[bright Irish music] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] - On this episode of "TradFest," the Fingal sessions were over the moon, joined by Stephen Rea, Louise and Michelle Mulcahy, Neil Martin, and Farah Elle.

[bright Irish music] [bright Irish music continues] [group laughing] Stephen , Louise, and Michelle, you've just come from performing at TradFest.

Tell us, what have you been doing, what's going on?

- I was reading some poetry and they were playing some magnificent tunes, along with Neil Martin and, and a very wonderful audience who appreciated what they were getting.

- It was a really special afternoon.

We were in Soars Castle, really spectacular setting, and the audience made it even more special and I think there was a whole host of material, the whole idea behind seat was mastery and skill and we really delved into, I suppose, the annals of poetry and Irish traditional music, drawing from those great masters, both past and present.

- Yeah, amazing.

Sounds like a remarkable collaboration.

- It was very exciting, really, and I think the show evolves and changes all the time.

So each time we come together, there's a whole array of different material and I think that's something really unique for the show as well.

- And Stephen , is there something in particular the show was about or- - We actually started a poem by Moya Cannon, which really points to the origins of indigenous music, you know, and how it has survived by the incredible courage of the people who made the music and went all around the world and, lost everything, but the music.

And so, but it's full of, as we know, it's full of immense joy and pleasure, and great sadness too.

- This particular, the poem you're going to do for us is dedicated to beloved musicians.

- Yeah, this is called "Carrying the Songs."

And there's an epigraph at the beginning, which says, "Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs," by Frank Harte.

So, "It was always those with little else to carry who carried the songs to Babylon, to the Mississippi, some of these last possessed less than nothing, did not own their own bodies, yet three centuries later, deep rhythms from Africa, stowed in their hearts, their bones, carry the world's songs.

For those who left my country, girls Downings and the Rosses, who followed herring boats North to Shetland, gutting the sea's silver as they went, or boys from Ranafast and Horn Head who took the Derry boat, who slept over a rope in a bothy, songs were their soul's currency, the pure metal of their hearts, to be exchanged for other gold, other songs which rang out true and bright, when flung down upon the deal boards of their days."

[bright Irish music] ["The Hag At The Churn"] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] - Stephen , that poem was dedicated to Maihgread and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill.

- Yeah well, of course, they come from a family that goes way back, and Dhomhnaill music, with their amps, and it's just so incredible what they possess, just by existing.

And so, it's appropriate that they were getting it.

Moya Cannon is from Dhomhnaill herself, but what I love about it is the way she broadens it to take in the whole world of music, you know, jazz, African rhythms, you know, it makes you feel connected to all the important things like music, you know.

- The sense that music comes from the land, you know, from, and no matter where that land is, there's like sort of a commonality in the music that comes from that, like- - Yeah.

- Be it African, be it Irish, you know.

- Yeah, but I mean, American popular music has just been lifted from Black people and Irish people.

- Yeah, yeah.

- But we've got it back and- - Yeah, yeah.

[pair laughs] Neal Martin, from playing gates to writing operas and writing tunes, you're a busy man.

How did you get connected with all of this?

- Well Stephen and I have been working together for 35 years.

This year was the first time we shared a stage together.

- Oh.

[group chuckles] - And yeah, well [mutters] weren't even born then.

[everybody laughs] So we've been doing a lot of stuff, you know, Field Day Theater Company of which Stephen was a fine director and we've worked a lot in there, and out in New York, Sam Shepherd play, and lots of stuff here as well.

So there's a lot of stuff over the years.

So we kind of have a way of going between us and it was my first time, the first sia to work with Louise and Michelle, so it's been a very happy journey.

- Yeah, marrying music with words in a different way to, you know, conventional songs, you know, in a sense.

- I often think of Irish poetry connected very much to the European troubadours of the Middle Ages where there was very little difference between the poet and the musician.

They were kind of all the one, you know, you sing poetry, really, and you speak poetry out loud, and all of these things are interconnected and I like to think it was us here, on this island as well, and kind of sure it was, really.

- And the tune you just played there- - We played "The Hag At The Churn."

So I supposed, like any traditional music, tunes are passed on from generation to generation, and I suppose each generation breathes new life into the tunes.

And I think when you collaborate in this format, a certain new excitement presents and I think every time you play a tune, I think you'll agree with that, Neil, with new people or within a different environment, it comes alive.

