Lucy Farr
Lucy Farr - fiddler
Person from United Kingdom
Genres: British Isles
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About Lucy Farr
Baile na Kil Lucy Farr (née Kirwan) was born in 1911, third oldest in a family of seven girls and a boy. Her father, Martin, farmed at Baunyknave, one of six townlands that made up the parish of Baile na Kil, East Galway. Martin played the melodeon and also the flute in a local fife and drum band. An aunt - Margaret - played fiddle and concertina, both of which Lucy tried to play, and she recalls her aunt playing fiddle and dancing at the same time. Photo by Graeme Kirkham"No way", says Lucy, "could I do it." The fiddle, which had but two gut strings, was kept above the kitchen fire and when aunt Margaret eventually married it was left in Lucy's care. She still has it but has always found it, somehow, cramped to her fingers . Lucy's father, she says, was a quiet, self-contained man who rarely offered immediate comment on music but would keep his observations until later. Then he might point out a felicitous run or phrase and suggest where a note might be changed - an instinctive response, it would seem, born out of long acquaintance with the music. He was also firm: once, Lucy remembers, he listened to her attempts to join in a session and, after the other players had gone, told her simply never to play along in such circumstances again unless she truly knew the music because, whatever they might say, it could put the musicians off their stroke. Apart from her father, only her brother (also Martin) of the immediate family played in any regular fashion - a flute - and Lucy thinks that this was, in any case, after she herself started to play seriously and that would have been when she was around twelve years of age. Mostly the family sang, the children being encouraged to do so in front of visitors, usually aunts and uncles and other more distant members of the family. Otherwise, Lucy says, she was much more interested in dancing and in the nightly story-telling, especially that of her grandfather. To his annoyance, the children often mischievously interrupted and anticipated a favourite punch-line or maxim. There is, then, little that is remarkable in this upbringing, except that music was a vital part of family life, not marginalised. Importantly, Martin Kirwan's farm was one of two venues where people met to play and catch up on news. The other house was that of Stephen Moloney who played flute "and also played the bagpipes, his son Jim and myself played a bit together ... The other Moloney boys were younger than me ..." Jim played flute, so did Ambrose, and Eddie flute and whistle. However, it was Alice whom Lucy knew best and they sometimes sang together. The Whelan family, from "down the road", also visited the Moloney house: Tommy, a flute-player and friend of Stephen's and Tommy' s daughter, Kathleen, who played fiddle. farr02.jpg - 18.1 KAgain, it was the daughter whom Lucy knew best and played music with. It was, of course, the Moloney and Whelan families who later formed the nucleus of the Ballinakill Traditional Dance Players. House-visiting of this kind was frequent but confined to the near neighbourhood since transport was not easily available and Lucy and her sisters were not allowed to roam far. Obviously, as far as the music itself is concerned, this regular contact between musicians (and, indeed, the particular instruments that dominated) were factors in the development of a close-knit way of playing (but see below: 'Style and Repertoire'). Incidentally, there were rarely any uilleann pipes, although Leo Rowsome visited the Moloneys once or twice and Lucy then heard the pipes for the first time. She does remember sitting on a row of slabs just outside the family farm gate, hearing the sound of Stephen Moloney's bagpipes - war-pipes, they are often called - spreading through the meadows. There was a second factor in Lucy's musical experience: attendance at dances - some held in the family home where, for example, they started at eight o'clock (usually weekly) "and it was a case of Round the House in eight-hand sets (Quadrilles) and Mind the Dresser". The kitchen was not big enough for full sets. There was no drink except tea. Of course, Lucy and her friends spent time wondering which likely lad might turn up "for a little legal courting under the watchful eye of my father'." There were also dances held at nearby schools, following much the same pattern; and flag dances held at crossroads in the neighbourhood: Lalor's, Aille and down in Leitrim. Baulks of wood were staked in place on three sides of a square for the musicians to sit on. Then, at the autumn 'thrashings', because it was the custom to visit and help out, the company would finish the night dancing. Music at the housedances was nearly always