Mary’s labour of love honours East Clare’s musical heritage

DEEP in the leafy, rolling landscape of East Clare, lies a noted wellspring of traditional music. In towlands like Glendree, Kilclaren, Caher, Magherabaun and Maghera, a distinctive musical style and repertoire have been handed down with care and love.

The village of Feakle has long been a focal point for this transmission of culture, drawing musicians from a wide hinterland stretching to Scariff, Bodyke, Tulla and Kilkishen. Establishments like Lena’s Bar brought together young, emerging musicians with legends such as John Naughton, Martin Rochford, P Joe Hayes, Francie Donnellan, Mikey Donoghue, Paddy Grogan, Joe Bane and Bill Malley. 

At the feet of these giants, upcoming generations immersed themselves in the riches of East Clare. Among them was the acclaimed concertina player, Mary MacNamara. She and her brothers and sister sat by Lena’s hearth listening and learning for more than a decade. 

This year, after a “labour of love,” and with the support of The Arts Council, Mary realised a life-long ambition to honour and celebrate the musicians who nurtured her talent. Her new book Sunday’s at Lena’s vividly recalls the welcoming atmosphere created by the late Lena Hanrahan and the joy of a community coming together to play and to dance. There are painstaking transcriptions of 150 tunes, and a CD with 29 sample tracks spanning the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

“Lena’s Bar was a very special place and very welcoming,” Mary told The Champion. “It was one of the places that those great musicians gathered on Sundays, after mass. The fire was always burning and Lena had a warm welcome for everyone. My father would bring us, as kids, and his idea really was that we would listen to that music of East Clare, which has a rare artistic quality.”

As the musicians played, Mary and her twin sister, Anita, were encouraged to dance. “It was always seen as a great complement to the musicians when people got up to dance and we would do a set around the house,” Mary said. Soon, the siblings, including Mary’s brothers Andrew and the late PJ, were playing too.

“At first, we used to keep our instruments under the table, but after a couple of years, we started to play and got such great encouragement from the older players. Those memories have travelled with us ever since.”

Mary’s first instrument was the accordion and she described her introduction to the concertina as “accidental”.

“My grand-aunt on my mother’s side was Minnie Murphy from Kilmaley and she played the concertina,” Mary explained. “When she was in her 70s, she had arthritis and she stopped playing. My father bought her a Hohner concertina, which cost £12 pounds. She said to give it to one of the children to loosen it up.

“I brought it home with me and I’ve played the concertina ever since. I had played the accordion in the local style so I took the same approach to the concertina, learning everything by ear. Later on, I took lessons and upgraded the concertina, but I still have a great grá for that old Hohner and for the old system.”

Mary’s mother, Ita, a noted step dancer also had a huge influence. “She had a great musical brain and I learned a lot of tunes from her,” Mary said. “It was always East Clare music that we were learning and listening to. The whole family was very musical.”

Several albums later, Mary took the MÓrglór Award in 2019. With countless appearances on television, at festivals and in concert, Mary is now a sought-after concertina teacher. Despite all of these achievements, or perhaps because of them, the desire to acknowledge her musical roots runs deep. 

“I moved to Dublin in 1978 and I parted from the musicians I had spent so much time with at Lena’s,” she said.

“It was only then that I realised that I really didn’t have the standard traditional repertoire. The standard tunes I did have were always very strange versions, ones I had learned from the musicians of East Clare. No matter what I learned after I left, I was always drawn back to the tunes played at Lena’s and people were always very intrigued by the music of Feakle and East Clare. It is such beautiful music and I wanted to find a way to really celebrate it and the musicians who welcomed me into that tradition.”

The opportunity to realise this ambition came from a fascinating archive developed by Mary’s father, Andy. “Dad was so right to encourage us to listen when we went to Lena’s and he would bring along a tape recorder to record the tunes,” Mary said.

“We would play back those recordings at home and that’s how we learned and gradually became part of the sessions. You can really taste the atmosphere of Lena’s when you listen to those recordings. You can hear the talking, the foot-tapping and the reaction to the music.”

The recordings spanning the late ‘60s to the late ‘80s were stored away for another two decades. “I had it in my head for 20 years to get working on those recordings and to celebrate and honour those musicians and those sessions at Lena’s,” Mary said. “Thank God, I’ve finally done that and the support of a Deis Recording and Publication Award from The Arts Council has been hugely helpful.”

Producing Sundays at Lena’s took extraordinary dedication, but Mary wanted “to be loyal to the musicians and to the recordings”. “Writing down the memories of Lena’s and the sessions and personalities came very naturally to me,” she said.

“Transcribing the tunes from the recordings took two years. Some of the recordings are quite noisy, the quality of some had declined because of them being in storage. I worked by transcribing the tunes and then taking a deeper listen to capture the nuances of each musician. When I listened deeply to someone like Joe Bane (whistle and flute) for example, I could really hear that great flow in his playing and realised that there was a huge amount going on.”

Losing herself in the music also came easily to Mary. “The work was very natural to me and I didn’t find it difficult,” she said. “I set up a table. It became known as the ‘Sundays at Lena’s table’ and I would spend three hours at a time working, or maybe a whole weekend sometimes before taking a break. It was really important to me to be faithful to the recordings of those great musicians. I worked hard to do that, but I loved every minute of it.”

A masterwork, Sundays at Lena’s was launched at the Feakle Festival in August and was the subject of a local celebration in Feakle last weekend. Lena’s is now Shortt’s Bar. “Ger took over Lena’s in 1996, but everything is exactly as it was in Lena’s time,” Mary said. “We were there last weekend to christen the book and we really relived those Sundays with musicians from near and far. It truly was a great celebration of those musicians who played there when we were growing up. Feakle is unique in terms of music and people love going into Shortt’s and Pepper’s. The welcome is always so warm.”

The book and CD will be launched on the opening night of the Ennis Trad Festival on Thursday, November 10. Joining her on stage that night at The Queen’s Hotel will be her brother, Andrew; her daughter, the fiddle player Sorcha Costello; and Geraldine Cotter. “One of my students, Ríona Healy from Ennis will be on concertina too and it will be great to have her there,” Mary added. 

With Mary’s music reaching deep into the origins of the East Clare tradition, she is uniquely placed to pass it on. “I started teaching when I came back from Dublin,” she said. “It was really important to me to keep the East Clare repertoire going. I teach all of the standard repertoire too, but that’s alongside the music of this area, which is so rhythmic and beautiful.”

There is no doubting the contribution of Sundays at Lena’s to the continuity of the traditional music of East Clare. “The regional thing is a big thing in Clare and maybe we are at risk of losing it a little nowadays, because people have access to so many areas and styles.” Mary said. “In the old days, most of the musicians didn’t travel very far outside of their own locality. I’m so glad I was able to celebrate those musicians who taught us so much when we were growing up. Their tunes are there now to listen to and to learn. I don’t think there’s any fear at all of the East Clare tradition dimming.”

Sundays at Lena’s is available from Marymacnamara.net; from Custy’s in Ennis and from Custysmusic.com.