An article about the new Joe Lacky Gallacher CD ‘The Leitrim Cake’, written by Vincent Woods, appeared in The Irish Times’ ‘An Irishman’s Diary’, Monday, August 30, 2010.
LEITRIM CAKE. Now there’s a memory: soda bread in its many shapes, textures and tastes, flat scone bread baked on the pan, raisin cakes, treacle cakes, pratie cakes. My mother baked them all and more, my father sometimes “threw a cake in the oven” – and though his baking was a little more rough and ready then my mother’s we never turned our noses up at the crusty, floury outcome.
Some of the rich smells and tastes of those home-made breads came back to me recently while listening to a fine new CD of fiddle music from near Drumkeeran in Co Leitrim, a CD entitled The Leitrim Cake . The player, Joe Lacky Gallagher, died in 1979 at the age of 60 and up to now his music rested in the radio archives of RTÉ and the National Folklore Archive at UCD. Fortunately it’s now available to all on this recording – and what a treasure house of music it is. Joe was a master fiddler (Séamus Ennis, who made many recordings with him, used to say that any visit to Leitrim was worthwhile to hear him play): his style is swift and sure, studded with elegant and unexpected minor notes, blending the gaiety of a house dance with a small knot of internal melancholy. He drew on the local traditions of music but made the music new and fresh and composed many new tunes.
I never knew Joe Lacky, as he was known locally (the “Lacky”, in the old way of naming, coming from his father Malachy Gallagher), never heard him play live; but listening to this compilation of his recordings I feel I know something of the man and the heart of him, his legendary humour and sense of devilment, his passion for life and music.
Listening to tunes like The Musical Priest, Down the Meadow and The Cuckoo Hornpipe brings me back to teenage days listening to musicians like Packie Duignan and Tom Mulligan in Paddy Mac’s pub in Drumshanbo.
I think I knew, almost instinctively, that I was privileged to hear this music; and witnessing the playing of it I began to understand what it meant and represented. Something more than the workaday life of farm and coal mine, a hope, an aspiration, a small light from the past offered into the future. I saw that these makers of music shared something with me, the intent listener unable to play a note: they shared a belief in the possibility of, and need for, transcendence; not escape found in pint or whiskey but an elevation of life and living powered on the invisible air and offered to a small Sunday morning gathering and into infinite time.
Since the CD was released I’ve discovered that Joe Gallagher, who delivered coal from Arigna around north Leitrim and into Cavan, used to play music for my grandmother, B Guihen, in the small, thatched house in Cartronbeg where my mother’s family grew up. The house is gone, most of the people gone too, but there’s a huge potency and power in the image of a man with coal-blackened hands playing bright, sparkling music for a woman with coal-black hair and flashing eyes. Maybe he played The Collier’s Reel or The Gold Ring , maybe she danced a few steps on the flag floor . . . Part of a landscape of extraordinary music and spirit.
Joe was from Cloonamurgal, just outside Drumkeeran and started playing when he was about 15. He learned some of his music and style of playing from Jimmy Horan of Creevelea, father of the late Séamus Horan.
Dan Phildy McGowan was another teacher and he was also influenced by the playing of Dan Murphy of Lisacoghil, brother of Denis Murphy. He would also have known the music of the great Tarmon flute player, John McKenna. There’s a wonderful portrait of time and place in a small anecdote recounted by Joe’s wife, Beatrice: the early days of radio and a large crowd gathered outside the house of Master Séamus Duignan on the main street in Drumkeeran, Joe playing live on Radio Éireann. Beatrice is standing with Joe’s father who can’t hear so well: “A little louder boy” he calls out, and someone inside turns up the volume and Malachy Gallagher listens, proud and happy.
Why the name The Leitrim Cake? Well, there’s a story about Joe Gallagher and a group of musicians driving home in the early hours after playing at a dance. They’re hungry because they haven’t been fed, as they usually are, after a night’s work. They see a light in a house, stop, Joe knocks on the door, no answer. He opens the door, spies a freshly baked soda cake on the table of the otherwise Marie Celeste -like kitchen, takes the bread, leaves a half-crown in payment and the hungry musicians have a feed. Joe later writes a tune in honour of the memory – and by twists of life, imagination and invention this gives rise to the first album of his music.
The piper Néillidh Mulligan remembers that Joe Lacky Gallagher would always say “Let the Piper lead” at the start of any session of music where a piper was present. It was a daunting challenge or invitation for a lad of 15 or 16, but the use of the phrase speaks volumes for the openness and generosity of the man who said it.
Great credit is due to the local John McKenna Society which produced the CD, Harry Bradshaw who gave the music its crisp, clear sound in digital restoration and the Gallagher family for their support of the project.
Too much music has been lost down the generations; here’s a player whose gift shines out again as good as new. You’d stand in snow to listen to him.
Arictle by Vincent Woods in The Irish Times – Monday, August 30, 2010. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0830/1224277855040.html#Scene_1
