f64 Armagh To Here
What with The Breath, Afro Celts, Honeyfeet and numerous other projects, Ríoghnach Connolly is a little bit busy. Cara Gibney hears about her roots, and runs to catch up.
“M
y usual mantra is: ‘Deep breaths, stay true, head down, arse up.’” Ríogh- nach Connolly was
sharing some worldly insights on how she manages to keep on top of her itinerary of projects, bands, solo work, teaching, residency, community work, recording, and touring. That list isn’t exhaustive, but you get the picture.
Mixing influences from Irish tradition- al, jazz, Appalachia, blues, folk, electronic, and beyond, you may know Ríoghnach Connolly as the gifted flautist who fronts bands Honeyfeet and The Breath. They’re two very different projects, but each the perfect vehicle for that incredible, rau- cous, molasses voice. Or perhaps you know her from writing, performing and touring with Afro Celt Sound System, or the Beware Soul Brother Project?
Impressively, in the midst of all of the above, Armagh-born, Manchester-based Connolly found time to travel over to The Duncairn in Belfast to perform at a fundraiser for an institution very close to her heart, the Armagh Pipers Club. This
A young Ríoghnach in the Armagh Pipers Club
particular ex-pupil is now many years and many miles distant from the traditional music school that grounded, explored and stretched the musical heritage she was brought up in. Still, as her mantra demands, she stays true. The connection and shared history are too important, too close, to let them slip.
“Like everyone in the club, Ríoghnach was in the singing classes taken by my wife Eithne,” Brian Vallely, founder member and Armagh Pipers Club Director recalled of the five-year-old Ríoghnach Connolly. The club began back in 1966, and indeed has worked successfully with so many chil- dren over the decades that it was awarded the Good Tradition Award at the BBC Folk Awards in 2018.
Despite the years, Vallely gives the impression he can remember every face that has passed the club’s doors. He plied me with photos of Connolly and her peers at the school: black-and-white and colour images of proud and pleased and focused faces. The images follow her progress from child to young woman, from tin whistle to flute to pipes. “Ríoghnach started from early on learning whistle with a great teacher,” Vallely explained. “And later I started her on flute, and later on uilleann pipes.” The photos are accompanied by detail: “This was her first appearance on stage in London at South Bank Centre.” Or “… playing with a group in the National Slogagh festival.” He has it all captured.
“Incidentally, I taught her father uil- leann pipes, which he still plays,” Vallely drops into the mix, and I’m supplied with the black-and-white picture to prove it, of youngsters sitting on the grass including Connolly’s father, squinting from the sun, smiling, the pipes straddling his lap. It’s the final of a set of photographs spanning two generations of traditional music heritage.
Indeed, Ríoghnach Connolly was born into a family that lives and breathes music. “I grew up with my granny singing songs and teaching them to me while I was on her knee.” Her mum is an Irish dancing teacher, and “All the rest, my aunties and uncles, they play their fiddles and harps and banjos.” The list goes on, of different instruments, different relatives, different
sessions in which “We’d shove each other out of the way to sing.” It was a way of life, indeed it still is. In 2019 they plan to release a family album, an official record of the songs and the talents that the fami- ly hold. “Most of the tracks on the record we’re making have never been recorded,” she confided. “My aunty Aoibheann and uncle Déaglán O Doibhlin are amazing researchers and guardians of the tradition, and it’s a really nourishing experience to bring the songs to life. With love.”
This love of the art was, and is, nur- tured in the Pipers Club, as Vallely explained: “One of the principles of our club is to encourage pupils to be creative and to try everything. We put no limits to music or song. There is no narrow vision in our vision of what we’re trying to do … the Pipers Club encourages experimentation, so all our musicians end up afraid of nothing.” And it shows. As a regular on the Manch- ester jazz circuit, as a sean-nós singer, as a world traveller and practitioner of music ranging from Appalachian to folk to blues, Ríoghnach Connolly shows no fear.
A
nother key element of Armagh Pipers Club is to offer a grounding on where the songs come from, a back- ground on their place in histo-
ry. “We got to hear music from other Celtic nations,” Connolly recalled. “From Scotland, Wales, and from Brittany and Galicia, we got to see how we have that bond.” The world started to expand for the young Ríoghnach Connolly, and this was important as these were particular times in the north of Ireland. Connolly’s father spent years in prison and the envi- ronment was hostile; it would have been easy to turn inward. Instead it awoke in her what was to become an exquisite sen- sitivity to social injustice that still beats a path through her everyday life. “I think it’s hard to come from the north of Ire- land and not have your head screwed on when it comes to world politics and humanitarian issues,” she explained. “It’s an important part of being a cultural diplomat that we pass on in traditional culture. So, all of my writing has to express some element of that. Sometimes in a more covert way than at others!”
Photo: Paul Eliasberg
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