- And it's amazing to hear it, kind in the context of a poem that is about the Dhomhnaills or there's a reference to the Dhomhnaills, because obviously, the body band's version of that tune is one that I have traveled many, many miles to, you know, through the years.

- Absolutely, it's a really rhythmical tune and I think that's a really important connection, with poetry and music, is that rhythm and the presence of rhythm, and I suppose, with tunes and poetry, they can both marry the emotional intensity of each other and I think that's something really special that we've worked on throughout the six performances.

- And I think that's a very, very ancient tune.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the origins of that were not in a clown march, going back to the 16th, 17th century, pretty sure it would have, you know, it's all routed, it's all earthed in the tradition and in the piping tradition.

- [Interviewer] Stephen , this next poem is from a dear and departed friend of yours.

- [chuckles] Well all the friends are departed these days.

Yeah, poor old Derek, you know, he's truly emerging as one of our greatest poets and he never promoted himself, ever.

And he just kept at it and it's coming home now, you can see it as the way he goes from personal position to seeing the whole world, it's almost unique, you know.

I love his work, you know.

- Mm, so the piece you're going to read for us now- - Well, it's called "Washing Up," and he goes from the simple action of washing up dishes to seeing the world, you know, and he starts with an epigraph.

"The miracle is not the fly in the air or to walk on water, but to stand on the Earth."

It's a Chinese proverb.

"You do the gastronomy, I wash up and rinse under a running tap.

I like it on the whole.

It gives me time to think about our lives here, at the edge, no, at the eye of real existence, wind and sky working together to define the limits of our own demand.

There's so much washing up to do on the degraded planet now.

Oceans and forests, oily sands, are filthy, lucrative demands on the resources of this place, and soon, perhaps, of outer space.

Beyond the window, a bright star notes my performance from afar, twinkling to find a widower engaged on a domestic chore, a relic of pre-digital times, fond of anachronistic rhymes and flight from the new politic of induced squalor and high tech, washed up on a deserted beach, grumpy, contrarian, out of reach.

[gentle cello music] I stand here at the kitchen sink, watching the soap bubbles blink.

No, here at the sink, I stand, with a wet drying cloth in hand, dreaming not of that caricature and automatic dishwasher, but of an even simpler life, untouched by electronic stuff.

The best of miracles rely on the old, known reality, pines where the wood pigeons live, wild garlic growing in the drive, the nightly fun of wiping dry dishes and bowls and cutlery.

Washing up here along this shore, us urban exiles can be sure of a real world where fauna thrive and precious habitats survive, where swifts, back from Rwanda find unchanged the nests they left behind, and hungry gulls remain content with their own fishy nourishment.

However much we wish her ill, nature as such, is hard to kill.

The more insistent our demands, the more severely she responds by turning up the heat again so we too register the pain.

Golfers in helicopters fly here, dropping daily from the sky.

And surfers surf, who might prefer not to be here, but in Hawaii.

But these are just technology, playing its games with sea and air.

Knowing our own place, I infer from my perspective as [speaks French] in the whole turbulent shebang, the Universe and everything is the one miracle that wins out over a rake of sins.

It might be going too far to say, life is worth living anyway, for the naive and unprepared, despite the violence endured or the despondent migrant crowds out in the road like drifting clouds.

What do we know, in our resigned enclosure, sheltered from the wind?

But don't we cherish all the same our long-sought equilibrium?

[gentle cello music] I stack the plates with diligence, glad to have been of use for once, and step outside to watch the sea, washing up in the estuary."

[gentle cello music] - Thanks Stephen , that's amazing.

- It's an amazing poem.

- Powerful poem.

- Yeah.

- But clean up the Earth, [chuckles] you know?

- I know, you know, Derek was a man who suffered terribly, personally, and more than the other poets that we all know of.

And I suppose his way to get out of that was to face the big issues that faced everybody in the world.

That's what makes it so powerful.

- Louise, how did you come to be involved in [speaks Gaelic]?

- Well the really, I suppose, inspiring journey over the last while, and it came about at television program, about 12 months ago, maybe a year and a half ago, as part of Temple Bar TradFest.

- Oh yeah.

- On the estuary, and we filmed a slow air and Stephen read a mad poem as well.

- Trump time, wasn't it?

- Trump time, that's it, and from there, I've been involved since and loving every minute and really enjoying performing with Michelle and Neil and Steve.

- You've got some tunes for us?

