There is an atmosphere and excitement about this Fleadh that is second to none,  people in great form everywhere, and everyone greeting old friends, making new friends and sharing the music.

Tonight we are playing in the Seven Horse Shoes in Belturbet.  Francis says we will not run short of tea and sandwiches, and of course, a few jars for the musicians.  He is a generous and thoughtful manager, and says there will be a welcome for all musicians, singers and those that come to listen and chat.

Tomorrow, I’m going to hear Sean O Se on the GigRig, I have a great fondness for Sean, he is a great character.  We wont stay late in Cavan Town tomorrow night though, we will probably head back to Belturbet and have a few tunes here.  Anyway, Independent TV were in touch this morning to arrange an interview and performance with me on Saturday morning, so too late a night would not be advisable.

This fleadh is just so much craic, its something that cant be properly described, it simply has to be experienced.

Now, I have to go and get this mornings papers, if they have any left, I am told we are in it.

Now this is the real stuff!!!!

We arrived in Cavan, Belturbet yesterday.  First stop was a visit to Fintan McManus and Ann Donoghue, grand cup of tea and a huge welcome as always there, followed of course by a discussion on the week’s activities.

It goes a bit like this so far,  tonight, we are joining Fintan Mc, Martin Donohoe, Laurence Nugent and lots of other musicians for Ceol agus Craic in The Widows, that starts at 9.00pm, and 300 hundred boats are expected in the harbour here for the Launch of the Fleadh!  That should be some sight.

Monday sees the lads going to Scoil Eigse, as they will every day next week.  Tuesday evening we will join with Michael Sheerin, PJ and the lads once again in The Widows.

Wednesday, well it has to be The Farnham Arms in Cavan Town, music there again with Fintan, Martin, Laurence and the host of brilliant musicians that are a regular feature there.

Thursday, well I’m still here in the Horseshoes, writing this up, and I forgot to bring the programme in with me!  Ah well.  I’ll just continue by memory!

Friday,  The Renowned SEAN O SE is going to be on the GigRig, singing his wonderful heart out.  All those lovely old Irish tunes we all know and love so well.  He is Awesome.

Now Saturday is a big day for us, we are playing on the GigRig, launching the book and cd at 6.00pm till 7.00pm  I forgot to mention that the GigRig is called Peace III, anyway, its located in the Egg Market in Cavan Town.  There will be Park and Ride facilities in place, shuttle buses will take people from allocated carparks to the Town Centre, and I suppose you will find us there.  Cant be too difficult to spot a GigRig???  Just ask if you cant find it, the friendly Cavan people and trad visitors are always so approachable.  Did I tell you that a 250,000 people are expected in Cavan this week!  WOW
I am currently dropping you a line from The Seven Horseshoes Hotel in Belturbet, and I suppose an update of what we’ve been up to over the Summer wouldn’t go astray!  So far, it has been a very busy but nice Summer.

We have had some great seisuins in Mayo, Kitty McGreal’s in Kiltymagh is a regular venue for us when we are there, and we usually play two nights, Friday and Saturday.

We are only back from a lovely trip to Dingle, Co. Kerry, and we then moved on to Mountshannon, Co. Clare, we stayed home for 5 days then, just long enough to re-pack the suitcases for Cavan.  We had some brilliant lively seisuins in Dingle, the evening we arrived, we went to O’Flaharta’s and enjoyed playing with Seamus O’Flaherty, Cillian and Brid O’Briain and others, the Sunday saw us in the Marina, again playing with the amazing Con Duhan, John Ryan and many other excellent musicians, the music there is so lively, totally uplifting.  Later on in the week we played with Gordon Saunders and Seamus Flahive in Paidi’s.  One of the days we took a boat to The Blasket Island, it is gorgeous over there, and while there we decided not to leave the Island without playing a few tunes!  Anu agus Luna was the first I played there, it was afterall, written for the two little girls whose dad Eamon comes from there, and they spend their entire Summer on Wine Strand.  As luck would have it, I bumped into them and their parents in the Marina!  And while on the Blasket, Brian met his teacher Eoin!  Ah ye can go nowhere anymore, imagine meeting someone you know on a day trip to a usually deserted Island……

Well, the Saturday saw us moving on to Clare, Mountshannon was as always, beatiful, walking by the lake and taking the pace of life easy, well, the days anyway.  Night time was a different story of course.  We played in Keanes on  the Saturday, thats a small pub in the village, where the trad spills out onto the street, and you never know who is going to drop in.  Lady AnnDora was in great form as always, despite her very mature years, she still managed to waltz and have a go at the bodhran!  Such a character. We also played there on the Wednesday.