provided by flutes and fiddles and a bodhran (played regularly by 'Barrel' Rafferty). One time, Lucy remembers no less than eleven flute players in full flow. Collectively, then, the local dances and meeting-up at houses provided the substance of Lucy's earliest musical education. Eventually, though, in circumstances which still evoke great bitterness amongst people, the clergy put a stop to house-dancing in order that occasions of sin might not arise. "It was known that at the end of a dance a priest would go out with a walking stick looking for courting couples and put the fear of God into them if he could find them." At the time, Lucy concedes, youngsters were much more interested in meeting and playing music. She herself had left home before the Dance Hall Act took effect in the mid-1930s. One of the highlights of the year was the Mummers' Dance. A group of lads would tour the district with their music, visiting various houses where they would play and dance a step and receive money in return. Lucy once overheard her brother admonishing the Mummers at a particular house where it was known that a good response might be had. A favourite tune, The Collier's Reel, was to be played and Lucy's brother Martin said: "Let ye play it middlin' good." Afterwards, Martin was suitably amazed when Lucy, who should not have been around at all, asked if the boys had, indeed, played "middlin' good". The Mummers were always male and Lucy had never travelled with them. At Baunyknave, where the Mummers fetched up, Martin Kirwan senior was most particular. At the time, all over Ireland, it was quite normal for a kitchen floor to be flagged and for one flagstone at the hearth to be special, laid on hollows and foundations which made it especially suitable for stepping. Lucy recalls that at Baunyknave this flag was actually outside the house and was crossed with great respect - "who knew what spirits good or evil were lurking underneath it?" This kind of belief seems to have been typical: the kitchen fire, for example, must never be allowed to go out or bad luck would ensue. The floor of the barn had to be most carefully prepared for the Mummers' Dance. It was sprung - that in itself was an expensive business and "a lot of strange things went under that floor" - blessed ashes kept from the previous Ash Wednesday, a rabbit's foot, some horsehair, and, in order that the priest could bless the barn, some holy water. The barn was lit by candles, four to each of two sconces. Seating for the musicians was on bags of wheat and oats arranged on boards which were themselves laid across grain bins, "the width of the barn." The ladies brought in home-made sweet-cake and the men paid for half a barrel of porter, drunk from enamel mugs, never precious heirloom glasses. Lucy and her sisters once arranged the legend, Cead Mile Failte, made up from laurel leaves gathered in the garden and attached to a white linen sheet - her mother's sacrifice. During the evening there were always full sets of five figures and after each set a Round Polka when you "changed partners after every few bars of music ... until you had danced with everyone in the set." Lucy will promptly demonstrate the Round Polka, and her cassette tape, Heart and Home, includes a tune played for that figure. farr03.jpg - 11.5 KThere were also barn-dances, two-steps and waltzes (mainly to song-tunes). Lucy recalls her aunt Margaret and a neighbour dancing The Varsovienne. Lucy's own job was to soak the flutes and she remembers getting into trouble because she used water from one of two pails set aside for her father's morning tea rather than the one used for general purposes. Her mother found parts of flutes left overnight. Lucy's actual schooling provided a supplement to these activities. She was taught tonic sol-fa by a Mrs O'Connell at the nearby school at Duniry (not Ballinakill; and the lessons were extra ones) and how to pitch notes and how to play the piano. Later, Jack Mulkere, from Kiltartan, cycled over to give lessons at the National School in Ballinakill and Lucy learned musical notation. Jack also helped her with the fiddle - Lucy remembers being fearful that the family could not afford the pound a term but Martin Kirwan was pleased to stump up. She stayed with Jack Mulkere for a time but, in the end, and with no suggestion of ingratitude, felt that her own sense of traditional music was taking her beyond what was on offer ... so the lessons stopped. The family owned a gramophone which the sisters would play far into the night with socks stuffed into the bell, but there was no traditional music available on record. It was the fiddle that had grabbed Lucy's attention and, amongst neighbours, Paddy Doorey was one of the first to encourage her. Neither he nor Jack Mulkere ever attempted to tell her how to hold the fiddle or the bow