Music in Dublin in the 20th century

John Kelly Senior (JKS): “A new crop of musicians came in (to Dublin) around the ’50’s, early ’50’s to Dublin. We had Willie (Clancy) came around that time and Bobby Casy and Joe Ryan.  Ah, we used to have great music. The the Fleadh Cheoils.”

John Kelly Junior: “Joe Cooley.”

JKS:   “Hah?”

JKJ: “Joe Cooley.”

JKS: “Yes, a thing I left out about; Joe Cooley was around and he had a little band someplace in Parnell Square, some teacher’s hall (The Teacher’s Club?) or some where. But he had Johnny Doran as a guest artist every now and then. Well, there was some draoícht in Johnny’s music even then. Even at that time Dublin people weren’t conversing with Irish music, with the sounds of Irish music. Like, they heard it, but it wasn’t their first love. They were steeped in jazz for 20 or 30 years before that and they hadn’t heard much Irish music and they thought anybody who played Irish music was a kind of a queer, or ’twas some kind of antediluvian stuff. But Johnny even brought them up around the stage the night Joe had him. I was with Joe a few nights playin’ there when he’d be short of a man. I remember one night when Johnny came and he gave a star performance. The whole hall, and there was a nice crowd there, over maybe 300 people and the most of them young Dublin girls and boys, they came up around him on the stage. Well, any­thing like it! He was irresistible, so to speak.

But an incident happened in 1948 which I left out: during the election … Clann na Tall, headed by … I might be wrong now, it mightn’t be Clann na Talun … whatever party John … Clann na Phoblachta, they^–won twelve seats that time, in 1948, and their star performer in that year during the election campaign was Johnny Doran dressed in Mick Conroy’s suits, with a wrist watch and all – they were about the one height. And in ever street corner for about two weeks before the weddin’ … or, the election they used to be … they’d strap up in the evenin’ and they’d play away there      Johnny’d play away and the man’d make a speech and  Johnny’d play a tune. Well, ’twas great. Johnny used be dyin’ laughin’ at the whole caper. I’m sure he was treated fairly well.”

“Then there was a programme on the radio where country players were invited to play and we saw the thing advertised in the paper … and we were all prepared to meet them when they came. I can remember a few; Niall O’Boyle came maybe three times, but I met him every time he came and I brought him up to the house and we had some great nights. He spoke Irish very fluently, as well. He was a great fiddle player. Willie (Clancy) was around at the time and he stayed one night until morning. And he (Niall) played a great settin’ of ‘The Fox Chase’ and other airs and (he was) a great reel player. He never stopped smokin’ the pipe and playin’ the fiddle and he drank tea about ten times that night. And he only rested in the chair for about half an hour and he caught the train in Westland Row. I thought he was a very hardy man at his age. I suppose he’d be sixty-four or five at that time.

He told me a few stories. One night we had a drink in the pub, O’Dwyer’: across the street and I asked him about players, the Doherty’s and people he met, and I asked him about Scott Skinner because he worked in Aberdeen and he used to come down to Skinner’s concerts and I’m sure he got a few tips from Skinner. He was a good player too, but Neilly wouldn’t give best to anybody, he was something like Patsy Geary. And I said:

“And was Scott Skinner a great player, Neilly?”

And he thought for a while. He said:

“No, no, no. A very bad player. A. very bad player!”

I suppose he thought … I’d heard Skinner’s records that time and I thought he was a very good player.

But then he spoke of things at home, he was a seanachai of the last … of the greatest. He told me a story of an old man that came around their place (Dungloe) after beint gone for twenty years. He was blind. He was tryin’ to know the crowd of people that was in the house. By their talk he knew a good few of them, but the young lads of the twenty or twenty-four years of age, he didn’t know them at all. How could he anyway? But there was one young felow spoke during the night and he cocked up his ears and he said:

“I think I know who you are,” he said.

“But,” sez the woman of the house, “you never saw the boy. How would you know him?”

“But I knew his people,” he sez, “if he’s (from) around here. And I think I’m right.”

With that he went up and he felt the little boy’s cheeks, you know, around with his fingers, around his neck and forehead and all his poll. And he composed this little verse in Irish and I never forgot its

“Teo no mairbh, muc no tarbh

Is mion (mise?)Ina gcara

Is to mac Sen gCarraibh.”

Well I’mm sure that I could have learned an awful lot from him. He was quick in the tongue and he travelled a lot, you see, an’ he had great stories about Donegal. He was one of the men that made a great impression on me.”

“I always laugh when I think of Dan Dowd and me goin’ up in the Dublin Mountains to play for some courier of Bard Fililte or some other group (of) people like that. They took pictures of us with girls dancing^* and scenes … beautiful scenes. And we were dressed … Dan had a bawneen and I think I had a kind of an Aran sweater, I don’t know whether I’d a crois or anything.

But this man came from Dublin airport in a fright lookin’ for me one morning and I never heard a word about it (in advance). He arrived in and his heart up to his mouth lookin’ for me and he had Dan Down lined up. He had a taxi waitin’ and we were whirled up in to the Dublin Mountains, ah, sure that was twenty years ago and we was mad for a day out! And I didn’t like the look of Dan when we picked him up anyway and he sez:

‘What’s this caper about, John? Do you know anything about it?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” sez I. “Tis some people that we’re goin’ to do something for some advertising group.”

Well, our whole day was gone anyway and we didn’t know what ’twas all about, but we had played in half a dozen spots in Glencree and beautiful … near the waterfalls and there was another group of dancers there and we played like hell, but sure our music wasn’t taken at all but our photos was taken very often.

So we got back home to the hotel that night. We went back in to the Gresham Hotel. Oh, they put up a big feed and when we had every­thing et, man, we thought we had the greatest day in our lives! So a man came up with a big sheet of paper. ‘Twas a big (contract). Oh there was plenty of small print on it. That time, of course, we didn’t read it.

“Sign that,” sez he to us.

And the two eejits signed it. We never read it, of course.

“What would ye be expectin’?” sez he to me.

I looked over at Dan looked over at me as much as to says “What could we expect after we were treated?”

“Yerra,” sez I, “a fiver a man will do us anyway.”

And he gave me the ten pound and I walked over to Dan and I gave him five. “Ah, John, you’ve the man robbed,” sez he.

Well, our pictures appeared from Bombay to California, all round the world. They were in every window that I looked in to for the last twenty years and they’re there yet. Even one of ’em was taken by the

Gallowglass (Ceili Band) and they put our pictures in front of the sleeve of their record and the record sold on the head of it. And they never came and asked us our permission, or said “Twould be nice if ye agreed.” I know that we can’t do (anything) because we had signed away our rights, you see. So that’s one story anyway. So Dan and me decided that .we’d make a record one time in lieu of that but it never turned out. So that’s the end of that story anyways you can caption it “the day Dan and me was taken me was taken for a ride!”