At the beginning of this year, we reviewed An Bhuatais & The Meaning of Life, the latest offering from Lorcan Mac Mathuna described as a series of essays and philosophical ponderings on the meaning, narratives, and symbolism manifested in traditional music, folklore, and mythology. An accompanying philosophical treatise to a collection of timeless songs, superbly arranged to create a musical and philosophical contemplative experience. A track from the album, An Bhuatais, was recently nominated for Best Traditional Folk Track in this year’s RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards which I wrote about here.
In his review of the album, Richard Hollingham notes:
The accompanying 116-page booklet comprises an extremely comprehensive set of discussions on the nature of the style, together with details about the songs themselves and musings on some of the recurring themes. Central to this project was the search for the ‘eidos’ of sean nós:
It may be something that you intuit rather than describe, but by going through the process….we strip it [the song] of its characteristics until you can no longer call it Sean Nós, maybe we have located the eidos.
Having identified the eidos this became the ‘convention of arrangement’ and from that point, Lorcan looked at how the songs can be worked in a manner that both keeps the tradition and also feeds the future. In effect, this essence of sean nós became the central pillar around which the song, the melody line, the use of instrumentation, the presentation, all helped to rebuild the tradition for now.
A Bhean Úd Thíós, one of the songs on the album, now has an accompanying video which Lorcan also wrote a piece for Folk Radio on below.
“Man today stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for roots” –Friedrich Nietzsche
In Irish folklore, the fairies represent the opportunity and danger of the unknown. We find that fairies are an enigma that are beyond our reach for the most part but have the ability to pass through the veil that separates the supernatural from the mortal realms. They are vicarious, contrary, hard to predict, and frequently are blamed for misfortune.
Fairies, it is said, steal children for their grieving women folk, and will steal young women for brides or nursemaids. In the Song, A Bhean Úd Thíos, a young bride, taken into the fairy Rath, tries to communicate with a washer woman with a message for her husband who she has been separated from for a full year. Her imploration finishes with a surprising subversive line.
“For if he come not then, he need come never,
For they’ll make me Fairy Queen forever!”
This video was filmed in Belcarra Eviction Cottage besides Castlebar in Co. Mayo. A place of profound history and trauma. This cottage was restored to the state that it was in in 1886 when a “crow bar brigade” smashed in its walls and tumbled its thatch and threw a family of 9 out on the road. Across the road from the cottage a small shed that neighbours built for the destitute family still stands. A bare dry stone windowless shed, it measures about 20 feet x 10 feet inside.
We took the theme and history of the song and the place, as an inspiration for the video, which was filmed and produced by Terry McMahon. Concealment, suppression, and dysfunction. It wasn’t really planned, in fact, we had planned a completely different video that day, but the place seemed to incite this film.
Lorcan will be performing the final concert from the tour of his latest album on 1 December 2021, at the Linenhall Arts Centre (Linenhall Street Castlebar, Ireland Co Mayo F23 AN24). Tickets here: https://thelinenhall.ticketsolve.com/shows/873628213
http://www.lorcanmacmathuna.com/
Bandcamp: https://lorcanmacmathuna.bandcamp.com/