The traditional Irish band, Chulrua, will be in performance at North House Folk School March 20 as part of the Celtic weekend. Band members include, from left, Pat Egan, Patrick Ourceau and Paddy O’Brien.

Irish Music Comes to Grand Marais

It will be all-things Irish March 19-21 in Cook County when North House Folk School and the North Shore Music Association bring us the  “Traditional Music Weekend – Celtic Connections.”

The event will feature great classes ranging from how to bake Irish breads to Celtic carving, workshops on traditional Irish fiddling,  playing the tin whistle, and the soul and spirit of Irish music as well as a two-hour workshop on Ceili dancing, a concert with the highly regarded Irish band, Chalrua, and a book signing by the author of Irish mysteries.  

North House focuses on traditional northern craft, and Irish and Celtic traditions are a wonderful fit. What’s really exciting is the presence of Chulrua on campus, said Scott Pollock, program director at North House. The musicians will not only be in performance, but will also teach.

Nathan Baker, director of the North Shore Music Association, agrees. O’Brien’s skill with the two-button accordion and his extensive knowledge about Irish traditional music is very compelling, he said. And, participants will be able to learn all about Ceili dancing if they take the workshop with Twin Cities caller Michael Whalan.

Chulrua (pronounced cool-ROO-ah) which includes O’Brien, Patrick Orceau (fiddle) and Pat Egan (guitar) has received wide acclaim both here and in Ireland for the traditional Irish music it plays. The music is hundreds of years old, O’Brien said in an telephone interview recently.

“In the old days, we had harpers in Ireland,” he said. “These people were held in high regard. They were called bards and were poet/musicians. They wrote praise poetry honoring the king. The music originated from that.”

O’Brien said the performance on Saturday, March 20 at 7 p.m. will feature lots of different tunes, and the band will talk about their instruments and the history of the music.  He will also teach a workshop on Sunday entitled “Reaching for the Drafocht: Sharing Irish Traditional Music.”  Drafocht is a Gaelic term that means “reaching for the soul, or ‘the expression and the soul and the light in the music,’” he said.

Ourceau will teach a class on the Irish fiddle and he, too, will focus on the history of the tunes and how players can influence it as well as teaching the music. “Tunes evolve because players add their own touch,” he said in a telephone interview from Toronto, where he lives. “Somebody doesn’t play a tune the same  way throughout their lives. You’re growing as a musician and a human being as well.”

O’Brien grew up in Ireland where he started playing the accordion when he was 10. He has learned all his music by ear and says when he got a tape recorder his world changed. He is renowned in the Irish music world for collecting more than 3,000 traditional Irish compositions— jigs, reels, hornpipes, airs, and marches, including many rare and unusual tunes, and is currently working on a book about his life and music.

“I was raised with four sisters in a thatched house in Castlebarnagh in Co. Offaly,” he said. “I started learning the tunes as soon as we got a radio.” 

Both his mother and his father sang solo. “They each had their own songs, particular songs they liked. My father used to go to the bars at various times in the week. He’d sing in the bar, just at the counter. My father had a reputation for singing. He often said that he’d have no money to buy a pint, but then he’d sing a song. That was in the 1950s now.”

O’Brien met his wife, Erin Hart, during a month-long gig at McCafferty’s in St. Paul. 

“Somebody suggested we get Erin up to sing. She stood there with her hands in her pockets and sang these songs. I didn’t pay much attention to her, but gradually I got to know her and that was it. That’s the way things work out ... you never know what’s going to happen,” he said.

“Now she’s writing murder mysteries, he added, laughing. “You’re talking to a man who lives with a woman who’s always talking murder.”

Hart will release her latest in her Irish mystery series March 2, entitled “False Mermaid,” and will be at Drury Lane Books on Saturday for a book-signing.

Chulrua will perform Saturday night and then hold workshops on Sunday afternoon completing a great weekend of Celtic traditions. For more information about the workshops at North House and the band, visit www.northhouse.org.