EliotGrasso.com
6:00am. The alarm is buzzing. I turn it off. I’m bleary eyed and dragging toward the shower. Under my fatigue is great excitement. I’ve been invited by Robbie Hannan to teach and play at the Belfast tionól alongside Mick O’Brien.
With my backpack loaded with CDs and my pipes in hand, I walk in the rising sunlight across the bridge over the Shannon to the campus bus stop. We drive into Limerick. I’m let off on Parnell Street and walk past discarded bottles, papers, etc. to the Bus Station. I buy a ticket for the next bus to Belfast which, at a student rate, is 26 Euro.
By 9:20am, I’m on the bus with ample room. By 9:27am, I’m asleep again—my only alarm clock is the jostling of Bus Eireann as it negotiates roundabouts and pauses regularly to unload passengers and their luggage. Back into the arms of morpheous I go.
We’re in Dublin now. Sooner still, I’m on an Ulster Goldliner bound for Belfast. I have the aisle and window seats all to myself now. We’re on the cusp of pulling away when a large, pungent man seats himself to my right. With the fear of hygiene in me, I cower up against the window desperately hoping that fatigue will take my hand once more and guide me into coma.
Seven hours of bus riding later has put me in Belfast. I get off the bus and head into the station. I pause to call Robbie. He says he’ll meet me for dinner around 8:00pm in a little restaurant down the street from my hotel. I walk to the cash machine and extract 20 pounds sterling.
I turn right out of the bus station and walk to University Road where I turn left. About 5 blocks down is my Express at the Holiday Inn. I check in and the rotund young woman informs me that the systems have just crashed (they aren’t the only things crashing around here I think). I’m handed a key card and find my room. I leave my backpack and pipes upstairs then leave the hotel to search out something edible.
A right out of the hotel puts me at Botanic Avenue where I turn right. The first restaurant I recognize is Starbucks. I tell myself “you’re in Belfast…don’t eat at a Starbucks.” So, I find Clements Coffee Shop a few doors down where they are allegedly “Religious about coffee.” I have a canned orange Fanta and it is definitely on par with those served in the UL cafeteria.
I have a panini and pay the bill. I stroll about to visit some cathedrals and Queen’s College. Then, it’s back to my room. A call from Robbie at 7:45pm sends me hurrying toward the elevator. ‘Have I really been invited to guest teach by the brilliant Mr. Hannan?’ I muse to myself.
Robbie greets me downstairs jovially. We then proceed to dinner where he kindly treats me to a Caesar salad. He tells me about his abysmal experience playing Hong Kong for New Years Eve. At this point neither of us are getting any less giddy. I suggest a return to Clements for a drop of coffee, but Robbie presses a trip to his home.
A 20-minute drive and I’m at the door of the Hannan residence. We enter and at the right in the kitchen is Pádraigín seated, folding laundry, in cherry-patterned pajamas. We chat briefly and I’m introduced to nearly all five of the Hannan children. Then, I’m whisked off to the liquor store for a bottle of Bulmers.
We return for a chat in the living room. The mantle over the fireplace is strewn with Róise’s birthday cards. Mrs. Hannan calls Séamus Donnolly to come by as we’re planning to play a few tunes. She speaks to him only in Irish. He’s at the Cumann Chluain Ard, an Irish speaking club a few minutes away. Cathal comes along as we go to retrieve Séamus. Séamus is the principal of an Irish-speaking school and his pipes are in his office. We swing by to retrieve them.
Before I know it, we’re back at Robbie’s house. He asks me to sit in his kitchen and play a few tunes. He pulls up a chair across from me and we assemble the pipes. “He’s amazing.” Robbie says to Séamus. ‘Looks who’s talking,’ I think to myself. I give a play on the Kenna chanter. It’s so thick that I feel like I’m playing on a baseball bat. The key layout is strange with an E-flat key on the bottom. The sound of this particular chanter is round and sounds very old and wizened. The Es are slightly out of tune with each other, but that merely adds character to the instrument’s sound. The ivory mounts look as though they are gingivitis-ridden.
Jigs ensue. We play through “Old Hag You Have Killed Me,” “The Gander in the Prattie Hole,” “East of Glendart,” “The Walls of Liscarroll,” “The Butcher’s March,” “The Flowers of Limerick,” “The Bearhaven Lasses,” and “Farrel O’Gara.” Séamus and Cathal, Robbie’s eldest, look on. Robbie asks me to play a few of my own compositions, so I play “Up Against the Flat Irons,” “The Green Lady,” and “Morgan Andersen’s Foret.” “They sound very old,” says Robbie. “Garrett Barry could have played that first one.” I continue to play my hornpipe, “The Fern House.” “That sounds like it’s about 278 years old.”
Séamus holds up a recording of Ennis’s Return from Fingal. “What’s the difference, Robbie, between what we’re hearing Eliot play and the music of this recording?” “Absolutely nothing,” Robbie replies. “He knows this music deeply.” We play until 1:00am and Robbie drives me back to my hotel.
