View from Gary Leahy’s front door.
We went to visit a colleague of Morgan’s and a man who’s become a friend for all of us. His name is Gary Leahy and he makes violin family bows, as does Morgan. Gary also plays fiddle and we’ve sat in sessions together. Gary lives outside of Newport, down a small road and out into some very pretty countryside. Gary and Morgan talked shop which I was able to follow in part. The three of us are in the musical instrument trade, their skills specifically directed to bows for the violin family. Mine is fretted strings but there’s some overlap, we all use wood, specialized tools, varnishes, etc. We luthier’s love to geek out together. Bridget and James even found some of it interesting.
Gary, the inside and outside of his shop.
We chose not to go out for the evening. We’ve had a lot of sessions and late nights and thought it might be a good idea to get to bed at a decent hour. We’ve invited friends to come over tomorrow night and share some food and music and we need to shop and prepare the house for guests. We missed a concert with Julie Langan, Freda Hatton and Declan Askins. That caused some regrets but we can’t get to everything going on. It’s reconfirmed what we knew already, Westport is a hot house of music and we’re going to have to dedicate more time here the next trip.