Some cities keep their sense of medieval importance better than others. If development doesn't wipe it out entirely, the city of Galway will keep, for at least a few more years, the ghost of its former glory as a vital trading link with Europe, Fred Johnston
Galway and Spain - in particular, Santiago de Compostela - were linked by trade, mutual commercial interests and even commercial marriage throughout the medieval period and earlier. The tribes of Galway knew how to turn a ducat or two. All along the west coast, Spanish trading vessels bore down on the city; the coastal townland of Finnavarra, in Co Clare, is so called because of a Spanish shipwreck that left gallons of wine pouring on to the shore. No doubt there were musicians on these boats, or at least someone who could pluck a tune if the occasion arose.
Hardly surprising, then, that Galway city should host a festival of early music, much of it from Europe. In 1996, a group of people - I was among them, briefly - came together in Brennan's Yard Hotel to talk about such an event: the marvellous result is Galway Early Music Festival, which rattles its tambour this year from May 16th to 19th.
Under the acutely medieval title of "A Book of Hours", taking inspiration from the wonderfully illustrated bound accounts of sowing, feasting and hunting, the festival this year sports a lavish, pocket-sized printed programme, almost medieval in its dainty simplicity.
Within its gold-coloured pages can be found details of a programme of musical events, street displays and workshops, which brew together a tasty mead of renaissance and early music, over a period of four days. Among the events which, more often than not, allow Galway's citizens to dress up in funny hats and go medieval on each other, are a concert by Camerata Kilkenny, a performance of medieval dance by the Compagnie Maitre Guillaume, the harpist Bill Taylor discussing the harp music of Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland, dance workshops, an exhibition of facsimiles of books of hours, a parade through the streets reflecting Les Trés Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, schools' workshops, and concerts by candelight.
Rich fare indeed, and Rameau, Bach and Clérambault are there for music-lovers who don't, perhaps, feel comfortable with the phrase "middle ages".
One of the more interesting features of the festival is, arguably, a late-night concert of music in The Auggie - The Augustinian Church, to you - which will explore Irish music in the context of Europe, from 1200 to roughly the middle of the 1500s.
What sort of music might you have been treated to in an Irish tower-house (provided you weren't consigned to throwing out the slops and fighting the dog for a scrap of mutton) around this period? Was there an indigenous "Irish" music, or would it have been heavily Normanised? Was their a "popular" music and a "court" music, both developing from different strands? The Augustinian concert will strive to shed some light on these and related topics.
Quirky events will stave off an over-serious approach. "The Art of Musick", featuring recorders, bagpipes and Bill Taylor harping away with his fellow-troubadour James Ross, will be a concert of chants, songs and instrumental music to proclaim the legends of Scottish saints, Colmcille included, eye-witness accounts of miracles and monsters, in polyphony, plainsong and divers musicks for voyce. Colmcille, it appears, once had a precarious interview with the Loch Ness Monster; what they discussed is not recorded. Street groups will attempt to re-enact medieval drama, and there is, of course, a fire-eater.
Galway acquired, somewhat against its will, a reputation as a centre of traditional Irish music over the years - I can still recall the story of a fiddler thrown out of a Galway pub because he threatened to take out his fiddle and play - and trad is not neglected during the Early Music Festival. Busker Brownes Slate House in Cross Street will host an hour-long trad gig on Saturday, May 18th.
Hardly necessary, of course, as the town is alive with trad gigs anyway, but the gesture is appreciated.
And no medieval festival in Galway would be complete without a tour of the medieval city. That's if you can find it. There is, of course, the incorrectly-named Spanish Arch (should be The Blind Arch); and a set of offices in Druid Lane have accommodated the old earl's residence beneath it by providing transparent walk-overs; but will anyone be able to find the remnants of the medieval roadway, complete with scarred stones? It was fast vanishing under rubbish and grass the last time I looked.
There are parts of the fast-growing Citie of the Trybes which look, these days, anything but medieval, or even attractive. Tacky pink paint-jobs have made a Toyland out of whole stretches of buildings, offices and "town houses" (flats, to you), which make the western capital glow, one might imagine, with a rather unnatural light, seen from miles up. But there are are still quiet places, gracious places, where the whisper of old trees is the only spoken language.
Any tour of medieval Galway should will include a visit to the grave of those hapless Spaniards shipwrecked on Galway's shores during the days of the Armada, and also the ancient skull-and-crossbones-marked graveyard over in Claddagh. An American friend of mine, looking at the date on the gatepost, exclaimed: "Lord, it's older than America!" Politeness, of course, forbade a reply.
Details of the Galway Early Music Festival can be had from Mairéad Kavanagh, at 091-753908 or by logging on to www.galwayearlymusic.com.
Put a shine on your old crumhorn and haul out your hautboy.