I wake up at 8:00am and pack my things. I carry my backpack and my pipes downstairs to the breakfast buffet. My stomach is in a terrible state, so I’m eating very little, but my brain is on. I’m sure I look like I’m staring into space for a long while, but I’m thinking…of music. I pull my manuscript book out of my bag and begin to write a tune. It becomes a jig: “The Trip from Belfast.”
Soon Robbie is there and we drive to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum with Séamus. His boys are in the car and we drop them at the babysitter. On the way out of the neighborhood, we drive past Robbie’s childhood home in Holywood. We drive past the location where Titantic was built and finally arrive at the sylvan museum grounds. We enter the mansion and Séamus immediately hands me a few quid for North by NorthWest. He’s to be in my beginners piping class. Between classes I go to wash my hands and am serenaded by Tom Clarke playing in the lavatory.
I teach for two hours in the morning. There is then a break for lunch. I sit with Séamus and Mick O’Brien. We walk the grounds to see some period housing and farmyard methods preserved. I take on the advanced class. They look eager. I teach them Robbie’s version of “The Maids of Castlebar,” a fairly difficult version to get your head around. It took them all about 45 minutes to learn it. Afterward, I give them “Famous Ballymote.”
Robbie asks how the classes were and then drives me over to the church on the grounds for the recital. It was built in 1738. It is small, but quaint. The ceilings are high and the pews are arranged so that they face each other and not the main alter. There are confessionals in the back that Mick jokes he’ll have to attend after playing. There is a beautiful organ that I am told Catherine Ennis once played in a concert with Liam O’Flynn.
After a sound check and mic set up, I play a few jigs: “Old Hag You Have Killed Me,” “The Butcher’s March,” and “The Gander in the Prattie Hole.” Now a few reels: Dermot McLaughlin’s “Sporting Nell,” “Billy McLeod’s,” and “The Maids of Castlebar.” Two hornpipes: “Chief O’Neill’s” and “The Peacock’s Feather.” Finally to slip jigs: “Kitty, Won’t You Come Down from Limerick?” and “The Rolling Wave.”
After I finish, I receive great commendation from Robbie. I probably turn red. He gives me thumbs up from across the room as I take my seat behind Séamus in the pews.
Now Mick plays. He plays “Easter Snow,” and “Jenny’s Welcome to Charlie.” I am totally captivated by his version of the reel. There’s a twist in the first part that would never have occurred to me. I’m remembering clearly why I sat in front of him awestruck at age 13 during the Baltimore tionól recording every second of his evening recital in the basement of the Hopkins Hotel.
Mick O’Brien - me - Robbie Hannan
After the concert, I find I’ve sold a few albums. Outside, there is an old O’Mealy set with a contra-bass regulator on it. Mick puts on the set and plays “Poll Ha’Penny.” The contra-bass regulator sounds sub-terranean producing more croaks than discernable pitches. Ken McLeod invites me to write a few articles for the Sean Reid society journal. Tom Clarke invites me to come back for a March tionól.
Mick and I and the pipes pile in the car and we’re off to Dublin. We talk about his family and music in general. He tells me about the Troubles in the north and the discrimination against many of the immigrants in the country. We talk about the tunes I’ve written and my approach to composition. “I’ve never actually sat down and written a tune,” Mick says. “I don’t really do that either,” I reply. “More often than not, fragments come to mind, then I follow them through to what seem to me to be their logical conclusion.”
We stop at a gas station and get a few sandwiches and drinks. His daughter recently returned to Dublin from the north with a lot of coins, so he treats me in an attempt to spend all the coins that is useless in the Republic. The ride is pleasant and we talk the whole way. I ask him if he teaches privately and he says he’s no time. He laments the state of youth today as they’ve no time to donate. No cash = no volunteering.
We drive into Dublin and Mick points out the house where he was born. “We moved when I was three years old,” he says. Finally we’re at Busaras. I give Mick a copy of North by NorthWest and bid farewell.
If you ever have the opportunity to attend this event, it’s well worth it.
National Museums Northern Ireland
ULSTER FOLK AND TRANSPORT MUSEUM
CULTRA, HOLYWOOD, CO. DOWN
Uilleann piping classes/recital
Saturday 23 September 10.30am – 5.00pm
Teachers: Mick O'Brien
Eliot Grasso
Reed-making: Bill Haneman
Uilleann Piping classes for players of all abilities will be held in Cultra Manor from 10.30am until 12.30pm and from 1.30pm until 2.45pm. Reed-making will be held in the same venue from 10.30am until 3.30pm.
A recital featuring the tutors will be held in the museum beginning at 3.30pm. Admission to classes/reed-making and recital £10.00 (under 18s, concessions, £5.00). Admission to recital only £5.00.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
A Call to Belfast
