Going with the music

Siobhán Long unveils the recipients of TG4's sixth National Traditional Music Awards

How many of us would turn our backs on an accolade from our peers? Regardless of how far we might like to believe we've scaled the evolutionary ladder, most of us crave acceptance from our equals.

TG4's sixth National Traditional Music Awards are announced today, and it's an eclectic gathering of musicians who will relish this unexpected tribute.

Mercifully, players no longer have to prove their seed, breed and generation before being accepted into the ranks of musicians who effortlessly share a tune round the grate. This year's winners bear testimony to the lateral thinking that has seen traditional music not only grow and develop but also thrive in the hands of such a wide scattering of vibrant players and singers.

John Carty, who has been named traditional musician of the year, is a modest man not given to seeking out the spotlight. A child of the 1960s who was born in London, he returned to live in his father's home town of Boyle, in Co Roscommon, in 1991. Carty is renowned for his banjo and fiddle playing, and that he is a ciotóg hasn't gone unnoticed either. Somehow he manages to accommodate his left-handedness, playing a right-handed fiddle but fingering with his left hand and bowing with his right.

His emigrant background and idiosyncratic playing style whisper of a player who's more conversant with adversity than he is with comfort zones. "I suppose I'm not the sort of fella who's looking to be centre stage, but I'm very committed to the music," he says. "And wherever that takes me I'm very happy to go there. I've often felt that some of the greatest moments in Irish music aren't necessarily the biggest gigs you do; it can be a shared intimate moment with a fellow musician or just a conversation about music."

Fiddler that he is, Carty relishes his Roscommon location, a stone's throw from Coleman country in Sligo, from where the celebrated fiddler Michael Coleman brought a rake of magnificent tunes to New York and beyond. Sessions abound, and tunes inevitably populate the air that he breathes. "I often go to places like Gurteen for the sessions," he says, "and when I drive back that road I can't help but think of the great players like Coleman, \ Morrison and \ Killoran, and it's funny how I really do feel their presence and an almost magical spirit in the area."

Carty took possession of the repertoire of the region early on (his father, John P. Carty, is a fine flautist and multi-instrumentalist) and earned his stripes listening to players such as Bobby Casey, but it was his exposure to reissues of Coleman's records when he was 16 that upped his blood flow. His decision to relocate to Roscommon helped quicken his pulse further.

"Shanachie \ reissued old 78s of Coleman, and I really liked them," he recalls. "There were accompaniments that were dodgy, to say the least, but it didn't put me off. Back then, though, I had no one to share it with. It wasn't until I moved back that I could really immerse myself in the music. I've always had a big emotional attachment to this area, and I've always had a grá for music."

The music isn't all sweetness and light, though, as Carty is quick to admit. There are times when he has to give it a wide berth. "It's such a demanding listen that sometimes I feel that I can't go anywhere near it. I have to get away from it. I'm probably Coleman's biggest fan, but there are times when I just can't bear it. There's just so much in it. And I've got two young kids, so it's not always possible to give it the time it demands."

Frank Harte - architect, song collector, historian and singer - is this year's recipient of the traditional singer award. A diffident man, he makes no secret of his astonishment on hearing that he had won. "It's great to be given an award for something that's an absolute pleasure," he says. "It was never any trouble to me. It's been a lifetime of pleasure and enjoyment. But it's nice to know that there are people listening."

As a central cog in the wheel of traditional singing for more than four decades, Harte acknowledges that taking the pulse of the singing tradition is no easier than it ever was, although he says there are signs, at least, that it is not expiring just yet.

"At the end of the last century there were people like Cecil Sharpe, who collected songs, who were saying that it's too late now, the songs are gone," he says. "One could have said that 30 years ago, and it might be said today. But at the same time I remember a time when we were thrown out of pubs for singing and for playing music.

"The change came about when people like publicans became aware that there was money to be made out of this thing that people had never pursued for money.

"The ballad singer has never sought anybody's approval: when singers like Joe Holmes or Eddie Butcher sat down to sing everybody already approved of the songs they were singing."

The music has been brought in from the cold, he says, no longer the stuff of haggarts and kitchens but of concert hall and snug alike. "I remember some noted musicians dying and music was not allowed in the church. So we've come a long way in recognising the integrity of our own music, and I think part of it is our own growing up as a nation, that we're more confident now to express ourselves and to express the true tradition of our people rather than seeking outside approval. In the past we sent out John McCormack, the international tenor of high renown - and deservedly so - but that was the image we wanted to create of Ireland. We sent little girls in green dresses dancing, and we sent harpists instead of uillean pipers or bodhrán players."

Notwithstanding our new-found confidence, Harte has misgivings about the impact other facets of our progress may have on the music, specifically the songs. "I believe that our tradition came from the small farms that had those long winter evenings from September until April when there was no electric light, no television, and few houses had radio. Paraffin lamps lit the place, the place was crowded with shadows and ghosts were everywhere. Electric light has done away with the ghosts, and television has done away with that quiet time when people had time to sit and think and create and enjoy their own creation of recreation."

So is the future of song doomed as we submerge ourselves in more and more noise-making technologies? "I think there will always be people who will want to express some tragedy or sorrow or laughter in song," he says. "What the venues will be for the singer, in particular, I don't really know. Musicians have the ability to sit down and play into one another's ear all night, irrespective of the noise going on around them, whereas the singer has a story to tell, and there's no point in telling a story if no one is listening."

Ciarán Ó Maonaigh - Donegal fiddler and scion of the Mooney clan (his aunt is Altan's Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and his uncle the late, great flautist Frankie Kennedy) - is this year's young traditional musician. He's a player whose roots are showing, and that's exactly the way he likes it. "Most of the tunes I play are Donegal tunes," he says. "I'm very lucky to be from a place with such a good regional style. There are a lot of tunes and a lot of people to look up to. It's rare enough that I'd hear a new tune that would really hit me - there are a lot of tunes being written that I wouldn't be mad into - so I'd prefer to stick to the old tunes. Music is the main thing in my life, and everything I've done in the last five or six years revolves around music."

The final two recipients of this year's awards, who've made their mark on the music over the past half-dozen decades, are Vincent Broderick and Johnny O'Leary.

Broderick, a native of Loughrea but long-time Dublin resident, has been named traditional music composer of the year. He's a flute and whistle player whose wide repertoire of self-penned tunes have wound their way from his home townland of Carrowmore all the way to Manhattan and Melbourne.

The box playing of the Gneeveguilla fiddler Johnny O'Leary, who joins the hall of fame, has placed the polkas and slides of Sliabh Luachra firmly on the musical map. Locals and travellers alike have been known to take the pilgrim path to Dan Connell's pub in Knocknagree, Co Cork, where O'Leary has held court for many decades. Health difficulties have prevented him from anchoring recent local sessions, but that trademark glint in his eye is as strong as ever.

The National Traditional Music Awards will be presented at a gala concert at University Concert Hall in Limerick on November 15th

TG4 trad awards

Traditional musician of the year: John Carty

Young traditional musician of the year: Ciarán Ó Maonaigh

Traditional singer of the year: Frank Harte

Composer of the year: Vincent Broderick

Hall Of Fame: Johnny O'Leary