I was standing under a beech tree in the garden one day thinking about the manager of the Ardcarne Garden Centre who once stood in the same place when the tree was a little sapling, the height of my shoulder.
At the time I had a notion that I could manicure the sloping hills of Arigna and establish a lawn with borders of laburnum and pagoda trees bending their leaves across a pebbled avenue as neat as any lush driveway in Carrick-on-Shannon.
But the wise man from the garden centre said no. He looked at the lake and the hills and he said, “It’s naturally beautiful here, you don’t need to do much landscaping.”
Which is why I can now walk beneath the trees and enjoy what has become a very wild garden. My friend from the garden centre was a good teacher, and I’m glad I took his advice. That’s the path to wisdom; listen to your teacher and act accordingly. In fact it’s why so many musicians come to places like Drumshanbo for music summer schools. They’re eager to learn.
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In Monica’s Pub, a couple of Clare women were playing concertinas. They said I should take up the uilleann pipes and banish the cats permanently
I did a workshop 25 years ago at the Joe Mooney School, learning how to play a flute. Although it’s fair to say that even after two decades the cats would tolerate Donald Trump roaring through a loudspeaker better than my musical renditions. The moment I assemble the flute they dive off the sofa and claw the back door, screaming to be let out. I even considered changing to a different instrument in order to placate them.
And so I was at the car boot sale as usual a few weeks ago when I saw a little piano accordion, a 12-base Carmen-Horner instrument made in Germany, although it was well battered and scarred from a century of use.
And as I reflected on all the people who might have played it over the years, in kitchens and public houses and parish halls, I decided to buy it instantly. The Mooney School was commencing on the following morning.
Carrie Crowley opened the school with an eloquent talk about how much music and Leitrim meant to her, and on the second night Charlie McGettigan compèred an evening of traditional singing. But it was accordion players that I was looking for. Someone to evaluate an instrument that cost me half nothing.
[ Michael Harding: I tried giving up my phone. It was a disasterOpens in new window ]
I went up and down the high street in search of help, as music wafted from the lounges and public houses. I met fiddle players with dreadlocks and civil servants with guitars and sean-nós singers scrutinising menus from the Chinese restaurant. In Monica’s Pub, a couple of Clare women were playing concertinas. They said I should take up the uilleann pipes and banish the cats permanently.
The Gala shop was humming with people carrying flute, banjo and bodhrán cases, all lined up in a queue with takeaway dinners in their arms. The parking space around the cattle mart outside was full of lovely white camper vans.
As I was passing Berry’s Tavern at 4pm I stepped inside to find two sessions in progress. Half a dozen teenagers were tuning guitars and banjos in the lounge and in the bar the Clare ladies sat with their concertinas on their laps, an elderly man from Sligo with a fiddle sat beside them and a woman with a keyboard straddling her knees was perched at the window. In the middle of them all was a master of the button accordion rattling out jigs.
I waited an hour sipping coffee until I got a chance to chat with him at the bar. Then I told him about my accordion.
“I haven’t a clue how to play, but I got it very cheap,” says I.
He winced.
“Would you not get yourself a concertina?” he wondered.
“Why?”
“It would be quieter.”
I suppose he realised that I hadn’t a clue how to play anything.
So I showed him a photograph of the accordion in question.
“Oh holy God,” he declared, “where did you find that yoke? It looks like a car crash.”
“I got it in the car boot sale,” I said.
“Get yourself a concertina,” he snapped. “And make sure it’s a good instrument.”
What could I do? The master had spoken, and he spoke with authority. So I went down the street and bought the first concertina I could find for sale. Because you must always follow what the teacher says. And I’m delighted to report that the concertina doesn’t seem to bother the cats at all.