village we'll give some to that door and then blend on craft shop surely put me down you know you don't even have to go ask you know the famine village is is a perfect setting oh that's great you know I was down there in the summer I made my way for down for the day I just love that's all it's brilliant you know and just when you're saying about it you go that's just the perfect place you know the whole atmosphere right there you know well listen we'd love a final train if you don't mind right we do we do a couple of reels maybe yeah we've done some jigs and some as we do we'll do St Anne's reel and the wise maid okay again all these would be sort of sets that you must would have played and would be on a cd and things like that you know so we like to keep those going and things lovely lovely or sorry oh we're doing patty on the railroad as well we do we do three okay one two those tunes you played associate it with the one cd that they're the ones that he would have played for a particular dance at a kelly and they belong to the to the mani kelly band and shameless themselves the first one is Dan drill I once you said you were playing I associate it that way Tommy make them there's a song around that as well all right you know it's actually it's actually a french canadian tune the french canine with the k britain people and the french canine would tell you it's their tune we would say it's our tune but that's one of those bouncing over and back we all we all share it now you know I'm not going to fall out once again the shameless grant weekend and it's going to be absolutely brilliant it starts on friday the 14th runs until sunday the 16th of october and as I say for further information you can check them out on the facebook page or you can go to www.chemistgrantweekend.com and you'll make them you did thank you very much patsy toland evland uh i've only got evan sorry but that cuts us we small right now i've got my glasses on i'm bernie the keller and thank listen it's been a pleasure you deserve credit and the best to look with it and i can't wait till she gets back again our next year