- We have, we'd love to play a selection of cheeks for you on the flat set of Uilleann pipes in B, and Michelle has an accordion as well, and I suppose we were chatting about legacies, you mentioned the Body Band, and I suppose one part of the tradition, which is so important is musical families, and we come from a musical family.

Our father, Michael plays the accordion as well, and a whole host of other instruments, and growing up, we've learned so many tunes at home in our kitchen, just like so many other families around the country.

The first tune is a tune which we learned from our dad and it's called "Johnny Henry's" and we also mentioned new compositions and new tunes coming to light and I think we're at a really exciting time where there's so much archive and footage, and I think that's a whole other magic when you hear new tunes.

And the second tune, actually, is a composition of the piper and broadcaster, Peter Brown, and it's called "The Land of Plenty."

- [Interviewer] Ah, great.

[pipe warming up] [upbeat Irish music] ["Johnny Henry's"] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] [upbeat Irish music continues] - Fantastic.

- Great.

- Thanks so much.

Your pipes, we were talking about the torch being passed on, I mean, the story behind your pipes is one worth hearing.

- It's particularly moving and for many people, [indiscernible] was the first port of call, people would have heard first sound of Irish traditional music, the sound of Ireland, are brought for so many people.

And sadly, we lost Liam Finn a number of years ago.

I know he was a great friend of Neil's, and we've talked about this on many times, when we met over the last while, but Liam donated, when he passed away, two sets of pipes [indiscernible] and these are one of them.

They were made about 35 years ago by a lad from Montenotte.

I'm just incredibly honored to be able to play and continue playing this beautiful instrument.

And every time I strap on the pipes, I really think about Liam's legacy.

I think about the music he created worldwide and how he elevated the status villa pipes and Irish music to new heights and new platforms worldwide.

What an incredible legacy and I just feel really honored to have been entrusted with the care of these set by the people in Dublin.

- Your playing of them is extraordinary.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Farah Elle, great to have you with us here, so nice to see you.

- It's nice to see you.

- Congratulations on your wonderful music.

Your album, "Fatima," is just beautiful, stunning.

- Thank you, feels good to have it off my chest.

[laughs] - Yes, and to think the first time we met was a couple of years ago and you were working on it, I'm imagining, and dreaming up what has now become this body of work.

It must be exciting to have it out in the world.

- Yeah, definitely.

When you're working on something for, it was seven years, so it just feels like, ah, okay, I can just, I have more space now to work on more projects and yeah, and also, I just wanted to share the songs.

I didn't wanna hold them hostage anymore.

[laughs] - So in those seven years, I mean, lots of inspiration?

- I think when you're an artist, your inspiration mostly stems from life, right?

So, [laughs] I just had more time to experience things.

So, it's funny because when it came to releasing the album, I really didn't feel like the same person anymore as I was when it started, of course.

And so much had happened from, you know, just growing up and then I released it after the pandemic as well, so it was like a different world even, releasing it out into.

So yeah, felt good.

It feels good.

- Good.

I feel like, ah, okay I don't have that foreboding sense of, oh God, I really better release that album.

[laughs] Like, it's done now.

[laughs] - The opening track, "Silk"- - Yeah.

- Feels like a real calling card to your music.

Would that be fair to say?

- Yeah, definitely because "Silk" is sort of where it started.

"Silk" is the first song I wrote that, you know, for the whole album, but it was also the first time I had sang in Arabic which is really different feeling than when you sing in your mother tongue, to when you don't.

So I think that's a really beautiful thing about traditional music as well 'cause you're expressing, sort of, your indigenous side, your voice, you're letting it come through.

So it was a big change for me, doing that.

It sort of opened up my voice in a different way that I had never done before.

And it sent me off on this trajectory then of self-expression.

So it was, yeah, it was an important song for me.

- Mm, and Neil is gonna join you on the cello.

- Yeah, I'm really excited about that.

[laughs] Yeah, let's do it.

Cool.

