It was not unlike the beginning of a spy novel. In the course of the St Patrick's Society's Emerald Ball in one of Moscow's plusher hotels a young man called Yuri approached me. "A group of people will meet," he told me, "at 6.30 on Sunday at the centre of the circle-line hall in Taganskaya metro station. You will find it interesting for your newspaper."
Getting there was no problem. Taganskaya used to be my local metro station. The circle-line hall I remembered was adorned with porcelain busts of soldiers from the old Red Army. Under each bust was a suitable exhortation: "Glory to the heroes of the Parachute division," "Glory to the heroes of the Artillery" or "Glory to the heroes of the Red Cavalry," as the case might be.
Nothing had changed. In a small knot of people, I recognised Yuri. We waited until the group numbered more than a dozen and then set off through what was once, for me, familiar territory. We passed down Goncharny Lane where the guild of potters once had its headquarters.
On the left loomed a vast apartment block from the Stalin era, on the right the little 17th century Church of the Assumption at the Potters, with golden stars glistening on its blue onion domes. A small group of the faithful stood in front of its celebrated icon of the Virgin with Three Hands in its glass case on the west wall.
Dusk was falling rapidly. We entered a maze of tiny lanes and courtyards of which I had no previous knowledge. The journey was downhill, and towards its end I got my bearings from a short-lived glimpse of the Kettlemakers Embankment at the Moskva River. Things began to happen quickly. We reached a low door in a hidden corner of a courtyard. It opened automatically on our arrival. A flight of stairs led down to a basement room in which desks were set out in classroom format. The group seated itself quickly. A young woman appeared at the blackboard and addressed the group briefly in Russian.
She took a piece of chalk in her hand and wrote "Ceacht a cuig". Then, in Russian again, she asked the class to intone the golden rule of spelling: "Leathan le leathan agus caol le caol," came the chorus in reply.
I had started on a journey during which, for instance, I would become acquainted with a young Don Cossack who plays the bodhran and has changed his name from Sergei Marchukov to Master O'Toole.
The bug of celtomania has bitten hard in Moscow, but nowhere harder than in the Irish classes given by Anna Alexandrovna Korostolyova. Each Sunday evening the students are put through two strenuous hours with the Christian Brothers, grammar and Urchursa Ghaeilge as the main text books. All of them are in their 20s; two thirds are women.
Anna, the teacher, is a graduate of the Philology department of Moscow State University where there is a thriving Celtic department. Last autumn she studied in Trinity College Dublin under Prof Eoin Mac Carthaigh and spent some time in the Gaeltacht at Ventry in Co Kerry.
Her students came to the Irish language by various routes. One young woman called Katya had been impressed by Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Isabel, a Spaniard who had been living in Russia for five years, was learning the language in order to have one up on her friends in Ireland where, paradoxically, she had learned English. It was Andrei, however, who spoke for the majority when he explained his interest in the language had grown out of the music. "The Irish people are the most powerful suppliers of ethnic music in the world and language is always linked to music".
For me the link between the music and the language was Yuri, the man who started me off on my journey. Yuri Andreichuk plays the Uzbek doira, an instrument indistinguishable from the bodhran, in Slua Si, Moscow's most popular traditional Irish group. It all started, he told me, back in the 1980s with a group called Puck and Piper. After that, the "traditionalists" and the "progressive" adherents of Celtic Rock went their separate directions.
Slua Si, or Voinstvo Sidov, as they style themselves in Russian, is now the foremost group among the traditionalists, and its equivalent on the progressive side is Sidhe Mhor. I caught up with the progressives in a club across the river from the Kremlin called Vermel which in its promotional literature boasts the most stunning view in all Moscow. In fact, it occupies a totally windowless cellar. Here the young people dance to souped-up reels and hornpipes with their hands placed firmly behind their backs. Vladimir Lazerson, who plays the Scottish warpipes, was overwhelmed when he heard I was from Ireland. "You come," he told me, "from the country of the world's greatest entertainer . . . Christy Moore."
Four members of Slua Si gathered for interview at Silver's Irish Pub at the bottom of Tverskaya Street, about 250 metres from Red Square. Yuri Andreichuk had brought his doira. He also spoke of his role as a seanchai, telling Irish stories in Russian on the very popular Ekho Moskvy radio station as well as his role as the group's manager and its main vocalist. As a graduate of the Celtic section of Moscow State University's philology department, he does a neat version of An bhfaca tu mo Sheamaisin.
Alexei Bachurin explained that he had been playing the violin since he was five and spoke with some knowledge of traditional musicians Michael Coleman and James Morrison. He now prefers the Kerry style.
Perhaps the most distinguished member of the group is Anatoly Isaev, a professional musician with the orchestra of Russia's Pyatnitsky Choir. He plays the whistle and the Scottish pipes but is best known as a flute-player of real distinction. The "traverso" flute he uses in the group was made for him by one of Russia's most celebrated instrument makers, Fyodor Nekrasov.
As often happens in situations like this, the interview faded into the background and the musicians began to play. Anatoly Isayev gave a soulful solo rendition of the slow air, Cailin na Gruaige Doinne. an.
The Russians in the pub applauded strongly after every round of tunes. But it all came to an abrupt end when, at the request of a group of young Irish expatriates, the traditional music was drowned by blaring hip-hop from the pub's sound system. Pointing disdainfully at Slua Si, one of the Irish lads said: "We came here to Russia to get away from all that."
