Orla Felcey, Maeve McGovern and Declan Dillon-Connolly
Orla Felcey (Wooden Flute), Maeve McGovern (Tenor Banjo) and Declan Dillon-Connolly (Bodhran) are all friends who grew up playing music together as a part of Tara O’Carolan’s Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Branch in Manchester, which teaches traditional Irish music through the oral tradition (passing tunes by ear rather than using sheet music). All three of these young musicians have performed for local gigs such as the Carousel Sessions as well as local dinner dances and parties. Having been involved through Comhaltas, they have also competed in the Fleadh Cheoils both in England and Ireland with Orla Felcey winning the All Ireland 15-18 Flute competition in 2016. While they mainly perform traditional Irish music, Maeve McGovern has also recently finished her term as a member of the EFDSS’ National Youth Folk Ensemble where she learnt and performed traditional English folk music as part of an ensemble made up talented 14-18 year old musicians from across England. As well as being involved in music, Declan has captained Lancashire Gaelic football team and is an All Britain Bodhrain Champion.
This session was recorded in a family kitchen in Manchester. While this may not be considered an acoustically interesting space compared to the more reverberant performance spaces, it holds significance to most musical households. It is not uncommon for families and friends to gather in each others kitchens or living rooms, drinks going round and tunes blasting from musicians that are cramped in to small spaces. A traditional Irish session is the gathering of musicians (not excluding audiences or those who don’t play) that share tunes, stories and songs til the early hours of the morning, and they can be found any way, both planned and spontaneous. While they are mostly found in local pubs, they can happen anywhere; a reception after a gig, the bar area at a venue, the lobby of your travel lodge or in someone’s kitchen. This location was chosen to represent the atmosphere of a simple session, a few musicians playing tunes surrounded by tea and snacks.
The first set of tunes that were performed by the three musicians where a set of two reels, The Green Mountain and The Sally Gardens ( bears no relation to Yeats’ poem “Down by the Sally Gardens”) which are both traditional tunes. The second tune that was played by Orla and Maeve was one of the O’Riada Tunes (similar to one of the songs Rioghnach sung) called ‘Sí Bheag Sí Mhór’ which translates to “Big fairy hill, Little fairy hill”. All of these tunes were taught as traditional Irish tunes at Comhaltas.