On Sunday, we went to the hotel, Fr. Eamon Barry was home from America and a few great tunes were played, once again till VERY LATE.  Mary Smith was there too on the fiddle, we also had a great guitarist and banjo player.  Some excellent singers too.

Friday evening took us to Whitegate, Lucas’ pub was the venue for that evening’s entertainment.  Once again our ceol-oiche was lively and bustling, the Clare tunes make a lovely contrast to the Kerry ones, Teresa who was on the flute is from near to Loughrea, so some of Vincent Broderick’s tunes were included in this seisuin.  Such a pleasure to play with the musicians from all these counties mentioned so far.

Last night, we decided to visit a few of the local hostelries just to see what the ceol agus craic was like, we decided we would take one night off performance and listen instead.  We stopped a while in one pub which had two girls singing to guitar accompaniment.  I enquired as to who the girls were, and got the best answer of the week,  it went like this “Well now, the dark one is Mary Fitz’s daughter, and the red one is Seamus’ from near to Butlers Bridge’s daughter”  so now you are all as wise as I am with regard to our evening’s entertainers.

Tonight we intend to return to The Widows for another evening of music. This time we will be with Michael Sheeran, PJ, Sam and John, its always a pleasure to perform with them, I think Laurence Nugent will be there again too.  I have discussed having him record a couple of my new unpublished tunes, namely “The Donkey Derby and The Jockey Lamenting His Ass”, now that would be a great reason for me to head back to Cavan!

Tomorrow night sees us back in Cavan Town having a few tunes in The Farnham Arms with Martin Ddonoghue, Fintan McManus, Pat McManus and Trevor Bury, all the regular gig members should be there, so it should be another memorable evening.

Thursday, we are going to play in The Seven Horse Shoes, thats where I get to use the internet to keep everyone updated, Francie Cahill has been great about allowing me time and a quiet spot to do it from.

The atmosphere here is undescribable, its amazing, I keep bumping into so many friends from all over Ireland and oversees.  Its wonderful here.

Caught up with Joe Doyle and James Mahon (Pipes Teachers) at the Institute, then listened to a Scottish Pipe Band at the Family Day in the park beside the Institute.

Last night was brilliant.  One of the best sessions I have attended in a long time.  It was the launch of the Fleadh in Belturbet, and the atmosphere was alive with music and craic go leor.  The musicians included Martin Donohoe, Fintan McManus, Eugene Teevan, Laurence Nugent, ourselves of course, and a host of visiting musicians, some from Chicago, Canada, England, Wales, Orkney Island, just about everywhere.  Well, I hardly saw the bed last night!  I think the rest of the week will be much the same.  It was a fabulous start to what promises to be an amazing week.

I will endeavour to keep regular updates this week, just to give you a flavour of the fleadh,  but now I would like to thank the Management of Seven Horse Shoes Hotel for allowing me to use their internet facilit

We left Cabinteely around 10am for the beautiful, tranquil setting of Avondale.  First thing on our agenda was a cookery lesson with Chef Paul Smith, resident chef in Avondale.  The young musicians received instruction on making sausage rolls with a difference, some had tomato and basil added in, others had cheese, and some were plain.  They also made gorgeous cream slices, which they finished with lemon icing and strawberry, and served them with custard and fresh cream.  They even made some for me.

After cooking (and eating), they came over to the Annex to see which room had been allocated to them, and then it was time to join me in  the Lecture Room to find out what new tunes were in store for them to learn.  I had decided to focus on Vincent Broderick tunes, sadly Vincent died a couple of years ago and was someone I had always enjoyed talking to and I love his music, so it was a pleasure for me to pass some more of his wonderful compositions to the next generation.  Seamus Hallahan (our youth officer) taught another of Vincent’s tunes, a barndance called Around the Fairy Fort.  Brian and Eoghan took two of our newer members aside and gave them their first lesson on Concert Flute.  Both are now working hard on mastering their new instruments.

After our music, Barbara Hallahan commenced arts and crafts, some of our musicians then turned their hands to making their own kites, this was brilliant, they then flew their kites outside and the weather was quite nice, but unfortunately, the odd shower!  Then we went back to Avondale House for a lovely evening meal which was prepared by Chef Paul.

John Grassick, Seamus H and Daniel O’Connor then led our young musicians on a lovely nature walk through the woods.  Mia found a pheasant’s feather which she brought into school the next week, and various items of invironmental interest were pointed out to the group.