[deep cello music] [singing foreign lyrics] [gentle passionate music] ["Silk"] [gentle passionate music] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] ♪ Every now and then I'll have forgotten it ♪ ♪ But I know it's in me ♪ ♪ At peace is all I've ever wanted ♪ ♪ Then it hits me and it's so hard to be ♪ ♪ This cloak in all its darkness ♪ ♪ It carries me ♪ ♪ Oh how it feels when it's so haunted ♪ ♪ And it makes it hard to see what's going on beneath ♪ ♪ When it always hits me ♪ ♪ When it always hits me it makes it hard to be ♪ ♪ And it always hits me ♪ ♪ When it always hits me, it makes it hard to breath ♪ ♪ This veil of silk could be worn with it ♪ ♪ It's nothing but sorry ♪ ♪ My eyes are how you'd recognize me ♪ ♪ Because all that matters is my identity ♪ ♪ But what if I can't see ♪ ♪ What if I find it hard to carry on being me ♪ ♪ And what if this could be ♪ ♪ The only gate that welcomes every single part of me ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ [gentle passionate music] ♪ Oh ♪ [gentle passionate music] ♪ Oh ♪ [gentle passionate music] [singing foreign lyrics] ["Silk"] ♪ How far can we go with all our profit ♪ ♪ Hoping that no one will say ♪ ♪ Take me and take away our problems ♪ ♪ And then maybe we could head out to sea ♪ ♪ And what if this could be ♪ ♪ A solution to removing the veil that's wearing me ♪ ♪ And all of a sudden I see ♪ ♪ That there's an ocean in the desert ♪ ♪ And it's waiting for me ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ [gentle passionate music] ♪ That it's waiting for me and it's ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ [gentle passionate music] ♪ That I waited, nay ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ That it waited for me and it ♪ [singing foreign lyrics] ["Silk"] ♪ When it always hits me ♪ ♪ When it always hits me and makes it hard to breathe ♪ ♪ And it always hits me ♪ ♪ When it always hits me and makes it hard to breathe ♪ ♪ And it always hits me ♪ ♪ When it always hits me and makes it hard to breathe ♪ ♪ And it always hits me ♪ ♪ When it always hits me and makes it hard to breathe ♪ - Yeah.

[Farah chuckles] Yeah, what a transporting piece of music.

What a gorgeous combination as well.

- It's beautiful.

- Really beautiful.

- [Farah] Thanks.

- Farah, I have to ask, you know, the Arabic lyrics, what is it's- - What does it mean?

- What does it mean?

- So it's an ode to, actually, that [speaks Arabic] is a song by Fairuz, who's a Lebanese artist, and [speaks Arabic] just means my girl, Shalavia.

So, like my girl of O'Reilly.

[laughs] Like a family name.

- The inflections as well, you know, the inflections, the bends in the notes are fascinating as well for me.

- Oh yeah, they're quite similar to- [indiscernible] - They are, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, there was a trade line between North Africa and Ireland ages ago.

- Mmhmm.

- So I think a lot of the melodies got mixed up and then there's some words in Arabic that match, like, [speaks Gaelic] is Jesus in Irish, and then [speaks Arabic] is Jesus in Arabic.

[laughs] That's just one, but there's more.

Well, I think the melodies also overlapped.

The singing style, like- - Yeah.

- Yeah, I don't know, definitely to do with that trade line.

There's also a lot of mythology to do with Ireland and North Africa, which is kind of fascinating.

- Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

It's beautiful, thank you.

- Thanks, thanks for listening.

- Neil, you're a man of many tales, what's "The Raven Banner," talk to me about "The Raven Banner."

- Well, I wrote this tune about nine years ago, or coming up in that, and I wrote to mark the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf, and in my research, and reading around it, I discovered that the Battle of Clontarf melded into Norse lore, way back, you know, 800 years ago.

And one of the stories associated with this great battle in Ireland, was that the man with the front of the marching army had a banner in which there was a raven, and anybody who was behind that banner would come out of that okay, but if you were in front of that, you went in front of that banner, you would die in battle.

So I kind of like the story of that, and I wrote the tune, and the only person I taught that tune to was my daughter, Molly.

And about a year after I wrote that tune, Molly went off on a school trip to Malawi, and our Molly brought out two dozen tin whistles and taught the kids various little tunes.

And then I got an email, "Dad, I've just played 'The Raven Banner' for the president of Malawi and an audience of 3,000 people," and that was its first public outing.

So it's kind of bizarre when you write a little bit of music that connects here and, you know, that the Norse countries and Africa that, you know, the world is a small place and music travels.

Music sees no frontiers, it sees no boarders, it kinda, it works its way- - What a great story- [talking over each other] [men chuckle] [cheerful Irish music] ["The Raven Banner"] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] [cheerful Irish music continues] - Ah, great, great great great great great.

"The Raven Banner," what a tune.

