I'm toying with the idea of a holiday in Ireland at some point. My memories of beautiful Co Clare from a childhood summer holiday include 14 days of horizontal sheets of rain presented against an icy grey sky. I thought if I went again it would be nice to incorporate some indoor activities, top of the list of which would be finding lots of mad hooting Irish people flinging each other across an oak floor to the clink of pint glasses and the manic strains of flute, accordion and fiddle.

I believe such places exist, but that being authentic they aren't promoted to tourists and holidaymakers - certainly not over the internet from what I could find. I would be really grateful if anyone knows of a way to get immersed in such Celidhs when you don't live there.

Also, out of interest, does anyone know of any courses in Ireland (eg residential holiday type courses such as you sometimes get for chamber music) where you can learn to play Irish Celidh music with others?

Thanks,

David

Thank you

Whilst I'm digesting all those responses I thought I'd flag up a link I've just found.

fiddlingaround.co.uk

It's got a description of the ornaments and style which make Irish fiddle music sound Irish, and some links to things like irish fiddle holidays, and to radio 2's "virtual session" which puts up jigs and reels for you to play along with the band. It also seems that the key google word for finding local celidh fiddlers is "session" which they have in certain pubs in Liverpool and Manchester where everyone brings their instrument and just plays along.

How about the Douglas Hyde summer school in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon. Its on during the first week of July and offers set dancing workshops and classes in Tin whistle, fiddle, flute, sean nos singing and banjo. More information here
http://www.ballaghaderreen.com/culture.htm

Also, theres the willie clancy summer school, just found a site about it...
http://www.setdancingnews.net/wcss/wcssmd.htm

This site here has a list of links to more sites of various festivals, workshops, summer schools and gatherings
http://www.irish-music.net/LinkFestivals.htm

wow! thanks chopet, I'll check those out!

hm - I see your man Shane McGowan on trad guitar.
and of course "Paddy Ryan" on fiddle

- beginning to feel Irish already!

Glad to hear someone is interested in us Irish

ooh!! I'm Irish too!!! Where are ye from, Chopet & Musicmad_banana!!
Coolaboola! I'm from the south east

Zoda, have you heard of the Blás Summer School in the University of Limerick? I think you can win scholarships to it. As far as I know Michael O' Suileamhain (sp. ? gabh mo leithsceal!!) is the director. Ireland's only World Music Centre is based on the Uni. Limerick campus. http://www.ul.ie/~iwmc/Blas/top.html
Opps...I think that it has already started though...maybe next year?!
Check out the Irish classical music radio station website, Lyric FM, as I know they'll have loads of information on this kinda stuff.

Also, regarding celidh music... My advice is to go into a pub, the smaller, family-run ones are generally your best bet, and enquire about trad sessuíns! I grew up in a pub....but that's another story... by the time I could play violin well/had learned a few trad tunes, we had sold our pub Alas, woe is me ....

I know a pub where they have a trad cellist occasionally!! Tres cool!

Well, I'm not technically Irish but I live in Northern Ireland and would usually describe myself as being northern irish. People will argue and say that you can't say that but I am from Northern Ireland, therefore I am Northern Irish! I love traditional Irish music - I don't really know much about it as I only play piano, clarinet and saxophone (not exactly traditional Irish instruments) - but it is brilliant. It's so nice to walk into a pub and see the group of old guys in the corner playing and it just makes me want to get up and dance!! Definitely worth listening to!

I think the best ever online forum, which is specifically about Irish Traditional Music, is The Session - explore that.

There are sessions listed by country / county so you WILL find what you are looking for!

Seriously addictive!

this is amazing! thanks for all the links! I've found on "the session" a pub five minutes from where I live, which I've just rung and they tell me they have a session at 9pm on the 2nd Friday of each month. The guy who answered said it's a real laugh and anyone and everyone joins in - even he does, and he'd never heard of it before he got a job there!

I also followed a link through from one of the sites and there were close up video clips of how to do authentic cuts and rolls in irish fiddle music. This is great!

Fab!! That's how I started playing the harp seriously - in a session. You can't just hide it under your coat and sneak out... and it's just such a lot of fun.

Tell us all how you get on!!

