July 16-17
July 16
We arrived in Clare to familiar places. We drove through Ennistymon to arrive at our rental. Ennistymon has been the location of many great sessions for us at Cooley House as well as Eugene’s Whiskey Bar. It was in nearby Lisdoonvarna at Roadside Tavern that we’ve met Christy Barry, Terry Bingham, Paul Dooley and Seamus Hynes. In Ennistymon we’d met Adam Shapiro and Christy McNamara, whom we’ve stayed in touch with. So , for us this has been a very productive and pleasant area.
Once we got the car unpacked and everything into the home we went down to Doolin looking for the illusive fish and chips. We headed to Russell’s and nearly wincing asked if they had any fish. The clouds parted, heraldic trumpets played a voluntary and we were told……….. yes!
After our fish and chips we cased out the local scene but it didn’t look very good. Morgan ducked in to O’Connor’s to see what was happening and he ran into Terry Bingham who told him that Christy Barry was playing at the Roadside Tavern the next evening. We looked in on a session at Fitz’s but there were at least six fiddle players. It wasn’t the right night so we went home and played tunes.
July 17
Easy day, no particular plans. We practiced some tunes that we recorded during the last trip in 2024. They are two polka’s that Christy McNamara played on his concertina, catchy tunes in G and Am. We thought it would be fun to pull them out and surprise Christy. We’re invited to his session in Lahinch, Hotel Cliffs of Moher. We played there the last trip and I had good memories of it. When we arrived around 6:30 I recognized the man standing inside as Adam Shapiro, a fine fiddler whom we first met in a session at Cooley’s in Ennistymon back in 2016. Christy didn’t quite recognize us from two years ago, I reminded him it was I who’d been corresponding with him, then he remembered. Another man named Christy, had an amazing brace of harmonicas and played really well. A few minutes in a woman named Clara came in. At first I thought she might be French but she’s from Argentina. She’s a blood relative of Christy’s whose family put down roots in Argentina at some point. She’s a good flute and whistle player and she and Christy and Adam mesh well. Clara also sang and played guitar. Once we got to playing in earnest Christy finally remembered our meeting in Eugene’s Whiskey Bar in Ennistymon and said he was first intrigued with us because of the tunes we were playing that he didn’t know. Those two Polka’s that Christy played, darned if he didn’t start them and we played right along!
Playing with the four of them felt very comfortable, nothing hurried, everyone tasting the tunes and savoring them. These are the sessions that feel so good. Mighty sessions like we had in Matt Molly’s are great in a very different way. A friend of theirs dropped in, his name is Rupert and sounds British. He played a very clever blues based tune about a man playing on his front porch with his dog. He’s tied a tambourine to the dogs tail to help keep time. We played until 9:00 and were asked to join them at the Corner Stone in Lahinch and we thought we might but by the time we got home to make dinner we realized we’d be looking at a very late night. Christy has asked us to meet he and Clara at Fitz’s Pub in Doolin, Monday evening .