Eddie meets Irish speakers in Moscow

CRUSHEEN based storyteller, Eddie Lenihan swapped the relatively cold confines of Clare for the positively freezing surrounds of Moscow for a good part of March.

Speaking to the Clare Champion last week, Eddie, who was in Russia from March 19-29, said there had been a lot of Russian interest in his storytelling.

“It was excellent, I was in Moscow University and three other venues that were all booked out. If there had been more space in most there would have been more people; in the biggest one there was over 200 people, there was a lot more interest there than here.”

The Russians have a lot of interest in folklore and indeed in Irish culture in general.

“I even met Russians who could speak Irish, they’d put us to shame. There were Russians who could play Irish music and they were very good at it.”

While Ireland has been pretty chilly for most of this year, he said it just doesn’t compare to what people in Moscow cope with on a constant basis.

“I’d probably go again, but maybe not at this time of year, it’s fairly severe weather. This isn’t weather at all, this is mild summer compared to there. They’re prepared for -20º or -30º,  that’s nothing to them.”

He also said he was struck by the prevalence of religion in Russian society, and he found there were some comparisons between practices there and the Ireland of a generation ago.

“I was surprised that they’re a very religious people, there were so many churches in Moscow, I couldn’t believe it. Even the young people are very religious. I went to an Orthodox mass to see what it was like, and it’s very different, there were five or six of the priests and it was quite like what we were used to in the 1960s, women on the left and men on the right, and strictly so. The women were still wearing the headscarves in the church.”

He found that outsiders had to get used to the Russian customs fairly quickly.

“Once you go into a house you take off your shoes and they have the slippers inside the door for you. You don’t wear your shoes in their houses, they regard that as bad manners, there are things like that that you get used to very quickly and if you don’t you’re regarded as pretty thick.”

Obviously Moscow wouldn’t be a major centre for the Irish diaspora, but there is lots of interest in this country’s culture there.

“The main thing was I was able to tell stories and they were delighted with the Irish stories. There was an Irish festival there that is huge in Moscow, I wasn’t exactly part of that, I was after the festival, but they are used to things that are Irish, be it comedy, be it fiddling, music whatever it is, they’re familiar with that. Things that are Irish seem to have gone down very well there.”

Eddie feels that there is actually more interest in storytelling and Irish stories abroad than there is here.

“Ireland is supposed to be the gab and that, but it’s not really. I do most of my business for English people and Americans, far more than I do for Irish.”