Kenmare

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I'm a few days out of date with posting on here because of lack of internet connection and breaking down in Limerick - that will be in my next post soon, first here is what I got up to last week in Kenmare.
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Kenmare
I have spent the past 5 days in Kenmare, a small town in Co. Kerry close to the border with Co. Cork. I booked myself onto 5 days of one to one fiddle tuition with an amazing fiddle tutor called Gill Newlyn. This course was the main reason for visiting Ireland and my whole trip has been planned around it - and I wasn't disappointed! I have had a brilliant week.

I arrived in town on Sunday night and went out looking for some music to listen to. I couldn't find any sessions but I came across a place in town with a couple of guys playing some set dance tunes (polkas, waltz, & 2 step) - this kind of music, especially polkas, are really popular here in co Kerry. The dance floor was packed with people dancing, maybe it was because of the good music, or maybe because the dancers were enjoying freedom from their zimmer frames - everyone was having fun though... it was a nice evening even if I was the youngest in the bar by a good 40 years!
My fiddle lessons each day have been at Gill's house which is about 15 minutes drive along a track up into the mountains. The lessons have been until 1pm and I have spent the afternoons in the mountains going over what I have just learnt and then practicing for the next day's lesson. In the evenings I have been either playing in sessions or listening to live music around town. It has been a really fun & tiring week!

Gill

Chris (Gill's husband)Noreen - a local fiddle player



From after just a few minutes of my first lesson on Monday morning it was clear that despite it being the same bow producing the same notes on the same strings attached to the same piece of wood, the traditional Irish fiddle is actually a completely different instrument to the classical violin that I have been squeezing Irish tunes out of for the past few years. I feel like I have picked up a new instrument for the first time (and sound a bit like it too!) but even just after a few days the difference in sound is amazing - There is a lot to take in, I just hope I remember everything that I have learnt - the most difficult part will be when I get back home and be playing classical violin one day and traditional fiddle the next without getting the two mixed up.

Dean & Noreen
During my free time I have been exploring the Beara peninsula. Today I headed out to the very end of the peninsula on the recommendation of Gill and her husband Chris. The scenery is stunning, on the same scale as the dingle peninsula but in a very different way... it's hard to describe the difference and because I forgot to take my camera with me you'll just have to try and guess what it was like! (or click here)

Tomorrow I will set off on the long drive across the country to Kildare, near Dublin, where I will be meeting up with Derek & Sarah (from Guernsey) who are over for a friend's wedding.

Cahersiveen

Killarney
I made it to Killarney but with the rain still coming down strong I only stayed overnight and then carried on to the town of Cahersiveen.

Cahersiveen
Cahersiveen is a small town on the western side of the ring of Kerry. When I was checking into the campsite I got chatting to Phil, the guy on reception, who told me that he had a friend who plays fiddle and might like to meet up to play some music... so the next day at 11am I met up with a fiddler called Peter Malarkey. Peter is a professional musician, he does a lot of teaching of traditional fiddle, but has also set up a fascinating project called binneas. Binneas is a project in which Peter is trying to collect traditional tunes which have never been publicly written down or recorded. It involves meeting up with old fiddlers and with the families of musicians who have died and may have got personal recordings or some kind of written record of the tunes hidden away somewhere. He has built of a collection of hundreds of tunes that have never been heard outside of small towns here in Kerry, and many which haven't even been heard around here for a long time. His hope is that he can make a public online library of these tunes so that they do not get forgotten. Peter gave me a bit of a fiddle lesson and taught me a couple of really nice tunes which have not been played for over 80 years and have most likely never been played anywhere outside of a small area of Kerry called Drumaragh.


As it is the weekend there were no music sessions locally but Peter told me of a good one in Killarney on the Saturday night, so I drove up there and after taking nearly an hour to find parking I joined in for a few tunes in a very noisy pub. The musicians were mainly button accordion players, there was also another fiddle player, a guitarist, and a bodhran player, but with the noise it was hard to hear anything other than the accordions.

John Bronson (accordion)

Last night I cooked another meal from THE cookbook. This time it was 'spicy sausage penne' except I didn't have any penne so I used fusilli instead. This wasn't just ordinary pasta with sausages and a bit of chilli - it involved cooking things in white wine and also posh words like 'saute' (BTW you can click on the images to make them bigger, that way you should be able to read the recipes).

Somewhere in Kerry

Somewhere in Kerry

I'm not actually entirely sure where I am right now... I left Tralee for a bit of an explore of the mountains and have ended up half way along (I think) a winding mountain pass in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the very narrow road and an occasional sheep (and my van) there is no sign of human existence to be seen in any direction.
The drive up to here had amazing views the whole way, but on a road that in places was barely narrow enough for one vehicle meant that meeting other traffic and dozens of tourist filled horse pulled carts has been interesting. On the high ground there have been steep drops just inches from the road, in the lower parts the road follows alongside streams and and the edges of loughs (lakes).



