Lifting the roof with the Great Céilí Band Challenge

FOURTEEN céilí bands have signed up to compete in one of the Ennis Trad Festival’s most popular events.

This year’s Ard Ghaisce na mBuíonta (the Great Céilí Band Challenge), will take place in Glór on Saturday, November 13. In recent years, the challenge has provided top-class céilí band music, with the added element of competition. The show this year will see the 14 bands compete for a top prize of €5000. Second and third places will win €2,000 and €1,000 respectively.
Céilí bands have long held a proud place in Irish music on account of the strong disciplined and finely arranged performances that they deliver to lift hoards of eager dancers and listeners alike all around the world. Around Kilfenora, they say that a good céilí band should “drive you through the roof rather than stick you to the floor”.
John Rynne, chairman of the Ennis Trad Festival committee explained that this will be a sporting opportunity for 14 of the best céilí bands in Ireland today to compete for a first prize of €5,000 in a public setting designed to test their mettle against each other in carefully chosen conditions of fairness and impartiality.
“The competition is set up in such a way to ensure that the battle of bands will be hotly and vigorously contested. Most of the bands have competed, toured and performed at all the highest-level events at home and abroad,” a spokeswoman for the event said.
The bands who will be participating in the céilí band challenge are: The Tulla Road Céilí Band; Knockmore Céilí Band (Fermanagh); Crosskeys Céilí Band (Antrim); The Frank McGann All-stars (Roscommon); Triogue; The Corofin Céilí Band; The Midlanders; The Awbeg Céilí Band; Ceoltóirí na Mainistreach; Ceoltóirí Nama; Oranmore Céilí Band ; Listowel CCÉ Tigh na Coille; and Craobh Chreadáil.
This year again, four experienced adjudicators will independently assess each band and the audience will cast their own ballot with their preferences. The band with the most audience first preferences will be deemed the audience’s first placed band, the second highest number of first preferences will be their second choice and so on. The audience will, in that way form a fifth adjudicator, en masse. In addition, there will be a handicap system to level out perceived bias that might otherwise unfairly benefit Clare-based bands.
“This competition is a bold and open new way of testing bands’ performance abilities and is sure to attract a large number of music enthusiasts, eager to have their opinion counted,” the festival spokeswoman commented.
The four individual adjudicators will uniquely not see the bands but will hear them from behind a screen and will have bands identified to them by numbers only, to ensure a great degree of fairness. An equalising weighting system will then be applied to each of the five adjudications and the totals will decide the winners.
Carmel O’Dea of the Tulla Road Céilí Band said they are very much looking forward to taking part in the competition and are equally enthusiastic about the quality of music they expect to hear on the night. This 10-piece céilí band is largely made up of Clare musicians, with a few from other counties for good measure, most of whom now live in the Tulla Road area of Ennis.
“Obviously, the Tulla Céilí Band are very well known, so we’ve had a bit of fun with the name. All of us have played in different combinations at different sessions before but this is our first time coming together as a céilí band. We all have different strengths as musicians and so far, we’re happy with our sound as a céilí band. More than anything though, we’re having a lot of fun doing this,” she commented.
The Tulla Road Céilí Band has 10 members, incorporating piano, two flute, three fiddles, drum, concertina, banjo and accordion. The musicians in the band are Marcus Moloney, Murty Ryan, Patricia Clark, Carmel O’Dea, Teresa O’Dea, Niamh O’Dea, Tracey Ryan, Finola Ryan, Ann Marie Rynne and Brendan Vaughan.
Carmel was keeping her hands close to her chest as regards how much the band is practising in the lead-up to the competition.
“We’re rehearsing a bit alright but we’re not taking it too seriously. The main thing is not to make fools of ourselves, enjoy ourselves and hopefully play music that the audience will enjoy. At the end of the day, that’s what Ennis Trad Festival is all about – playing great music and making it accessible to the general public,” she added. While the band doesn’t know too much about the standard of the other bands in the competition, at this stage, they expect that the main competitors will be Ceoltóirí na Mainistreach and the Corofin Céilí Band, both from Clare.
“I think most of the bands in the competition are new bands coming together, like ourselves for this event, so it’s hard to know what the standard is. It definitely is going to be very interesting how all of these new bands perform,” she remarked.
Another céilí band combination coming together for Ard Ghaise na mBuíonta are The Frank McGann All-Stars. Flute player with the band, John Wynne explained their background. “Frank McGann was an accomplished, very popular and well-respected bodhrán player from County Roscommon. He was wonderful for encouraging musicians, including myself, to get together and play music, particularly in Dublin where a number of us were living at some stage. He had brought a number of us together over the years to play on RTÉ Radio’s Céilí House. After he passed away in 2002, a number of us organised Féile Frank McGann as a tribute to him in Roscommon. This has become an annual event in Strokestown every October. When a number of us heard about the Ard Ghaisce na mBuíonta in recent years, we were very interested but we only got to come together officially as a céilí band this year. We haven’t played together as a céilí band previously, although we have all played with each other, in different sessions around the country many many times. This is a good opportunity for us to come together as a céilí band and it’s great to have a new challenge to work towards,” he said.
There are 10 musicians in the band, including a piano, drums, three fiddles, three flutes, a concertina and a piano accordion.
While he admitted that the €5,000 cash prize is an attractive incentive, he commented that their main reason for entering the competition is to do what they love doing most and to make sure that the Roscommon, North Connacht area is represented in the competition. He expects the Clare bands in the competition will be the ones to watch out for, especially given that they are playing on home turf but he guaranteed that The Frank McGann All Stars will give the other bands a run for their money on the night.
Each of the bands taking part in the competition must play one selection containing a minimum of two reels and a maximum of three in succession. They must also play one or two double jigs in succession and one or two marches or one or two clan marches in succession. In addition, they must play at least one other miscellaneous piece.
The festival organisers are very happy with the amount of interest in the céilí band competition this year and are confident that it will be a night of top-class entertainment. For more information about the Ard Ghaisce na mBuíonta, visit www.ennistradfestival.com and www.glor.ie for tickets.