[Neil laughs] What a tune.

- Thank you.

- Michelle, it's great to have you here this evening as well.

How's your TradFest going?

- It's a great experience for me personally.

- Well, what are you gonna play for us now?

- So we're going to play one of the beautiful arias, and with the beautiful channel songs, called "Cailin Na Gruaige Doinne" and it's just, there's something so magical about the human voice and particularly, I suppose, the versions of songs that we hear in the greatest of regions, and this particular song, I suppose is, it's a very important to us because we're honoring the wonderful Nick Maloney who was a dear, dear friend of ours, and also the great Jameous Bagly.

So, and also we're going to honor Liam Finn because he records the most beautiful version of "Cailin Na Gruaige Dionne."

So- - Ah, beautiful.

Well thank you.

[gentle harp music] ["Cailin Na Gruaige Doinne"] [gentle harp music continues] [gentle harp music continues] [gentle harp music continues] [gentle harp music continues] [gentle harm music continue] [gentle melancholy music] [gentle melancholy music continues] [gentle melancholy music continues] [gentle melancholy music continues] [gentle melancholy music continues] [gentle passionate music] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] [gentle passionate music continues] - That was heart-stopping-ly beautiful.

I mean, [laughing] really, the combination of, that's gorgeous.

Really beautiful, thank you.

- [Michelle] Thank you so much.

- Really amazing music.

What do you reckon, Stephen ?

- Oh, it's the most exquisite thing I've ever heard, I think.

- Isn't it just- - Really- - Yeah, me too.

- Yeah.

- When we think of Shamus, you know, the big, strong man that Shamus was, and you know, big, strong carry sheep man, like, he had the voice, the softest, softest, most gentle, beautiful voice within [indiscernible] - He did.

- Yeah, he sang that song so very beautifully.

- [mutters] You played it for him tonight, and for all of us, for me and for Nick as well, yeah.

Beautiful, thank you.

Neil, you're going to, I believe, slip over to the piano and do something quite special for us.

We're gonna play musical chairs.

Farah will you come and sit beside me here.

[laughs] [everyone laughing] [peaceful piano music] ["Sean O Duibhir a' Ghleanna"] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] [peaceful piano music continues] That's beautiful, Neil.

- It's a great air, great, so "Sean O Duibhir a' Ghleanna."

- "Sean O Duibhir a' Ghleanna."

- Yeah, it laments the passing of the old Gaelic order, and it's one of the strongest, most beautiful, timeless, moving pieces of music I've ever come across in my life.

- Well you played it really beautifully.

- Thank you, thank you.

- Stephen , this [speaks Gaelic] material, it's powerful, powerful stuff, isn't it?

- Well yeah.

- What fuels your passion for poetry?

- Well, I've always loved it, you know?

- Yeah.

- I always liked reading it, even in school, you know?

One of my approaches to poetry is what the great Beckett once offered me a piece of advice about doing his work, he said, "Don't think about meaning, think about rhythm."

So that released poetry for me in a way, and you know, and brought it closer to music, you know.

Music invites you to understand the meaning, but not at the expense of the beauty of the work, you know.

So I think poetry and music go together.

That's what I get out of [speaks Gaelic] when I find that every time we're, every time we've done it, we've only worked three times more, more reveals itself, you know, and just to be here with Farah, see that the tradition is available to everybody, that it's not an exclusive discipline, it's something that can be improved by people coming and teaching us.

You know, I find that so exciting, to be honest.

It's a maturity of, that I think exists, now in Ireland, rather than being, you know, down-home nationalists, where we're embracing the world a bit.

I think that's right, and that's what these poems do, do you know?

- Mmhmm.

- I think, isn't that right?

- Yeah, it absolutely is.

- Yeah.

- [Interviewer] What would you like to share with us now?

- Before you fall asleep with absolute boredom.

[laughs] - No, not at all.

[laughs] - I'd like to read- - Well that's a good name for a poem.

[men laugh] I'll have to write that one when we're done.

[everyone laughing] Okay.

"Before You Fall Asleep With Absolute Boredom," by Stephen Rea.

[men chuckling] - Well I'm gonna read two poems that I think, sort of go into each other, one is "Inis Meain" by Ciaran O'Rourke, who's a new, young writer, and when we go into "The Given Note," by somebody called Heaney, yeah?

- You go back a long way, [mutters] - Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- So okay, "Inis Meain."