and, seeing that she was able to manage in her own way, were content to offer tunes, playing companionship and the necessary patience. In the end, Lucy got a fiddle of her own through the offices of a neighbour who, on a trip to Dublin, secured the instrument for a pound. The aunt's fiddle was hung up above the fire again. Lucy recalls dances at the nearby Leitrim school with affection. Here, Paddy Doorey played, along with Mike Downey (fiddle), Tamsie Quinane (fiddle), Neilus Larkin - 'Neily' - (fiddle), Son Donnelly (flute) (who also played "regularly at our house") and Kathleen Whelan. Thomas Conroy was the first accordion player Lucy heard. Joe Hogan played whistle and flute; his brother, Micky, sang. Jack Coughlan played flute, as did Sonny Comer who later married Lucy's first cousin. His family, Lucy says, was full of dancers and one of his tunes may be heard on Heart and Home. Melodeons featured at the dances as well. Apart from Kathleen Whelan, Lucy does not remember any other of the family coming down to Leitrim, nor yet the Moloneys. Nor, incidentally, did Aggie Whyte or her father, Tommy, who lived a little nearer to Woodford. It is, in some ways, curious that Lucy and Aggie have no real mutual background in music - they never played together on a regular basis in Ballinakill because each inhabited a slightly different social and musical circle. They never, therefore, cultivated the intimacies of one way of playing music. Subsequently, too, their paths crossed but briefly over the years. It is important to make this clear when considering style and repertoire in particular. The Ballinakill Players, for instance, were, it seems, brought together as a brainchild of Father Larkin and, as an entity, were never part of the day-to-day musical goings-on in the Ballinakill area. Similarly, as far as any putative 'placing' of this or that player is concerned, Lucy is adamant that, in her young days, there were no such 'critics'. You knew well if you did or did not play well, but were always received with the utmost politeness and encouragement. Music, as indicated above, was valued for its social cohesion. This was the pattern of music-making, then, which dominated Lucy's childhood and teens. It is given some poignancy when it is realised that she knew nothing of, say, Joe Cooley, Paddy Carthy, the Coens or the Brodericks, all of whom lived but a few miles distant. The pattern was broken on the death of Lucy's father in 1932 when the house at Baunyknave ceased to act as a musical venue (being succeeded by that of the McCormicks nearby). Lucy and one of her sisters went to Mayo to work in 1933 and thence to England, and there was a hiatus in her playing for some fifteen years. London: Lucy arrived in London in 1936 and began work as a nurse at the Park Hospital, Hither Green. For some three years she practised the fiddle in solitude, never playing in public except on odd occasions when she performed at a hospital 'do'. During a transfer in 1939, she left her fiddle and a few other belongings in the hospital only to return and find the fiddle gone. Work took priority . She met Eric Farr and married him in 1940 after which they started a family. Lucy still had her aunt's fiddle but, as she says, little of the enthusiasm kindled by the kinds of association that she enjoyed at home. She remembers standing in a corridor at the hospital staring out of the window conscious that the Ballinakill players were over (1938) for a recording session and knowing that her duties would prevent any contact. This seems to have been the last 'attachment' in Lucy's mind until the 1950s. It was only when her sister, Anne, arrived from North Wales in 1956 after the death of her husband, Tom Flanagan (from Leitrim, of the dances), that Lucy became involved in the music again. It is in fact, hard to grasp quite the full extent of Lucy's feelings during this extended interim period, deprived as she was of such an important facet of her life in both social and musical terms. Tom Flanagan, at any rate, had been connected with the engineering and building trades and several expatriate Irishmen had lodged with himself and Anne. Through these connections Anne had come to know that music was being played in the London area. There was, it should be remembered, a tremendous influx of Irish people into England in search of work during the 1940s and '50s. farr12.jpg - 7.8 KSure enough, Paddy Breen, flute player from Clare, and Martin Mullen, from Galway, who played the box, were found at the Duke of Gloucester, just off Walworth Road, and Lucy became a regular Saturday night visitor. Sometimes, Paddy's two daughters, much to Lucy's delight, would dance a step. She also recalls sitting in with Paddy and Martin and being so excited as to fly into the tunes, only to be restrained by a fierce dig in the