'Riverdance for toddlers' makes waves Down Under

“THE nation needs a lift,” according to a group of west coast traditional musicians whose new project has inspired a documentary maker in Indonesia and a special needs school in Australia.

The Speks have also secured a parents’ choice music award in north America for their recording of English/Scottish nursery rhymes set to Irish acoustic traditional music.

The group, who all wear spectacles and say they hail from “Glasses Island”, somewhere “south of Hy Brasil off the Clare coastline”, have employed digital and social media to publicise their debut album.

Described as “Riverdance for toddlers”, it has been downloaded in some 40 countries. An award-winning Indonesian filmmaker is using one of the songs in a short satirical film about democracy.

A special needs school teacher in Australia’s New South Wales, Ruth Gibbs, told the group that one of her pupils who had never spoken before in class could now sing to the rhymes.

“I would just like to tell you how amazing your music has been for my students,” Ms Gibbs said in an e-mail to the group.

“They all have severe autism. I discovered your music on the internet and downloaded some of your songs. I then added them to a Powerpoint [presentation] I had made and we sing and watch the songs each afternoon,” she said.

The literacy benefits of nursery rhymes have long been recognised, according to the group.

“This has been cast in an even more pertinent light by OECD findings published last week showing there has been a significant decline in literacy standards among Irish 15-year-olds over the past 10 years,” they said.