Who says only rock music attracts groupies? Meet the two Belgian women who have followed Altan from Amsterdam to Annagry, writes Victoria White
Guess who feels like a schmuck for missing Altan's concert at the Frankie Kennedy Winter School in Co Donegal because she had to work in Dublin on Wednesday? Frieda Verbaenen and Ann Morren wouldn't have been such quitters - they once spent two weeks following the band from concert to concert in the Netherlands and driving back through the night to make the desk job in Belgium. After the first concert, Altan invited the women for a drink and a meal and they thought: "What the heck, we'll stay the whole tour."
Such dedicated groupies are usually associated more with rock bands than with self-effacing traditional musicians; shy box-player Dermot Byrne agrees he rarely gets gifts of cuddly toys. But Frieda (37) and Ann (35) fell in love with the band at first sight. They had been to a "Héritage des Celtes" concert in Paris, organised by the Breton musician, Dan ar Braz, and had been introduced to artists such as Dónal Lunny, Carlos Nunez and Nollaig Casey. Someone said they should check out Altan and the women decided they'd catch the group if they played somewhere accessible to Antwerp, even Paris or London. Frieda checked the band's website and found they were playing the following week in Antwerp.
The narrative now takes on a feverish speed. "I couldn't go," says Frieda, "because I had a meeting." "I went to the first," says Ann, "and I was so taken, I went to all five. Frieda came to three of them, because she had other engagements." "There was such energy," she explains when asked why she was captivated. "It's such joyful music," says Frieda. "It makes us want to dance."
"Then there's the definite charm of Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh herself. You look at her and you have to smile," says Ann.
Ann works in a wholesalers selling English books, while Frieda then worked as a secretary in an investment company - (what she does now must remain a secret until the end of the story). She admits her colleagues thought she was "completely crazy", particularly, as she says, "a certain type. The three-piece suit type". They were probably somewhat surprised, too, when the women booked their summer holiday in that internationally well-known seaside resort, Bunbeg, Co Donegal. After a session in Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Dermot Byrne's Teelin pub, Cúl an Dúin, the women settled into their Bunbeg B and B and proceeded to have the time of their lives.
"We went to a session in Hiúdaí Beag's (pub) on Monday and Francie (Francie Mooney, Mairéad's father) invited us to their home the next day. The whole Mooney family practically adopted us," says Ann. "So, for the next three weeks, that's what we'd do - go to Hiúdaí Beag's on Mondays and then to Kitty's (Mairéad's mother's) on Tuesdays.
What would they do there?
"Have tea," says Frieda.
They cried when they had to leave, they say, but now they're back, soaking up the music under Errigal at the Frankie Kennedy Winter School. Ann had promised Mairéad some time ago that she would take photographs of the school; she says that she never knew Frankie Kennedy (Mairéad's first husband, the Altan flute-player who died in 1994), but she feels this is something she can still do for him.
In fact, she flew to Dublin for a traditional music awards ceremony before Christmas, nipped back to Belgium for the festivities, and then back to Donegal for the New Year.
She is something of a photographer, but she admits she can't sing or play to save her life. Francie Mooney once tried to teach her the fiddle, but, she says: "I'm not a natural talent". Frieda sings in a choir - or used to, but that's part of the end of the story too - and "dabbles" in piano and recorder. Her claim that she can make a stab at playing the tin whistle is disputed by Ann: "I can blow like that too."
Frieda says there's much more music in Ireland than in Belgium. When I splutter about the lack of musical education here, Ann says that in Belgium, "you're beaten about the ears with reading music and writing music - it's two years before you can touch an instrument. That's one of the reasons why there is so little traditional music there". Here, she says, "it's handed on from father to son. The generations blend".
Yessir. And Irish people are friendly. "They say sorry even if you bump into them." I suggest delicately that the charming Mooney family is not typical. "Of course not. But try finding people like that in Belgium," says Ann.
FRIEDA won't have to, because she moved to Ireland last October. After the first day of that fateful holiday in Bunbeg, she says, "I knew that was really it". Two days after she returned to Belgium, she handed in her notice; she had been in her job eight years. She moved to Dublin, not Donegal, because she can't drive, rented a studio in Rathgar, and got a secretarial job in IBM. Her parents are dead and she says that made the decision easier. Ann thought briefly about moving, and says she probably would if it weren't for her parents and her god-daughter.
The Lakeside Centre has emptied out and we struggle up the road through the snow and ice, under a canopy of moon and stars, and watched over by Errigal. As the women disappear into the night, Ann calls out: "Don't forget to write what I said about doing this for Frankie Kennedy."
Altan's website is at www.altan.ie
