Willie Clancy

I hope you enjoy it.

Aaron's connection was, I suppose my dad has been coming to Willie Clancy Week for as long as he can remember.

And I think probably coming from the north, it was probably like a great release for him or a sense of peace, you know, during those times.

But I think really it's like the music, the land, the people, the sea, you know, I feel really at home here.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So you're on your way to Willie Clancy week this week.

I am.

as a teenager teenagers yeah so intergenerational

yeah oh totally and that's the beauty of traditional art music i think number one is that you're never too old yeah and it's no matter what age you are you know that you're always and i was saying this to my students today that no matter what age you are you know a few of them said today that the willie clancy i was teaching myself and ann rain we do it every year and I love teaching with Anne and they were saying a couple of them said we were lost you know there's 22 in our class so one or two felt we were going too fast and I said you know just relax you're picking it up and by the end of the week you'll be fine because it was the first day and I said to them you know nobody knows it all nobody knows all the tunes as we sit here there are tunes being written and I said I don't know half of them and Anne doesn't know them and yet we know loads of them

yeah

but I was just saying to them you know just relax into it and you're never going to know it all Which is beautiful

And sometimes the chats are just crack and madness and jokes and crack and mess.

And more times than they can turn into very, very serious kind of counseling sessions.

where you're telling them all your problems and they're telling you all their problems or solutions and you know that's how friendships and relationships and bonds are made and are kept but I would just say like I said about when we started and what I've said to the kids today in the Willie Clancy is To relax and not to be putting, you know, it's not about the number of tunes you can play or can't play.

Just relax into it and enjoy the moment.

In the town of Scarif, the sun was shining in the sky, and Willie Clancy played his pipes, the tears welled in my eyes.

Many years have come and gone since the times that we had there, and my heart's tonight in Ireland, in the sweet County Clare.

My heart tonight is far away, across the rolling sea, in the sweet mill town Mal Bay, it's there I'd love to be.

But it's a very special venue and I think it holds a place in the hearts of local people as a lovely spiritual destination.

And it was open during Willie Clancy week, which meant that people could stop in and pray.

And I think that was a real benefit for people who wanted to escape the madness of Milltown and the music and just have a little quiet reflective space to visit.

Yeah.

Well, thinking about it, I suppose it's great that this little church can be used more often for community functions, isn't it?

Yes, we're delighted that the church has opened up to the community and we're very grateful to the Reverend Vicki Lynch for her vision to open it to the community and for all her support and assistance throughout the process.

The church was open during Willie Clancy week and it was a lovely space for people to come for some quiet time during a very busy week in Milltown.

Well, I certainly look forward to it and I hope to see you there.

So, the young people now have, have greater opportunities to, to learn how to play properly, you know, posture and, you know.

I mean, when I teach at the Willie Clancy or Scoil Éire or w- or, or at the Meitheal, you know, you ask any, any, any one of the kids there, they all have private tuition.

Everyone has a flute teacher or a fiddle teacher or a, you know, or maybe more than one, you know? So, it's a different-

So, learning more than just how to play.

Oh, back in those days, no, you never ca- There, there were no concept of a career.

I mean, you know, we, you know, you just learned to play music for, for music's sake.

Like, it was never, there was never a, an idea that, like even the, the older musicians, like the, the, the, the household names, we would think of Bobby Casey and, uh, uh, Joe Ryan, all these people, like, uh, Willie Clancy, they didn't have careers in music, and they had no, no interest in having a career in music.

And it was, there was no career path.

Eamon can you talk to us a bit about the genesis of the food festival and why you felt Middletown Malibu was the right place for it?

I think that Milltown is rightfully known for the Squirrel Sower, Willie Clancy, and this year for the Johnny Madden May Festival, which were both fantastic, both music festivals.

What a lot of people don't know is that Milltown was built on something else as well.

It was traditionally a great market town.

so in terms of how it works,

it's running for three days, so the whole design bank will be filled with food trucks and stalls and all that kind of thing?

Design bank filled with our usual, what we did during Willie Clancy Week, which is everyone, the collective together, we did...

The Bakehouse is doing an Asian theme night.