ribs from Paddy who urged her to take things easy, difficult after such a long absence from the music. It was Paddy Breen who, on another occasion, and typically it seems, insisted that a whole group of them on their way to a session should take out their instruments on London Bridge station. A crowd accumulated and, needless to say, the train was missed. The ice had been broken and Lucy became acquainted with several pub venues over a period of time. The birth of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in the early 1950s also provided a stimulus. (Lucy, in common with numbers of Irish people, calls it 'Ce-ol-tas') A branch had been formed in West London with such luminaries as Paddy Taylor and Denis Doody involved, and it met first at The King's Head and then at The Greyhound. When another branch was formed in south London, meeting at The London and Brighton near to Lucy' s home in Ladywell, she found herself doing a seven-year committee stint with such as Johnny Hynes and Gerry Harrington. Activity was varied and a blow-by-blow account would be impossible, just as it would be of the pub scene. Lucy is, nevertheless, at pains to stress the impact Comhaltas made on her and speaks fondly of several members, notably the Judge family who were particularly generous towards her. At this remove, there was, perhaps, one surprising aspect: none of the formal teaching that is now taken for granted, until Tommy Maguire offered his services well into the '60s. For Lucy, the next highpoint was the visit, around 1960, of the Leitrim Ceilidh Band, when Anne introduced and re-introduced her to its members. It was, in the end, a mortifying experience when Lucy, playing alongside Ambrose Moloney whose house she had so often frequented, found herself unable to integrate into the music. At least, though, she made lifelong friends of Paddy Carthy and Tony Molloy, and the encounter gave a great spur to her practising, which, according to the family, drove them all out of sleep and into madness. Then Lucy acquired another fiddle. She and Eric went on holiday in Kent, hired a fiddle so as to be able to play at a social function, liked it and bought it for £7. Again it is important to note the relatively sporadic nature of these developments so as to understand the kinds of frustrations that Lucy (and, no doubt, others) endured over the years. Lucy, at this time, was never at the centre of any kind of mainstream movement, particular session or pub scene. Nonetheless as the family grew and, thanks to a helpful mother-in-law, Lucy was able to visit hotbeds of Irish music in London, although without a regular base of her own. In north London, pubs such as The Blackrap, The Laurel Tree and The Bedford Arms all hosted music. Lucy found her way to The Bedford where, during the years between 1955 and 1959, Michael Gorman and Margaret Barry were something of a focal point. Jimmy Power and The Rakes - who grouped formally in 1956 - were also prominent. farr04.jpg - 23.2 KThus, Lucy came to be introduced to a wider range of music. She recalls that Gorman, like Paddy Breen before him, was not above interfering in her playing, coolly adjusting the bridge on her fiddle in order to obtain greater volume. This was probably around 1959 - it was not for a year that Lucy became a regular at The Bedford. Out of the association of musicians at The Bedford came The Four Courts Ceilidh Band, with Jimmy Power and Paul Gross on fiddles, Michael Plunkett on flute, Tommy Maguire on accordion and Reg Hall on piano. Lucy eventually joined in 1963 along with Johnny Gorman (flute), later Benny O' Connor (drums) and other casual members. The band played at dance halls, parish and Comhaltas concerts, at Gaelic League ceilidhe, at The Singers Cub, on the radio, at church functions and at The Palladium. This kind of exposure was new to Lucy and she is still grateful for the years working in band contexts and the confidence that this brought her, though it must be said that the music did not, perhaps, represent her innermost feelings. During these years there was a revival of Gaelic League activity and Lucy won a duet competition with a distant cousin, Johnny Forde (on flute), and a singing competition where she sang, among other songs, The Bonny Labouring Boy. This was at a feis in Eltham which she cannot date - and that inability is itself indicative of the comparative lack of interest that Lucy had and has in competitions. Once more, we are brought back to that strong element of social value that is more important. At that Eltham feis, though, Lucy was urged to listen to a fiddler playing The Wheels of the World. The fiddler was Bobby Casey. farr05.jpg - 9.3 KLucy lilts the tune effortlessly. Bobby, she says, made a tremendous impression on her musical sense. She remembers asking Reg Hall about him, saying that