Voices of experience

IT’S not many senior citizens who would admit that they had enjoyed themselves in a trendy Dublin nightclub, but for the Forever Young Choir, it was just one of the venues where they have done what they love doing most – singing and having fun.
Over the past year and a half, the Ennis-based 30-member Forever Young Choir have been building up their repertoire of songs and perfecting their performances.
They recently performed a number of songs in tribute to Bishop Willie Walsh, a member of the choir, at a civic reception in his honour held by Ennis Town Council.
Chairman and founder member of the choir, Ennis man Aidan Deegan, admitted that it was his “brainwave” to start the choir.
“I had seen a choir of senior citizens from the United States, Massachusetts performing in Glór over two years ago. All the members were between the ages of 74 and 94. I thought to myself, if they could do it, so could we here in Ennis. So I made a number of phonecalls to some of my friends who I thought might have an interest. Within a very short period of time, we had 20 members. At this stage, we have 30 members and are closed to new members now,” Aidan said.
The choir’s musical director, Joan Duggan, explained that for a long time, they were the only choir in Ireland with more men than women.
“Traditionally, choirs and musical societies have a problem attracting male singers but this hasn’t been our experience whatsoever. In fact, men are the backbone of Forever Young,” she said.
Given that they are so good at what they do, one would think that all the members had spent years in other choirs and chorus’ but this is not the case.
“Quite a number of the choir members hadn’t been involved in choirs previously, particularly in the case of our lady members, mainly due to family commitments. For many of our ladies, it was the first real opportunity they had to join a choir, due to other responsibilities they had down through the years. They are delighted now to have this chance to sing in the choir and feel that they really would have been missing out had they not joined,” Joan added.
Joan didn’t hold auditions for entry into the Forever Young Choir. “To be honest, the only criteria to be a member of Forever Young is a good sense of humour and fun and a love of singing. At the start of the choir, I rehearsed lighter numbers with the choir that we all knew, such as Swing Low. Once we were confident singing together, I broadened the repertoire. Now we sing all the familiar and popular oldies, like Lily Marleen, Percy French numbers, well-known ballads, as well as songs by Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Andrew Lloyd Webber. We also perform yodelling songs. Kevin Dalton is our accomplished yodeller, as well as numbers which involve some expert whistling. Our very own whistler is Noel Bolger,” the musical director added.
Aidan Deegan continued, “One thing everyone in the choir has in common is a love of singing and a great sense of fun. Practically all of the men in the choir are above 74 years but some of our ladies are younger. We had a difficulty getting ladies into the choir and for the right balance in songs, we needed more or less equal numbers of men and women. It’s hard to say exactly why it was difficult to get ladies to join but mainly, we found that they had other family commitments and in a number of cases health issues, which prevented them from committing to the choir. Some of the ladies who were interested in joining the choir were too young for our age profile but we took them into the choir to get the right balance of male and female voices. We don’t want to have the choir any bigger than it is because if the numbers are too large, we’d lose the camaraderie that we have.”
The choir has members from the Ennis area, Shannon, Kilrush, Kildysart and Limerick.
“Bishop Willie Walsh has been a member of the choir since quite near the beginning and is fantastic for coming to the Tuesday night rehearsals. Despite all of his other commitments, he rarely misses a performance with us,” Joan explained.
In the past 18 months, the choir have performed at a number of events around Clare. Most recently, they sang at an Ennis Town Council civic reception for Bishop Walsh.
“We wouldn’t have missed that for the world. Not only is Bishop Willie one of our members, he is also our friend and we were privileged to sing in tribute to him. We had to take that opportunity to sing the Tipperary anthem, Sliabh na mBan, for him,” Aidan said,
They have also performed at the mental health seminar in the Temple Gate Hotel, Ennis, at an Age Action Ireland event last September, as an after-dinner treat at a wedding reception, for the Poor Clare Sisters in Ennis, at the National Vintners Federation Dinner in Dromoland, at the Active Retirement Association’s annual dinner and at Christmas parties in Carrigoran Nursing Home and Cahercalla Hospital, to name just some.
But, undoubtedly, their most unique performance was in SIN nightclub in Temple Bar, Dublin last year. Ciara McMahon, the daughter of one of their members, Bernard, was doing a thesis on inclusiveness in society and wanted them to perform in a whacky venue.
“She had other groups performing as well, including some young dancers. It was a wonderful experience and we were delighted to be involved in the project. We were featured on RTÉ as a result of the event,” Joan said.
She believes their appeal is that, in their performances, they show a love of music and fun, because essentially they love entertaining people.
“What the choir is really about is fun and friendship. There is a great sense of caring among members. Even when some of us have aches and pains, we forget about them during our rehearsals, so while we’re working to improve what we do, it is like a break for us too. Our rehearsals on a Tuesday night are like mini-performances. We have been told that we’re good at what we do but really it’s about much more than performing. Forever Young is our theme song. We hope we get across a message of young at heart because that is how we feel while we’re performing,” she remarked.
“We wanted to provide an activity for retired local people, which was fun,” Aidan added. It’s not good for people when they retire to just sit at home waiting for the Lord to call them. And this is a great way for people to get out of the house, meet other like-minded people and generally just have fun.”
He also said that a number of the choir members are anxious to put on a concert for the public. “We are currently considering how this might work and will make a decision on it shortly,” he added.
He said that they have considered entering competitions but don’t feel that it’s their kind of thing. “We thought, in particular, about entering Clare’s Got Talent, but then we said we wouldn’t want to deprive a young new talent from getting their chance to launch a career in music,”Aidan commented.