The Irish are a travelling people, and wherever we go, we take pieces of our culture and our way of life with us. This is something that exists deep within our blood, in our cultural DNA, and something that we share with all of our Celtic ancestors.
Clare musicians Tara Breen and Pádraig Rynne have teamed up with virtuoso Cork guitarist, Jim Murry to explore this very Celtic connection in their debut album Odyssey.
The album, which was released last week, features tunes collected by the trio throughout their long and well-travelled musical careers.
It features tunes from diverse locations, thousands of miles apart, places that, on the surface, are very different from each other.
What unites them is the Celtic and then the Irish willingness to travel, and to bring the tradition with them everywhere they go.
“We picked up a lot of the music [we play] on our travels,” said Pádraig.
“On the album we have a track from Denmark, we have Scottish composers, there is a tune named after a village on Prince Edward Island in Canada where we were last October.
“The name Odyssey came because of that as well. We feel like we have been travelling and picking up music over the last few years and when we put it all together we thought we had something worth capturing.
“As a trio we have been touring together for five years. Before Christmas we toured Canada and the States, after Christmas we were in the UK, we did loads of shows in Ireland and after that we thought that the time was right to capture the music that we have been creating over the past few years.”
On their travels around the world, Pádraig, Tara and Jim, have seen the connections that unite seemingly different peoples on different continent. And while many forms of culture tend to bend or break in a different land, music has an ability to endure.
“A lot of he areas that we are talking about are Celtic areas and most of them are on the coastline,” said Pádraig.
“A lot of Irish emigrants would have settled in places like Scotland, Prince Edward Island in Canada, Manchester, Britanny – there is a huge connection between Irish music and Breton music. We also have a piece from Asturias, which is the Celtic region in the north of Spain. There is this whole area which lives within the Celtic music.
“A lot of the time signatures are very similar. What is a jig to us, is a very similar type of tune in Asturias, for example. It is very difficult to tell the difference between an Irish and an Asturian jig, there is a theme of Celtic regions in the album, and the familiarity between those regions through music.”
This instrumental album features old and new music collected and composed from their experiences of their years performing internationally. While the group are interpreting and combining traditional tunes with some of their own works, they insist the interiority of the tradition is foremost in their creative process.
“We were looking to unite and explore the tradition in our own creative way. The way we look at it, the tradition is 100% safe, we are not trying to challenge that. Our music is within the tradition,” said Pádraig.
“But when we bring new arrangements or self-composed pieces into that it is there to compliment the tradition.”
As well as tunes from all over the world, Odyssey also features a large selection of tunes from Clare, where Tara and Pádraig come from, as well as Jim’s home in Cork.
“When we got together, because Tara and myself are from County Clare, we started off by trying to collect traditional melodies which are associated with Clare,” said Pádraig.
“With Jim being from Cork, we started looking at Cork composers and Cork music as well. So for example we have Finbarr Dwyer from Cork, who passed away a good few years ago. We recorded one of his compositions, which was a tip of the hat to Cork music.
“We also have a slide in there [on the album]. Jim brought a slide into the group that he would have played a lot with Séamus Begley. Jim would have toured a lot with Séamus Begley, ever since he was 18 years of age. “They were joined at the hip a lot of people said.
“When Séamus passed away, it was important for Jim that we were able to remember him by playing one of his pieces. So there are three slides in there together.
“Following Seamus’ slide, we composed one ourselves called the Malbay Slide and another one came from Limerick.
“A lot of the material came that way, but we also have friends who are composers, the likes of Michael McGoldrick in Manchester. We got a tune from him which isn’t all that well known.
“Then there was Aidan O’Rourke from Oban, which is an island off the north of Scotland, he is a traditional fiddle player that I would have toured with a lot over the years in different groups, so we recorded a piece that I learned off of him.
“Tara then had a lot of traditional Irish pieces from Clare, Leitrim and different areas. It all came together, we put it in a pot and decided what melodies sounded nicest to listen to and what was most suitable for our instruments. We built it from the ground up.”
While their international tours laid the foundation for this album, the travellings of Tara and Pádraig also helped to bring the trio of musicians together as a touring and recording group.
“Tara and I had an album about four years ago called Nasc and Jim guested with us on that as well as Elaine Hogan,” said Pádraig.
“That was a duet album, and that album really served to progress the touring because we were getting asked to play a lot of shows, and we started getting Jim Murray to play at all of these shows with is and creating these arrangements as a trio. So the whole thing naturally progressed into this.”
The group have a host of Irish concerts over the coming months, including a gig in Ennis on Culture Night, September 20. After that however, they will be taking to the high seas again with a host of international tours in late 2024 and 2025, which may well provide the inspiration for their next set of tunes.
“We have a lot of gigs coming up,” said Pádriag.
“We will be doing a tour of the states in April with the new album, a three week tour. We will be touring Canada again next year, there is a UK tour. We have loads happening.”
For more information visit breenrynnemurray.com
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and blogger who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.