On returning to the annex, Ger Cooper began to discuss the Mass for the next day with the group, she listened to readings, bidding prayers, as Gaeilge agus as Bearla (in Irish and English) and helped some of the group compose their own prayers.  After that, they returned to the Lecture room with me to practise the tunes that would be played at the Mass. while this was happening, John and Barbara fired up the Barbeques and we then had a great time cooking sausages, chicken, burgers etc, and then toasting marshmallows.  It was brilliant.  Later some of the group wanted to sing a few songs, and others played board games, cards etc.  Eventually, they were sent to bed, they went too!  Ah but that was only the beginning of the nocturnal visits, three girls ended up in one tiny room together!  but that was all part of their fun.  Some of the boys were also up in one bedroom for ages playing card games and sending texts to one of the girls downstairs (separate floors for girls and boys, well supervised).  Amazingly, most of them were up at 7.00 a.m.

Sunday began with early breakfast, then a tour of Avondale House, Aedeen (one of our local school teachers) and her husband Michael O’Brien arrived down for the day, much to the delight of many of our students and accompanied them on  the tour of Avondale House.  This tour also gave a history of Charles Stewart Parnell and details on the furnishings in the house.  Then it was time for another walk before lunch.  The parents, grandparents and other relations/friends arrived for Lunch, superbly prepared by Chef Paul and served by the staff of Avondale restaurant, and then it was time to go over to the Church for Mass which was celebrated by Fr. Arthur O’Neill, the Mass is only celebrated once a year in this Church and we always feel honoured that it is for our group and friends, but everyone is welcome.

After Mass, Ger Cooper got a few people together to make lots of sandwiches and tea, and put out cake and biscuits etc for our guests, we were all well ready for that and afterwards, we went back to the music room and had a lively afternoon of music and songs.

It is probably the most looked forward to event on our entire calendar, some or our young musicians said “can we do this again before next April”  sadly I had to say no, we are lucky to have such wonderful committee members prepared to give up one weekend of their year to the youth, and also every Friday evening.  Isnt it lovely to know, they enjoyed it so much that they want to do it all over again!

I would like to express my thanks to Barbara Hallahan, Seamus Hallahan, Ger Cooper, John Grassick and Daniel O’Connor, because without these, Avondale Weekend Workshop could never be a success.

Special mention should also be made of Fr. Arthur, he kindly came down from Cabinteely to celebrate our special Mass for us, we are very proud of him too, and we know our young people have a very special place in his heart.

Some of the children performed in school, Conor Flannery played beautifully a fiddle duet with me, Mo Ghile Mear, and Sean Byrne played Spancil Hill as a whistle solo.

We had our Paddy Party also, that was great fun with a competition for Greenest Cailin and Greenest Buachaill.

All our young people had a great time, and the parents sent over a load of sweets, cakes, crisps etc for the night.  Us grown ups even had a glass of wine.

We put down 20 tracks over the week, a mixture of songs, jigs, reels, hornpipes and airs.  It was brilliant.  Now all we have to do is edit, drop in some backing and harmony where required.  I probably wont get back to it till later this year.

Our musicians and singers are Danny Deegan,vocal, myself, vocal, whistle and fiddle, Fintan McManus on bazouki and guitar, Philip Clarke, Piano and Piano Accordian, Brian O’Connor, Uilleann Pipes, Eoghan Stapleton, Box, Lucy Costello, Fiddle, and Richard Quinlan, flute.  We had long days in studio, followed by a few tunes and a bit of craic later on.  I look forward to getting it out, but it wont be until sometime next year, still a lot to do.

We arrived on the Sunday and we were invited by Martin Donoghue to join the gig in The Widdows, Belturbet, they were celebrating their 10 years of traditional music, so the place was jammed, the music lively to say the least, and lots of food was  provided by Enzo (pizza, chips, cocktail sausages etc.)  A great night was had by all.  We left in the early hour, well fed and watered and the music passion sated!

The Tuesday saw us back in the Widdows again for another great sesuin with Michael, Sam and Peter, we all joined in, sang our hearts out, and played them instruments like there was no tomorrow.

On Wednesday we were once again invited by Martin to join the Cavan Nyah musicians, this time it was Cavan Town, The Farnham Arms,  the musicians included Fintan  McManus, Trevor Bury (bones, bodhran) Pat McManus, guitar and fiddle and a host of other Nyah musicians.  That sesuin ended at the respectable hour of midnight.

So as you can gather, it was out late every night, up early next day, round 10 hours in studio, but we took it i n our stride and enjoyed every bit of it.

Martin Donoghue has invited us up to Cavan for the Fleadh and we are really looking forward to that performance.  Thanks Martin.

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