Traditions of Ireland At The Gaelic College of Cape Breton Or How I Spent My Summer Vacation
By Rob Hansen - (Reprinted with the kind permission of Celtic Heritage magazine from the November/December 2004 edition)
I didn’t know this, but I was a guinea pig. A very happy guinea pig but test subject guinea pig none-the-less.
The Gaelic College of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia is a non-profit school dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Cape Breton’s Gaelic speaking Scottish heritage and culture. They’ve been quietly humming along since 1938 when A.W.R. MacKenzie founded the college on a small but beautiful piece of property in St. Ann’s, Cape Breton. The campus is nestled within a tree-topped selection of hills and bumps against St. Ann’s Bay. There is a wonderful museum dedicated to the Scottish heritage and clans of the area and a well-appointed gift shop. Apart from these small inclinations toward tourism (including the kilted bagpiper who pipes in the bus tours) the campus is just that — a centre for learning with obvious tendencies towards the performer.
There is a large outdoor performance stage at the back of the property. As well, there is an indoor auditorium that seats 350 in The Great Hall of the Clans and smaller dance studios and practice huts scattered around the campus.
A bit of a departure for the college, The Traditions of Ireland was a week long exploration into Irish culture, dance and music as the board of directors concede a close relationship between Scottish and Irish cultures. The story goes that the Executive Director of the college Sam MacPhee was at an event in Dublin also attended by former Canadian Prime Minister Chretien and Muiris O Rócháin, the Director of the Willie Clancy Summer School in Ireland. MacPhee mentioned the possibility of running a week-long summer course in Cape Breton, O Rócháin thought it a great idea, and two years later the pilot program was up and running and yours truly was taking part as a student.
O Rócháin, a tall older gentleman in his 60s, with, at the outset, an almost indecipherable Irish accent, selected the faculty from his own Willie Clancy Summer School of Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, Ireland. The Willie Clancy School (or Willie Week as it is known colloquially) was founded as a tribute to the late Willie Clancy, a noted Uilleann piper, whistle and flute player, singer and storyteller and is reputed to be the best and largest summer school of Irish traditional music and dance in the world. It accepts over 1500 students in disciplines including Uillean pipes, tin whistle, flute, fiddle, concertina, accordion and traditional dance.
O Rócháin’s and MacPhee’s unwavering dedication to quality instruction ensured the tutors for the Gaelic College’s Traditions of Ireland week not only played and performed extremely well but were also gifted educators. Classes in traditional dance, fiddle, Uillean pipes, tin whistle, flute and Irish history were offered. Under no uncertain terms were these beginner lessons and the brochure made sure to state this clearly. Neither is the Willie Clancy School. As O Rócháin put it, students who were not beginners and who were familiar with the music are “simply more committed to their instrument.”
The week began with Sunday evening’s fiddle concert. The Cape Breton Fiddlers Association’s yearly get together was just winding down as I arrived. I met the rest of my housemates in MacLeod House and had our own little session as we got to know one another. The craic was good on that first evening and I was introduced to the legendary poteen, Irish for moonshine. It was early to bed and early to rise that first night; a parable not to be repeated for the rest of the week.
There were about 30 students in the summer session. Not a stellar showing but made up for in enthusiasm — this was a pilot after all. They ranged in age from a nine-year-old to a 69 year-old. As a student, you chose your main subject for your morning classes.Lunch was followed by O Rócháin and the history of the music and dance traditions of Co Clare and the famine of 1847 to 1849. Late afternoon, an extra tutorial session was added to allow students to choose between set dance lessons and more instruction with their chosen instrument. Excellent home made suppers appeared afterwards.{mospagebreak title=Continued ... Page 2}
The instructors were a fantastic cast of characters. Talented and humble, hilarious and sincere, and I heard nothing but glowing praise for all of them. Hector MacNeil, the college’s Gaelic Program Director acted as administrative stand-in for Sam MacPhee, who was away, piloting a different week-long event in Vermont. Bríd O’Donohue taught our ragtag whistle/flute group with warmth, passion and patience. Eamon McGivney and Liz Doherty co-taught the fiddle sessions given the number of students — this was Cape Breton, of course. Séamus O’Rócháin and his cozy group of Uilleann pipers were banished to one of the practice huts. Patrick O’Dea, one of the few remaining Irish dance masters capable of teaching the traditional rural dance styles, took students through their paces in both step and set dancing.
O
Rócháin’s opinions on the evolution of Irish dance were easy to come
by. The rural dance traditions, he unhappily admitted, are passing away
in favour of the high-stepping pseudo martial art of Riverdance fame.
He concedes the talent and expertise of these more modern step dancers
but bemoans the loss of the rural traditional dances. Coincidentally
the Cape Breton step dancing tradition seems much more akin to the “low
to the floor” Irish dance of yore… at least to my entirely left-footed
eye.
The long Irish memory was also evident in O Rócháin’s impassioned lecture on the potato famine of 1847–1849. He moved every one of us with his tales of hunger, disease, eviction and emigration. A wonderful a cappella recording of Skibbereen capped the lecture and brought home the cruel irony of being descended from such a victimized and resilient people.
Each evening the instructors performed small informal concerts in the tiny pub above the Hall of the Clans before the bar opened. Once open, lively sessions mixing instructors and students alike, rarely ended before 2:30 am. The dreaded bodhrán even appeared and was played fantastically by Jim Kelly (part of the Irish entourage but not formally instructing). Kelly also plays a wicked button accordion. On a few nights it was possible to step out of the pub and hear tunes coming from a number of different buildings as smaller, more intimate sessions grew out of the larger more bombastic pub sessions.
And so each day went. A morning full of whistle playing for me, lunch, a lecture, more whistle and supper. To be followed by evenings of music, more than a little Guinness and laughter. High points for me include Eamon’s 4:00 a.m. song, lying under the Milky Way with my teenage housemates counting shooting stars (they got about thirty — I counted five!) and learning, always learning.
By Friday afternoon my head was stuffed. With at least 12 new tunes to practice on the whistle and a whole new world of bodhrán techniques to explore if I was to learn anything more I’d probably have forgotten how to button my shirt. On the final day’s wrap-up I asked the question “How many of you would come back next year if it was offered again?” All of the students had their hand up. Mine was up twice.
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