Desperately seeking sousaphone

WITH the theme for this year’s St Patrick’s Day parade being ‘Ennis – A Musical Town’, a visiting band coming all the way from Phoenix, is looking for help in making their journey to the county capital note perfect.

The St Mary’s Catholic High School band will be travelling from Arizona in March. While here, they will be taking part in a number of performances, including in the annual St Patrick’s Day parade. However, they are unable to take their sousaphone with them as the cost of transporting the large instrument is too expensive.

Mary Howard of the Ennis Phoenix Twinning Board told The Clare Champion, “This is the band’s first time coming to Ireland and we’re delighted to welcome them here to Ennis. But unfortunately they can’t take all their instruments with them as it is just too expensive to ship them.

“They needed a double bass also but thankfully someone has very generously offered them one. Now we need a sousophone, which is a massive brass instrument a bit like a tuba that wraps around the body. The band and the twinning board have been putting the word out there to try and get a sousaphone for the band but it seems to be very rare in Ireland.

“A call has gone out on Facebook, there’s talk of ringing into ‘Fix It Friday’ and we’ve got onto the army band, the Garda Band who play at the Rose of Tralee and the local brass band. But so far we’ve come up with nothing.”

The band’s visit to Ennis will form part of the Phoenix Week festival with celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the twinning between the town of Ennis and Phoenix. The band marches every year in the Phoenix St Patrick’s Day Parade.

They were named the “best school/parish” entry in 2012 and received a superior with distinction rating at the 2012 Concert Festival. There will be 29 students from St Mary’s High School travelling along with six past pupils who expressed a wish to travel with the band to play in Ennis. There will also be chaperones and an official delegation.

While in Clare, the band will not only march in the St Patrick’s Day parade, but they will also perform at the Baby Nicholas Memorial Run at the Cliffs of Moher, at mass in Ennis Cathedral and at Scoil, Chríost Rí in Cloughleigh, Colaiste Muire and Barefield National School.

“It is a fantastic achievement to get the band here, this has been a work in progress for the past two years. As well as their performances that should be just amazing, we will also be giving them a real taste of Clare and Ireland with lots of events planned.

“They will visit Bunratty Castle and the Burren, learn the tin whistle and learn all about Gaelic games among other activities. We want to give everyone a very rounded experience while they are here. Hopefully we will be able to make the experience even better by getting a sousaphone. Anybody who has a sousaphone that could be loaned to the band can contact me on 086 0375498 or email at maryhoward2009@gmail.com,” she said.

St Mary’s High School Band follows in the footsteps of other Phoenix groups such as the internationally acclaimed Phoenix Boys Choir and The Phoenix Children Chorus who have performed here in recent years.
Meanwhile Ennis’ twinning relationship with both Phoenix and St Paul de Feuouillett is set to be recognised with the erection of signs on the county capital’s approach roads. At a recent meeting of Ennis Town Council, Councillor Howard called for the signs to be put up “as a matter of urgency and in the interests of tourism”.

She added, “Driving from Ennis to Sligo recently I noticed the whole way up that towns had signs up that identified where they were twinned with. Particularly in light of the fact that we have a large delegation coming to Ennis from Phoenix and Lagenfeld next month I think these signs are important. They could act as a hook for people driving by, who might have a connection in some way with our twinned towns and it would encourage them to come into Ennis.”

Leonard Cleary, town clerk responded to the call stating “Ennis Town Council’s engineering department is addressing this matter”.