"Woke early, all the island ticking like a maze, I walked to lose my way in water-lit seclusion.

Found, of course, the sea, sea through which the reaching somewhere shimmered, I saw my feet go pink beneath the waves, and when I walked again through the very shunting heart of heat, a second cuckoo sang and be it noted how, from listening grass and un-bewildered rocks, the sky white wind came bounding after all the day.

A sprig of bird song clutched in every fist, I breathed it in.

I stepped across the beating rim, my shadow grew longer until the sun dipped."

And "The Given Note."

"On the most westerly Blasket, in a dry, stone hut, he got this air out of the night.

Strange noises were heard by others who followed, bits of a tune coming in on loud weather, though nothing like melody.

[quiet cello music] He blamed their fingers and ear as unpracticed, their fiddling easy, for he had gone alone into the island and brought back the whole thing.

The house throbbed like his full violin.

So whether he calls it spirit music or not, I don't care.

He took it out of wind off mid-Atlantic, still he maintains, from nowhere.

It comes off the bow gravely, rephrases itself into the air.

[gentle dramatic cello music] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] [gentle dramatic cello music continues] - Wow.

Oh, that's the first time I've ever heard [speaks Gaelic] played on a cello.

- Ah.

- That's remarkable.

- Yeah, well what another extraordinary air.

And as you know, it associated very much with the [speaks Gaelic] - Yeah, and with the given hoot.

- The air inspired the poem.

- Yes yes yes.

- Shamus aired from [speaks Gaelic] the air, and he then set about writing that extraordinary poem, on hearing that.

- Oh it was great, and thank you, Stephen , and thank you, Neil, as well for playing that to us this evening.

Farah Elle, [laughs] there's an amazing tune on "Fatima," called "Laundry," which I play time and time again on ORTE Radio and I love it.

- Thank you.

- Is there any chance we might do it together?

- Yes, let's do it.

- Okay.

[laughs] Can we all join in?

- Yes, that would be perfect, absolutely.

This is a shout out to anyone who's ever done your laundry.

[everyone laughs] All right.

[gentle twinkling music] ["Laundry"] [gentle twinkling music continues] ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done, baby, I'll be coming home ♪ ♪ Only in your eyes ♪ ♪ That it finally feels so right ♪ ♪ My baby calls me all the time ♪ ♪ No, not only in the night ♪ ♪ Only in your arms ♪ ♪ Can I feel you mean any harm ♪ ♪ 'Cause baby only in your eyes ♪ ♪ That it finally feels so right ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done, baby, I'll be coming home ♪ ♪ Ow oh, oh, oh ♪ [gentle twinkling music] ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Mm ♪ [gentle twinkling music] ♪ Blowing in the breeze ♪ ♪ Fill my heart with ease ♪ Okay, you ready?

♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ That's it.

♪ I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ Except louder.

- Oh.

♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ - And keep going, all the way.

♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Only in your eyes, and my laundry is ♪ ♪ That it finally feels so right, and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ My baby calls me all the time, and my laundry ♪ ♪ No, not only in the night ♪ ♪ Only in your arms, and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Can I feel you mean any harm, my laundry is done ♪ ♪ 'Cause baby only in your eyes, and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ That it finally feels so right, and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ I'll be coming home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Home and my laundry is done ♪ ♪ Baby, I'll be coming home when my laundry is done ♪ [everyone laughs] Yay.

[laughing] - We might have been supposed to end on home there, but we took it all the way.

[everyone laughing] Oh, what a beautiful, amazing evening this has been.

Thanks so much, guys.

[everyone responding] Neil, you have something to round up the evening for us, haven't you?

- Well, I want to play a couple of reams.

Michelle, you know the names of them, I don't.

What are they?

- The first one is a great old air called "Lady Gordon's."

And the last one, then, is called "The Strawberry Blossoms."

- "The Strawberry Blossoms," fantastic.

"Lady Gordon's" and "The Strawberry Blossoms."

Beautiful.

[bright Irish music] ["Lady Gordon's"] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] [bright Irish music continues] Ah, beautiful.

[everyone claps] Fantastic.

[people laugh] [speaks Gaelic] For watching TradFest, the Fingal sessions, coming to you from the Great Hall in Malahide Castle, with Stephen Rea, Louise and Michelle Mulcahy, Neil Martin, and Farah Elle.

We'll see you soon.

[speaks Gaelic] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio] [no audio]