The rain is torrential, the wind is roaring through the valley like a wind tunnel, and it's now pitch dark outside. I was going to carry on until I reached a town and there search out a campsite, but because this is such a nice area I have decided to park up for the night by the side of the road... not as easy as it sounds! It took me 2hrs to find this spot. I found a few patches by the side of the road where my van would fit but most of them were on a slope; I don't mind sleeping on a slope but I do not trust the hand-brake enough to ensure that I would wake up with the same stunning panoramic views as those which I go to sleep with. eventually I found a large clearing by the side of the road, big enough for 5 or 6 vans of my size, and absolutely flat... sounds perfect?... except it came with 2 complimentary horror film style deserted and half tumbled down ghost town houses – call me chicken but with the wind howling through the half roofless rafters and nobody around for I don't know how many miles it didn't take me long to decide that I should keep on looking. A good decision because about 5 minutes further on I have found a small flat clearing, overlooking a lough, just big enough for my van and completely void of anything more spooky than a lonely wind sculpted holly tree.




My camp for the night

So, I have set up for the night and cooked dinner... I haven't used THE cookbook for a while but have had some requests for more food pictures so here is my own version of spaghetti carbonara.

I have played in a lot of music sessions since I have been in Ireland but haven't had a chance to try and practice any of the new tunes that I have recorded, so that's what I have been doing tonight... now I am off to bed and hopefully I can sleep despite the wind rocking my van so violently it feels like it will tip over!
With no internet signal out here I won't be posting this until tomorrow (which is today, or some day previous of now) so that means I have survived the night and made it through the rest of the pass without falling off... I am probably in Killarney if this road goes in the general direction that I think it does.

Tralee

Tralee
Next Monday I am booked on a week long fiddle course in a town called Kenmare which is a little south of Dingle so I will be staying around this area for the rest of the week. For a change of scenery I have come inland to the town of Tralee, which I think is the capital of Co. Kerry.

Well... it's wet, windy, and cold; finally, Ireland as it should be! This is the first time I've had any substantial rain since I arrived, and even as I type this it is easing off.

I headed off this morning into Tralee in the rain on my bicycle (it's about 10 mins cycle from the campsite and easier than finding somewhere to park, and having to pay for it!)... I haven't really got much to say about today, a very nice town surrounded by mountains (which I hope to explore over the next few days). I did a bit of grocery shopping and then ended up sharing my lunch, and a conversation, with a homeless Czech man who is Deaf, in the porch of a church in the town centre... Now I am back in my campervan drying off my socks and doing some work.

Tralee Fountain


I think tomorrow I will head out to the mountains to see what I can find.

Dingle

Dingle
From Cork I headed to Co. Kerry, completing the final stretch of the southern coast. The drive took me over the Cork & Kerry mountains and down to the coast at Inch, then past some of the most spectacular scenery that I have ever seen - steep mountainsides rising up on one side of the road and sheer cliff faces down to the ocean on the other. Around each mountain I was half expecting to catch a glimpse of Cair Paravel or Minas Tirith hiding in the mist.

My destination was the small town of Dingle, the most westerly town in Europe and filled with traditional musicians.


To make sure I was close to the music again I booked into a hostel in Dingle town. There I made friends with a Canadian hitch hiker called Aaron who works for a charity in California giving support to young people living on the streets and in difficult situations.

While we were getting ready to head out into town to find a music session there was a strong smell of wood smoke in the dormitory, but as there was a log fire downstairs we guessed that it was coming from down there. It was when we stepped outside that we realised that the pub across the road (An Droichead Beag) was on fire! - I think it was just a chimney fire but it was filling the pub with smoke and the fire brigade were there putting it out. As this was one of our choices of venue for traditional sessions we decided to head on down to a pub called O'Flaherty's. When we arrived we were just being told that there'd be no music tonight as 5 musicians walked in... and that was our night sorted!

Bridget (Fiddle & Flute)
That night Killian (the Uilleann piper) gave us a suggestion of a nice hill walk that he thought we might enjoy, so the next day myself, Aaron, and Lacey (a Californian also staying at the hostel) headed out to see what we could find.

At the Top

Lacey & Aaron
When we got to the top we came across six horse riders who were out with one of the stables in town who do tourist horse riding trips in the hills. On our way down we managed to find the stables, which turned out to be run by a lady from Guernsey... myself and Aaron thought that it sounded like fun so decided to give it a go... this was my first time on a horse, it isn't as easy as it looks (and it doesn't look easy anyway)!
By the time we got back to town it was late afternoon so we headed to a cafe for some Irish stew and then got ready for another night of music.

As with every night of the week there were a few pubs in town with a session, so we chose one that we thought we had heard mentioned the night before and waited for a while. Soon a guitarist turned up but he began setting up for a performance rather than a session... we were just considering whether to find somewhere else to go, or to stay and listen, when a local called Philip arrived. As we got chatting to him we were asking him about different places in town which are good for sessions - he said 'sure I'd usually be An Droichead Beag now, there's a good session there, but I burned the place down last night' - apparently as the last to put wood on the fire he is prime suspect!

Philip
After a while we got chatting to the guitarist too... he was getting agitated because his gig should have started already but the fiddle and squeeze box players were delayed on their way over from Dublin... so in true Irish style we decided to have our own mini session while we waited - Just myself, the guitarist, and Philip on whistle.


Philip was telling us that Killian, the Uilleann piper from the night before, makes his own pipes and is considered one of the best makers of Uilleann pipes in the world and that Bridget (fiddle/flute player) is also a very highly regarded musician and that I was very lucky to have found the session at O'Flaherty's.

The Band

Dingle Harbour

Aaron catching a lift