Hearth and soul

THE Rambling House in Kilmurry McMahon hosted Belfast-based Zimbabwean man Cuthbert ‘Tura’ Arutura on Monday night.

A fluent Irish speaker and sean-nós dancer, Tura also visited St Michael’s Secondary School in Kilmihil on Tuesday as part of Seachtain na Gaeilge.

A large crowd of local people attended the gathering at The Rambling House, which was restored and now depicts what a typical Irish house was like more than half a century ago.

Local historian Paul Markham was the host for the evening, which he says Tura enjoyed immensely. “He did a sean nós dance and he did a rap in Irish. He sang with the guitar and he sang songs native to Zimbabwe,” Paul explained, adding that Tura later retired for tea in the parlour with Fr Tom McGrath and Clare Champion photographer John Kelly.

In fact, Tura developed such an affinity with The Rambling House, he stayed there on Monday night. “He had four hot water bottles and I had the bed aired. I brought him back his breakfast in the morning. Brown bread, tea and porridge,” Paul recounted.

“He hadn’t planned to stay. He was hoping to get back to Ennis but I said ‘stay here sure’. He was near Kilmihil as well, where he was going the following day,” Paul added.

He feels Tura was afforded a glimpse into what rural Ireland resembled decades ago. “That’s what he was most interested in. The house is preserving a bit of rural Ireland and it’s also reliving it,” he said.

Born in Zimbabwe, but living in Northern Ireland since 1993, Tura is a performer, recording artist and law student at the Open University. In November 2011 he competed in Ireland’s premier Irish language cultural event, Oireachtas na Samhna and demonstrated his ability in this arena, in addition to his many other talents in urban street-break dance, Zulu war dance and Sena traditional dance.

In 2011, TG4 commissioned the documentary Stéip le Tura, which followed the dancer as he fulfilled his ambition to learn one of Ireland’s most ancient and emotive forms of dance, sean nós.