Mark

We've been to a folk festival with school for the past 3 years and it doesn't take long to get immersed! Especially if you go with someone! I wasn't really into Irish music, but now I love it. We've not been going long, but it's so nice to recognise the tunes when you walk around on festival weekend!

It's gone this year, but it's always on the may bank holiday in the half term in Hexham.

Im down south. I havnt really played trad myself. I once saw a street musician playing trad on viola. That was interesting to hear. Wasnt too long ago actually

Hey Zoda - just found the fiddle clips too. Amazing - great fun! There's tons of good stuff up there on the session. I found a singer who did Bosnian / Yiddish music and we collaborated over the internet - exchanging recordings. We actually performed live on stage at the Stamford Harp Festival last year - despite the fact we'd never actually "met". Very weird meeting for the first time on stage in a concert! That was all thanks to "the Session" too!

The internet is an amazing thing really, isn't it? I mean what would be the chances of walking down my local co-op in Chester and striking up a conversation about Irish fiddle music!

Well, I went along to a local session to see what it was all about. It wasn't just Irish music - there were a lot of guitars and people seemed to play (or sing) whatever took their fancy. They sat together around the tables in one part of the pub. There was a bagpipey thing, and someone playing a black whistle which sounded really good, a couple of violins one of which disappeared and some banjoey type things, and someone on a thing that looked like a massive recorder, but sounded quite nice, and some more whistles and mouth organs. There was also a Dave Gorman there who was very friendly and offered to get me a book of tunes.

I brought my violin, but I didn't get it out of the car. It seems that there are two ways in which you can join in - either you are very musical and can pick up and play back a tune by ear after hearing it once (not me), or you have to learn the tune at home in the correct key before going to the session (not me yet).

The way it seems to work is somebody plays a tune through once, and then everyone joins in, and the tune itself might go through a few times, followed by a couple of other tunes which make a "set". Interestingly there seems to be some merit in a less experienced player leading off with a tune, because at least that ensures a tune that they know , whereas the more knowledgable ones can join in with anything.

I've had a go at some of the tunes on the Radio 2 "virtual session" but for some reason they don't sound very Irish the way I play them.

When I get a chance I think I'm going to have a look in at the "Pogue Mahone" in Seel St. Liverpool which has a traditional Irish Session each Wednesday, to see another set up, and see if the atmosphere is any different.

The violin I left in my car was my nice Gliga, but judging from the smokey smell of my clothes, if I do get good enough to play I think I will take my less used other violin.

Also although I don't really drink usually, I think I would need to if I was going to play, so I don't think I would take the car next time.

We've been to a couple of those sessions and we found it just as difficult! After a point, the tunes are all just variarions of other tunes, so if they're really into folk, chances are that they'll no masses of them anyway, or one which sounds like it.

im interested in the irish too! hehe i really like the music, and i've wanted to learn to irish dance since i was a tiny little thing and my grandma showed me the video of riverdance (hehe ive still got it too..) but sadly our dance school doesn't do irish, in fact i dont think any of them near us do but i would love to learn it one day!

One of my friends did Irish dancing in Hull where she used to live, but can't do it anymore since there's no classes in the North West. Nearest one's 3 hours away. So she taught us instead! We can do a light Jig and a heavy reel

cool! hehe ive got a long summer hols now so i might have another look around to see if there are any classes!

If you tell me what county you're in (or PM if you'd rather) then I'll ask my friend coz she's part of some sort of society, and they have a list of classes for each region.

I've just found the closest link to what I was originally looking for, which looks well worth a visit for anyone considering a visit to Ireland:

Irish music bars

This is apparently the no1 visited Irish site, with 4 million hits a year, and they do have some good write ups of a lot of great pubs with traditional Irish music and dancing (as well as a smaller number of hotels). Dublin and Co Clare seem to be particularly brimming with traditional spots.

I have emailed them to see if anyone knows whether there's any way of including the children in all the merriment - I don't know how their pub's operate over there, but I'm hoping the children might at least be allowed into places if you're either eating or staying there, or perhaps if nobody's looking. Hope they haven't got 4 million other emails to respond to first, though!

now I'm going to go and google what a "hooley" is.....