Irish Eyes

By Mattie Lennon

On July 03rd we lost one great singer/songwriter. Mickey MacConnell wrote about 400 songs and his best known is Only Our Rivers run Free which he wrote in twenty minutes when he was aged eighteen and didn’t ever change a word of it later.

The highest honour the folk music world in Ireland can bestow on any individual is The Creative Arts Award which is given annually and Mickey MacConnell was the recipient at the Fiddlers' Green Folk Festival in Rostrevor, Co Down in 2016. He found himself in the company of a host of talented people.

Mickey was inducted into a rarefied hall of fame, including the award's first winner ever, then Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, the legendary Pete Seeger, Ralph McTell and a host of other famous names. In other words he was with his own.

Not ever stuck for a word, the former columnist with The Kerryman newspaper said, "It's nice to get it while still alive!"

I interview him for Radio Dublin in 2001 and been the humble unassuming person that he was he gave another singer all the credit for the success of Only Our Rivers run Free, "It was a classic example of the right song, in the right place at the right time, recorded by the right artist, Christy Moore,” He emphasised to me that although it has been for decades been seen as a republican anthem it is in fact, “A cry for all the oppressed - regardless of creed.” The song was recorded more than 400 times, by artists too numerous to mention and translated into 16 different languages and the teenage Mickey was inspired by his, “ . . . frustration over the bigotry I witnessed in the meeting; with the allocation of houses to single Protestants over Catholic families." Only Our Rivers run Free was adopted as an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, before violence erupted in Northern Ireland.

Mickey is resting in peace; he is sadly missed. I attempted to write a tribute to him to the air of Only Our Rivers run Free, but I’m afraid it doesn’t scan too well.

MICKEY.

By Mattie Lennon.

The Bellanaleck snowstorm was raging
As political storms still blew,
Protestors now tired and ageing
Defeat being now all that they knew.
‘Mid such turmoil a baby was born,
And the hopes were he’d live for to see
A minority not subject to scorn
And a province now bigotry free.

As a grown- man that child of the forties
Good Friday’s Agreement he saw,
With Ulster’s cessation of sorties-
B-Specials replaced by just law.
By then he’d gone south of the border,
To Kerry via Dublin went he
Where songs were now written to order;
Pure culture and no R.U.C.

On the day he heard his Makers voice
‘Twas July the third in twenty five.
“Oh the call? Sure I must have a choice.”
His Heaven he’d picked while alive.
When that day was gone a legend had passed.
His last thoughts before leaving? Let’s see.
With his troubles all over at last.
Yes. Why not banter with John.B.

Surely his God has now granted his wish
And perhaps bi-location of soul.
By the Erne his spirit is waiting for fish
The same at the Feale in Listowel.
Exploits of his youth documented
They’re just resting in “Peter … and Me.”
Pain-free now and sadly lamented.
While his spiritual river runs free.

Speaking of death, we Irish are credited with doing it very well. The late Eamon Kelly once said that the best Irish wakes were held in America and the best American wakes were in Ireland. Be that as it may in 1921, a time of political and military unrest in Ireland Seán O suilleabháin, who went on to become Archivist of the Irish Folklore Commission, was a student near Ballina County Mayo. A local person died and Seán accompanied some of his fellow-students to the wake at night.

He was in for a surprise. He later wrote, “Within a short time, the house became more crowded than ever. More people were arriving than leaving. As far as I can recall, no other room except the kitchen was in use for the occasion. Tobacco smoke pervaded the whole place, and everybody was perspiring, as the night was close and heavy. Conversation went on in both Irish and English, and current topics were discussed in the manner usual on such occasions.” He hadn’t ever experienced a wake like it in his native Kerry. Yes, there were wakes in the Kingdom where clay pipes filled with tobacco were given the mourners and being Kerry there would be witty banter. But what mesmerised Seán and prompted him doing years of research resulting in 192 pages of Irish Wake Amusements, were the “games” which were played in the wake house. “Horseplay” would be too mild a term for most of them. Here’s an example, it’s called Cutting the Timber, “A man lay down across the threshold of the kitchen, feet outside, head within. He was to represent the saw. Two players now took hold of his feet, while two others caught his head and shoulders in the kitchen. They pulled against one another, forward and backwards as if they were sawing wood, until one pair proved too strong for the other.” Just imagine what it was like for the poor fellow playing the part of the saw. And “Cutting the Timber” was one of the milder games. It would appear that the Catholic Church wasn’t on the side of such activity. The author trawled through records of Synods of Bishops from one in the Archdiocese of Armagh in 1660 to the Diocese if Ardagh and Clommacnoise in 1903 with 11 others on dates in between. None of them recommended the carryon at wakes. The author devotes seven pages to listing his sources and an Index which left no stone unturned to inform the reader. No matter how well you think you know the Irish wake you will find revelations in this comprehensive work which you couldn’t even dream about.

Irish Wake Amusements was first published, in Irish, in 1961 and six years later in English. Thankfully, it is still available by print on demand from info@mercierpress.ie