Keeping in tune with the family tradition

Eibhlín O'Keeffe picks up tunes quickly from her grandad Maurice, but she doubts she'll ever learn all his repertoire, writes Siobhán Long.

Maurice O'Keeffe is a lover of music, a fiddle player, a dancer, and a man with an insatiable appetite for good company - and good tunes. His wry humour reveals little of his 86 years but he shows an ingrained affection for charting new musical waters, exploring the depths of the melody line, measuring the metre of the dance.

O'Keeffe and his granddaughter, Eibhlín, are two of the guest musicians performing in this year's May-long Bealtaine Festival, celebrating the transmission of traditional music from hand to hand, generation to generation.

Sliabh Luachra has more than its share of fiddlers and box players. Padraig O'Keeffe, Denis Murphy, Julia Clifford and Johnny O'Leary put the Rushy Glen on the map, but its deepest crevices are mined these days by that rare breed of musician who treats the polkas and slides of his home place with a mix of lively humour and reverence.

Maurice O'Keeffe, Kiskeam born and bred, has more than seven and a half decades of fiddle-playing tucked beneath his belt. Known for his musical generosity, Maurice mentions in passing that in the past 10 years alone, he has made more than 450 tapes of tunes for fans of his spirited style of playing, posting them to addresses as far flung as Tokyo and New York, London and Sydney.

"Our house was a kind of a rambling house, and we loved dancing and playing polkas," he says, "and by the time I was in my early 20s, I was playing in the local hall in Keelnahulla, where we'd get two shillings a night. When I started playing, traditional music was at a very low ebb. It was waltzes and sambas and so on."

BEING THE MIDDLE child (or at least, seventh in a clan of 11) didn't burden the young O'Keeffe, who was the only one of his family to be handed a fiddle by his mother, who recognised his burgeoning musical aptitude. "I was always whistling and didling around the house," he laughs, so it came as no surprise when regular lessons with a revered local fiddler, John Lenihan ignited the 10-year-old's imagination like a firecracker. Later he went on to turn his hand to the trumpet (in the Kiskeam Brass Band) and the box.

"I was John Lenihan's last pupil," O'Keeffe recounts, "and he was 75 years old when I went to him. The first thing he taught me was what we called 'the gamut' at that time. Of course the proper name for it was the scale: learning how to read the lines, the spaces and the notes. That cost my mother 10 shillings, and from then on, it was eight pence per tune."

Lenihan was initially a hard task master, admonishing the young Maurice "to get your fiddle: a cowardly soldier never won a battle".

"He used to frighten the life out of me," O'Keeffe admits, although the master softened considerably after O'Keeffe mitched two lessons. It proved to be the turning point in the relationship between teacher and student.

"From there on, we became exceptional friends. He taught me how to read and to write music, and it stood to me at the later stages in my life, because I got books and books on music and I was able to teach other students too."

O'Keeffe is quick to credit the company of his numerous playing partners for his years of enjoyment of the music. He relishes his memories of playing with the great Johnny O'Leary and Denis Murphy.

"I used to sit between Johnny and Denis when we'd play at Dan Connell's in Knocknagree," he recalls, "and I can assure you I wouldn't be able to play as much as I can today without all that I learned from the two of them. Johnny's style was totally unique. There's nobody playing like him today. One time, I confided in Denis Murphy that I was thinking of getting a banjo and he said to me: 'Lord God, Maurice, hould on to your fiddle' - so I did!"

Maurice O'Keeffe has the distinction of having an annual festival in his honour, inaugurated in 2002. Contrary to traditional music's tendency to wait until its heroes and heroines have shuffled off this mortal coil before honouring them, the Maurice O'Keeffe festival thrives on the back of the man's own magnetic personality - and his swag of tunes. Year on year, every Easter weekend, droves of students and music lovers flock to Kiskeam to play and learn from the master.

"There were musicians here this year from all over Ireland, from France, Japan and America," he says. "A few years ago, some French musicians visited me here, and I gave them my tunes on tapes. They took them away and this year four of them came back and played every tune immaculately. I'll tell you, Irish traditional music is universal now."

Asked if he knows how many tunes are in his repertoire, O'Keeffe shivers at the very thought of it, and blithely proceeds to lilt two tunes, Maggie In The Woods and I've A Bonnet Trimmed With Blue, singing each note by name as he tiptoes through the melody. It's a mini master class in musical virtuosity, offered without a thought. "I've put all the tunes that are seldom played on my tapes. 'Tis the only the way that they won't be lost. I couldn't put a number on it though, because if I did, I'd be telling you an untruth, and I won't do that."

Maurice's granddaughter, Eibhlín, was steeped in his repertoire from the cradle, having grown up under the same roof as her grandfather. His message to her was simple and straight.

"Your bow hand is the master," he says. "Your fingers are the workers. If you bow hand goes wrong, everything goes wrong. You have to practise quite a lot, because you'd want to be playing for an hour before you'd get into the right rhythm. Of course an oul' tóisín of whiskey or a glass of Guinness can help too! Eibhlín has a great bow hand and that's the making of all great fiddlers."

EIBHLÍN MAKES LITTLE of her facility with the fiddle, crediting her lifelong exposure to both Maurice's music and that of countless visiting musicians, with the natural draw she feels toward the tunes.

"I can remember dancing with grandad to tunes he had recorded onto tapes when I was very young," she says, "and there were so many different people calling and playing with him that it was just something that was always around me. I learned the real Sliabh Luachra style from him. I'd pick up a tune quicker from listening to grandad playing it than from reading it. His style is just lovely. It's so different to anything else. I suppose his music is what you might call 'feet' music."

She's doubtful that she'll ever manage to learn all of her grandfather's repertoire. It seems to be a trait of Sliabh Luachra musicians that their store of tunes is boundless. It used to be said of Johnny O'Leary, by the journeymen who transcribed his tunes for publication, that the only way to guarantee a collection of his tunes was final would have been to shoot him. Eibhlín has encountered the same conundrum with Maurice's repertoire. "I'm always learning new tunes from him," she admits. "He's got so many tunes. I wouldn't have a quarter of them. He's always pulling new tunes out for me to learn."

Bríd Cranitch, artistic director of Ballyvourney's venue, Ionad Cultúrtha, where Maurice and Eibhlín will play together on May 19th as part of the Bealtaine Festival, sees it as an ideal opportunity to celebrate what comes naturally to traditional music.

"Traditional music is very much central to Gaeltacht artistic life," she suggests, "and because of its strong oral transmission, it travels very comfortably from older people to younger people. In fact, you could say, there is no generation gap in the Irish Tradition."

May days Bealtaine festival highlights

The Bealtaine festival runs throughout May, across Ireland, celebrating creativity in older age. Information via local libraries and County Council Arts Offices or from Age & Opportunity on 01-8057709, lo-call 1890-506060 or at www.olderinireland.ie.

Fridays throughout May: Traditional-style house parties with an open invitation to play. Seamus Ennis Centre, Naul 7.30pm (01-8020898)

From Hand to Hand concert: Maurice O'Keeffe and Eibhlín O'Keeffe with John Coakley, Máire Ní Cheochain and Nell Ní Chróinín with Máire Uí Laoire, Ionad Cultúrtha, Ballyvourney, May 19, 8.30pm (026-45733)

Clowning around Veronica Coburn (below) leads a clowning workshop for all the family at the Abbey, Dublin, May 13 (Booking essential on 01-8146506)

The Philadelphia Story, starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, will be shown around the country.