I met my first Protestants at the Athleague races. We were cheering on a neighbour's horse called Swift, and they, of course, were cheering on one with a more original name. We were children then, wearing sandals with petal cut-outs. They wore something similar. I was reminded of that innocent encounter recently in an oblique way when once more I came across Toraiocht Diarmuid agus Grainne, that book which tells of the great chase that followed throughout Ireland when Grainne left the elderly Fionn and ran off with young Diarmuid. An idea suggested itself. What if, to help break the logjam of history, we had a great toraiocht/hunt of Lambeg drum-makers and bodhran-makers in Ireland, to find the perfect goatskin? Imagine the discussions that would provoke? On hydrated lime, on soaking skins in lime sulphide, on secret curing ingredients and recipes, north and south. Then all that stretching and scraping and tightening, with talk of resonance, crosspieces, and beaters.
Both are noble instruments. The bodhran boasts a very ancient pedigree, while the Lambeg has its very own tradition of craft, parade, and commemoration. When the web that surrounds us is too tangled for logic, communication, or even hope at times, maybe a simple venture on common ground, such as the joint toraiocht, might not be a bad start towards something better.
While Orangemen were mustering at Drumcree in the summer of 1996, a group gathered in our small west of Ireland town, Ballaghaderreen, for a festival of traditional music. We heard a wonderful lecture from Gary Hastings on the Orange fife/flute. The more I listened the more I was reminded of my own youth and of our attempts to learn the fife, in our own tradition.
Common instrument
He told us the Orange fife/flute used to be made of boxwood and was of no fixed key, although nowadays it is mostly in D. The fife was generally home-made, originally, and predated the Orange Order. It was a common instrument among people all over Ireland, and was made them from the boor tree (elderberry wood). The bore was cut with a 7/16 shell bit, and the holes were burnt out with a red-hot nail. Gary Hastings's account was a mirror image of what the late fife player Jim Donoghue, of Drumacoo, Co Sligo, had once told me about the instrument. He often played on RTE's The Long Note programme. Both also said that bandmasters for the two traditions were usually the same men. They simply excluded tunes such as Kelly the Boy from Killane, or The Sash, depending on which side they were dealing with.
Many of the tunes shared by both traditions originated, it seems, in the Peninsular Wars, which took place at the beginning of the last century. Did the 88th Regiment of the Line or the Royal Ulster Rifles catch any of that tune Revelrie by Night, on the eve of Waterloo? From Belgium's capital that night, did it percolate down to the Unreturning Brave sitting on wet haversacks as they waited for Waterloo? In the tension and chill of that night, did they hum quietly those new tunes heard during their marches there? Did The Gypsy or Yiddish Memories, played recently on TnaG by Sean McGuire, travel here from Hapsburg empire days? Does it matter what colour of jacket the men wore who memorised these tunes and took them back here or passed them down the line to those who did?
Orange phalanx
When, on TV news reports or whatever from the North, we see a phalanx of Orangemen moving in unison, what we really need to begin to see is the humanity that makes up that phalanx. The shopkeeper, the factory man, the ship-worker, the mechanic, the musician. Then we might not just see a monolith. About 100 years ago in this same small rural town, women embroidered Orange sashes for those men, under the tutelage of the Sisters of Charity. No one felt their sensitivities were being infringed. The work was overseen by Mother Arsenius, who later founded the Foxford woollen mills.
Not far from the town there is an almost deserted village where a hopeful woman long ago planted daffodil bulbs along a now disused pathway. They still bloom every springtime. At the time she planted those flowers, before electricity and radio, women in that village would gather every winter in her house to pore over pictures in her scrapbook of Mary of Teck, wife of George V. There she was, rigid in her court dresses, her toque and her pearl chokers, with her husband and children around her, set against the most beautiful backdrop of palatial splendour. The pictures had been gathered into the scrapbook by the woman during a spell in England. Neither she, nor her friends, were monarchists, nor disloyal to their own tradition. But looking at pictures of jewelled women in brocades and lace, standing in ornate rooms, amused and distracted them from the hardship of their own lives. The "Scrapbook Woman" was also quite an authority on the pedigree of Queen Victoria's family, as well as her Czar cousins. She had the names of all, and regularly recounted these to an impressed audience.
Soft-centred liberalism
Nowadays it can be painful to see a young whiz-kid TV interviewer, with no convictions, no awareness or understanding of the old Reformation quarrel or the sterner aspects of Jehovah, harangue a middle-aged Presbyterian minister full of loyalty and righteousness, while he/she - the interviewer - thinks he/she is striking a blow for a soft-centred liberalism based on indifference and ignorance, rather than tolerance.
When I think of the men in the rain and the tension before Waterloo, the tunes and dances brought back by those lucky enough to return from the battle, of all the musicians and all who ever danced The Lancers at a wedding or in a Church hall, and of the mosaic of our common heritage, I feel renewed hope. So is there a bodhran maker out there who will step forward to take up my goatskin challenge? Is there a Lambeg drum maker to partner him for a toraiocht throughout Ireland for that perfect goatskin? And after that great hunt, will both play for us tunes which we all hold dear - tunes that have more joy and merriment in them than victory, defeat, or lament? Let us see the faces and know the hearts behind the phalanx. Give us hope.