Iarla Ó Lionáird is one of Ireland’s most famous sean nós performers, and he is instrumental in exploring new directions for the ancient tradition, writes Siobhán Long.
You either love it or loathe it. Sean nós singing, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, is no place for fence-sitters. Lovers of both wax lyrically of their virtues while the rest suffer unbearable cramping of eardrum and stomach alike at the mere prospect of a fleeting exposure.
Iarla Ó Lionáird, Cúl Aodha singer, and interpreter of the tradition has gone a long way towards demystifying sean nós over the past 10 years.
He's less inclined to shove his finger in his ear and let loose with a 'nnnyyyaaaah' than he is to coax and cajole every nuance of a song into the open air, so that it perches, wide-eyed and blinking, in the full glare of daylight. His last solo album, 1997's The Seven Steps To Mercy, was unabashed in its exploration of how the music can navigate fresh paths so it doesn't forever remain shackled to the past, but becomes a living, breathing part of everything that is contemporary about traditional music. His alter ego with the Afro Celts lets those vocal cords engage in altogether different gym flips, cosseted by all manner of African and Celtic soundscapes.
"Sean nós is heavy going, there's no getting away from that", he acknowledges, "and very few people actually listen to it. But the thing about sean nós is that it's very layered and very dense. People get hung up about ornamentation, about pronunciation but really, they're the purview of the child. You have to move beyond that. There's something else inside there. There's a shape to the sound that given places make.
"How do you get your head around it if you have difficulty with it? Listen to the slow airs, I think. I understand that it's difficult to listen, for example to the sean nós of Connemara. People can say 'it's very nasal, or it's very droney', and to them it sounds inconclusive, and doesn't go anywhere. You have to go beyond that though, to hear that secret language behind that so-called limited melody. It's a very complex, beautiful, modest and quiet art form."
Ó Lionáird's most recent itinerary has taken him to the University of Limerick, where he's buried, larynx-deep in a Masters in Ethnomusicology. Funded through a scholarship from Foras na Gaeilge which affords Ó Lionáird the titular position of sean nós singer in residence at the Irish World Music Centre for 2002/2003, it's the kind of opportunity that many musicians would relish, though not all would have the confidence to step back from the performance plate long enough to embrace it to the full. Does he expect his studies to have a significant impact on his singing?
"There are philosophical and sociological issues to cover on the course", Ó Lionáird acknowledges, "but what I'm learning is that there's a significant difference between the performance of an event and talking about it. It's a difference which ethnomusicologists and musicologists have been trying to bridge for a very long time but really, I would say, with very limited success. It's so hard to understand a performance without doing it, or at least without listening to it. But the minute you start thinking about it or writing about it, it's somehow a different thing. So no, I don't honestly expect it to influence my singing a whole lot."
Ó Lionáird has always revelled in his Cúl Aodha roots. That pocket of the west Cork Gaeltacht where Seán and Peadar Ó Riada coaxed the tradition away from the hearth and into the concert hall and church has been a hothouse for musicians interested in digging beneath the surface of the music.
"Nobody has written about the profound impact impact Ó Riada had on the music
culture of Cúl Aodha", he suggests, "and a lot of what I will be writing will focus on what has happened after his death. I was fortunate enough to be extruded from that cultural milieu too, and in large measure, created bytwo different sets of cultural impetuses. One of them would be Seán Ó Riada, and then through Peadar's [Seán's son] stewardship of the choir thereafter. That was very important in my life. "I believe there's a synthesis of sound
and place that happened in Cúl Aodha in a heightened way, because of the choir. There are singers everywhere, but what Ó Riada did was create a kind of Petri
dish, a traditional milieu where certain things could happen, and I'm a product of that."
The archaeological dig continues, but Ó Lionáird has alreadyunearthed some
fascinating gemstones which he's subjected to forensic scrutiny. One of his
quarries has been Mo Ghile Mear, the stalwart high stepping lament so beloved of Cúl Aodha.
"That song was constructed by muintir Cúl Aodha from three different
songs”, he says, “and while the song refers to Bonnie Prince Charles, there’s
lots of reason to suggest that they were lamenting the death of Ó Riada himself. That song was gone from memory and when Seán died the choir got together and sought out a big song to mark his death. So that was totally constructed, yet it's called a Cúl Aodha song now and is stronglyassociated with the area." The music has both an emotional and
a ceremonial role to playin life, Ó Lionáird insists. "A very good friend of mine died recently", he reflects, "and we gave him, as someone said, 'the deluxe send off' in Cúl Aodha with the choir. It copper-fastens and bookends beginnings and endings and celebrations, so it has a huge
function in the locality."
Ó Lionáird's roots haven't tethered him to his home place either though.
"I think it's important to graduate from a place," he says. "Then you can always go back but you can't always stay in school. You have to
leave it, no matter how much you miss it. So yes, I go back, but I've no desire to live there again."
Lá na nAmhrán on April 9th in the Irish World Music Centre features Áine Uí Cheallaigh, Len Graham, Pádraigín Ní hUallacháin and many more traditional singers. For information contact Sandra Joyce at 061 202565 or e-mail: sandra. joyce@ul.ie