she had heard that Bobby played at a venue called Casey's Altar - it transpired that this was the pub, The Case is Altered! Taking into account Bobby Casey's standing amongst musicians, Lucy's designation might not have been so far from the truth. Perhaps the most significant event of these years took place in 1965 when Lucy visited her sister, Agnes, in Loughrea. She had returned to Ireland on several occasions and had, of course, corresponded with the family. Around Ballinakill, however, she had found it difficult to integrate easily with newer musicians (though this was one of the few occasions when she was able to renew acquaintance with Aggie Whyte) . The very first night in Moylan's in Loughrea brought her into the company of Paddy Carthy, Tony Molloy and John Joe Forde. When, eventually, the company barrelled off to Agnes' house, minus John Joe, Paddy Fahy followed after. Lucy had her first tape recorder and the music from these sessions survives. She found herself immediately at home with the music and for 20 years returned to the same group of musicians and the same venues. When Lucy refers to 'the old days' (and she could choose from any decade between 1920 and 1980) it is most often this period of time that she is invoking. A great deal of her favourite music comes from this source. Overall, two main strands to her playing emerge. The first tends to represent the London conglomerate, the years spent playing in pub sessions, during Comhaltas activity and then with bands, and, as would be expected, is multifarious in character. The second strand is essentially Lucy's 'own', that music which appealed to her closest feelings, largely influenced by her initial musical upbringing and stimulated by contact with the players she found in Loughrea. It is not that the two elements necessarily fight but the London strand inevitably demonstrates the standard, the popular and the fashionable and something of a compromise in the way that the tunes were played. Given the opportunity to play on her own, despite protestations and some self-doubt, Lucy will almost always go for the tunes from the second strand. (This issue is further explored in section three.) Lucy continued to be involved in sessions throughout the 1960s and '70s at The Favourite - though not that often - at the Irish Centre and at O' Malley's pub in King's Cross. She met Julia and John Clifford in pubs near the Angel. Her formal connections with Comhaltas lapsed, though she does remember a third place in a fiddle duet competition and she did travel to English fleadhanna with her husband. She also continued to play with The Rakes. farr06.jpg - 17.9 KWhen her husband died in 1971, Lucy's sister Terry, now domiciled in the States with her husband Larry (originally from Abbey, next door to Ballinakill), invited her over and she went, with her daughter, Patsy, to New York. The following year she visited the first of three fleadhanna held in Listowel and it was there that she first encountered Peter Broderick, who had been one of her near unknown neighbours in Ballinakill. She was captivated by his relaxed way of playing and, once more, that strand of easy familiarity becomes apparent. It emerges yet again with Lucy's first meeting with the Keane sisters which, surprisingly perhaps, did not take place until 1978 at the National (English) Folk Festival at Loughborough. Lucy was entirely charmed by the sisters' generous nature and by the jaunty rhythms of their music. When asked up to play with them, there was a mixture of delight and panic in Lucy's mind, but Rita set her mind at rest when she opted for The Galway Rambler, a tune that Lucy knew well and one that has come to be associated with the Ballinakill Players. Later, Lucy visited the Keane family home at Tuam (Co Galway). Loughrea visits continued unabated and led to contact with a still widening circle of musicians. She was now enjoying the benefits of tapes and records - sifting the music in all these contexts according to her own predilections. In 1984 she paid another visit to the States, this time to her son, Kevin, who was working in Nebraska. Travelling back via New York, she arrived at a concert being given by Aggie Whyte, the last encounter, as it turned out, before Aggie Whyte died. Lucy moved out of London and down into Berkshire, near to her son, Brendan (always called Martin!) and has remained in this relatively musically bereft environment, enlivened by an occasional foray to a club, by correspondence between herself and friends and musical admirers, and a swapping of tapes. She celebrated her eightieth birthday with her family and a few friends in Thatcham. Her tape, Heart and Home, was brought out to coincide. Lucy Farr who sadly died on Tuesday, 7 January 2002 at the age of 91 years.
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