The Irish musical delights of Donegal

KILCAR, Co. Donegal -- The tide is rolling steadily into Tawny Bay towards Kilcar Town as the rain falls softly down for the first time on my current rambles in Ireland.

Alongside a warm comfortable fire burning in the holiday home of friends Patricia and Jim Flynn, access to wireless Internet affords me the opportunity to pen some lines about the first visit to Donegal in a score of years. It is only a flying visit for the weekend, but anytime spent in such a beautiful part of the world is memorable, especially when you can take in some traditional music and dancing along the way and reconnect with old friends and meet new ones which is so easy to do in Ireland.

Twilight was ebbing last Friday night as I drove across the Derryveagh Mountains on a winding country road leading to the sandy shores of Gweedore. There was enough light remaining to make out the majestic form of Mount Errigal in Glenveigh National Park in the distance, one of the most distinguishable summits among the spectacular hills of Donegal.

The first stop in my Destination Donegal tour would be Bunbeg and the famous house for music, Hudi Beag’s Tavern, brought to greater recognition by Altan, the traditional music group that helped raise the profile of the unique Donegal music style a number of years ago.

Fridays and Mondays would be nights where tunes are shared and arrangements are made to meet up with Ciaran O’Maonaigh and Caitlinn Nic Gabhann (visiting from Co. Meath before she headed back to her studies in Cork). We were also joined by Ciaran’s father Gearoid O’Maonaigh who plays guitar. and a piper from Belfast, Conor Tay.

Ciaran O’Maonaigh is one of those extraordinary young musicians carrying on the musical heritage of Donegal who was recognized back in 2003 as a comer by TG4, which named the fiddler the Young Musician of the Year.

The following year he produced a fabulous CD, “Music of the Glen,” that also featured Dermot McLaughlin and John Blake, that highlighted the music of this region which has been further enhanced by his latest recording with two other Donegal musicians, Aidan O’Donnell and Damien McGeehan, as a fiddle trio called Fidil.

Caitlinn is the youngest daughter of Cavan fiddle master Antoin MacGabhann who plays the concertina, and a part of the very vibrant Co. Meath music scene.

Hudi Beag’s was relatively quiet this night in terms of a crowd, but the music was sublime and intense and well worth making the journey all the way from Dublin that day. Quiet tunes in pubs like this are really to be treasured, because in noisier or more touristy timeframes, one wouldn’t have the pleasure of hearing the music with such clarity and beauty.

By Paul Keating
http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/col/keating/The-Irish-musical-delights-of-Donegal-61194377.html

The Donegal Style

The Donegal fiddle tradition is a type of Irish traditional music, based on a two-hundred year-old tradition (or possibly set of coexisting traditions) of playing the fiddle in County Donegal, Ireland.[1] Donegal is a partly Irish-speaking highland-county in northwestern Ireland and one of the three counties of the northern Irish province of Ulster that are part of the Republic of Ireland.[2]

The tradition has several distinguishing traits, most of which involves styles of bowing and the ornamentation of the music, as well as the rhythm. Another characteristic of the style is the rapid pace at which it tends to proceed.[1] Modern players, such as the fiddle group Altan, continue to be popular due to a variety of reasons.

Donegal style has its roots in ancient Irish music styles, although the accent on the Donegal fiddle tradition is also somewhat related to the Scots tradition Like some Scottish fiddlers (who, like Donegal fiddlers, tend to use a short bow and play in a straight-ahead fashion), some Donegal fiddlers worked at imitating the sound of the bagpipes. Workers from Donegal would bring their music to Scotland and also bring back Scottish tunes with them such music of J. Scott Skinner and Mackenzie Murdoch.

The historical connection between the west coast of Donegal and Scotland is an ancient one which was furthered by immigration from Donegal to Scotland in the 19th century (the regions share common names of dances), as can be heard in the volume of strathspeys, schottisches, marches, and Donegal's own strong piping tradition, has influenced and been influenced by music, and by the sounds, ornaments, and repertoire of the Píob Mhór, the traditional bagpipes of Ireland and Scotland. There are other differences between the Donegal style and the rest of Ireland. Instruments such as the tin whistle, flute, concertina and accordion were very rare in Donegal until modern times. Traditionally the píob mór and the fiddle were the only instruments used and the use of pipe or fiddle music was common in old wedding customs. Migrant workers carried their music to Scotland and also brought back a number of tunes of Scottish origin. The Donegal fiddlers may well have been the route by which Scottish tunes such as Lucy Campbell, Tarbolton Lodge (Tarbolton) and The Flagon (The Flogging Reel), that entered the Irish repertoire.[6] These players prided themselves on their technical abilities, which included playing in higher positions (fairly uncommon among traditional Irish fiddlers), and sought out material which would demonstrate their skills.

The Donegal style of fiddling is a label often applied to music from this area, though one also might plausibly identify several different, but related, styles within the county. To the extent to which there is one common style in the county, it is characterized by a rapid pace; a tendency to be more un-swung in the playing of the fast dance tune types (reel and jigs); short (non-slurred), aggressive bowing, sparse ornamentation, the use of bowed triplets more often than trills as ornaments, the use of double stops and droning; and the occurrence of "playing the octave", with one player playing the melody and the other playing the melody an octave lower. None of these characteristics is universal, and there is some disagreement as to the extent to which there is a common style at all. In general, however, the style is rather aggressive.

Another feature of Donegal fiddling that makes it distinctive among Irish musical traditions is the variety of rare tune types that are played. Highlands, a type of tune in 4/4 time with some similarities to Scottish strathspeys, which are also played in Donegal, are one of the most commonly played types of tune in the county. Other tune types common solely in the county include barndances, also called "Germans," and mazurkas.