Tape 142

Mikeen McCarthy 31.7.83

Contents

Parents as singers

Singers bringing in new songs

Famous singers among Travellers

Man trying to learn “Flowery Nolan”, daughter learned it instead gets nickname Flowery Nolan

Learning the songs at the fire

Sisters as singers, musicians, dancers

Forgetting music

“Younger singers can’t sing, shorten songs”.

Traveller singers, "The Blackbird”, Batty Coffey, Nonie Flyway (Batty's sister)

Recitations (Batty Coffey)

Mikeen's father as singer

Names of various Travellers songs

McGluskey's Pub in Kilorglin (?), great singing pub

Comparison of “Fireside” songs and "ballads"

Singing for singers

Gammon

Here's All The Nackers   (part verse of song in Gammon)

"Bridget The Poet"

Making up songs

Stories

Collecting to pay first person up who lit fire and made tea in the morning

Description of different way of singing

Singing to sell the ballads, ballad selling

Mikeen won singing championship in Tralee.

J C First Mikey, can you tell us how you first became interested in songs?

M Mc  Well ‘tis my father and mother like, before us, and when you’d hear them singing like, you try and copy the mother and father.  Without going to a pub or anything ‘twas kind of their tradition; they’d all get around the fire; ‘twas the only company, because there was no wirelesses or no televisions that time, and they had their own songs that they brought from their fathers and mothers before them, and they’d sing them.  There was no education that time; it’s only what they learned from their head like.  Then the children sitting around the fire ‘d be listening on there, because if you shouted or do anything out of the way you’d have to go to bed; so we’d keep quiet hiding behind their back. And we could sing the song the following day then, and they might spend months trying to learn it.  So they’re always…… when we’d be in Kerry now like, we’ll say, well just suppose Kerry, for a while, it could be any part of Ireland, and they’d always love to see the stranger come along to pull in camping on the one ground, because when he’d have all his wagon pulled in, his horse looked after and his water, and his firewood got and all that crack; there was no gas that time I promise you.  Then they’d wait till he come around then and come up to the fire and, “Anything strange?”  And the songs ‘d start then, and they’d want to find the strange songs that come from his country.  So that’s how you….. in Kerry you’d hear the North of Ireland song, or the County Wexford, or the County Waterford song, no matter what county, because they’d all travel up that country.  Our people then ’d travel down their countries and they’d carry on their songs down there because they knew nothing about….. they did know about the ballads like, but then songs was never in ballads.  So that’s how we learned them.  Then it came a kind of a street singing job then, that we used to go on to the streets singing.  But there was….. it’s like the famous movie stars now like; well there was famous Travelling Men singers among us people too.  If there was a real good Travelling Man singing a song like, we’ll say, he’ll com into, he could be in as far as the North of Ireland; well, you’d hear tell about him in Kerry, you’d tell about him in Cork, and then the name….. as he move along with his horse and wagons like, his name is kind of followed; so and so saw him coming now and he’s a great singer; he’ve great songs; seems all the Travelling People want him to pull in with them, and then they’d learn the air of it as well.  But hat song there that I sang now, er….. what’s the name of that long song I sang there, “He lived upon the Stokestown Road”.

J C       Flowery Nolan.

M Mc  Yeah; Flowery Nolan; well, there was a man, he came up from some country, and a Travelling Man, and I sang that one night, and ‘twas a long song like, and undereducated of course, he couldn’t write it out.  He sold two piebald horses as far as I hear, he drank them all in the pub with him, and he was trying to learn the song bit by bit, you know, and bejay, all his money went and te man left and he still hadn’t one verse of it, and the children was all singing it around the road; (Laughter) they all had it learned and he couldn’t.  His daughter had it off well; they christened her that name, Flowery Nolan after, and his daughter, every night he come back from the pub he’d say “Flowery Nolan”, and so the name stuck for Flowery Nolan.  He could never learn how to sing it.  (Laughter)   As I say, there was no wirelesses or no televisions that time and the settled down community, we’ll call them Gorgies, farmers and all that, they knew where the singers was, and they knew the Travelling People; they’d come around the fires as I said before and they’d ask them to sing a song; bejay, it’d often be three o’clock in the morning, and there was fine singers among the Gorgies as well, the settled down community, fine singers and fine songs. And ‘twas all right for the Gorgie man, the settled down people as we called them, they were able to read and write; the could learn them easily enough, but for the Travelling People, it was great for them to sing a song, because they learnt it like, just word after word; lot of patience, lot of interest.

J C       Did you learn many songs from Gorgies Mikey, yourself?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Do you remember what songs you learned?

M Mc  Well that song now, The Wild Colonian Boy; mostly songs I learned off them now, mostly them I forgot.  The ones that I always stuck to and that I always sing, they’re the ones I leaned at the fire, listening to the old Travelling People because you’d hear the Gorgie singing, we’ll say, for a half an hour, or an hour, whatever it’d go, and you might never again see him; but you were listening to the

Travelling People every night, d’you see, whether they were drunk or sober, and ‘tis when they have the few pints in them, ‘tis then you get their proper songs, the proper storytellers and all that, you know.

J C       Who, in your family, were the best singers; I know you sing, but who else?

M Mc  They lost interest; all my sisters, they were good musicians as well, and good singers, every one of them, and good step-dancers.  But they lost interest.  For me now, what I can play, the mouth organ we’ll say; I used to play the tin whistle; forgot that, I used to play a single key melodeon like, I forgot all that, ‘cause ‘twas years d’you see.  All the sisters is the same way.  We used to play the Jew’s harp; we don’t see one of those now.  My father could play anything at all; anything; bagpipes, tin whistle, mouth organ, treble base piano accordion, anything.

J C       Play the pipes?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       The Irish pipes d’you know?

M Mc  Yeah`, yeah.  He used play anything.  We were all good at everything like; all the sisters; four sisters and myself.  But when we got married and started emigrating to like, England and all that, we forgot it because it died down.  And there’s hundreds more like me.   ‘Tis lately again I took it up singing in the pubs, and all that craic, d’you know for the craic, for the boys.  You’d want to get a song sung properly like, and get the right words in; well, you’ve got to go to the old Travelling Man for it, or the old Travelling woman.  For the younger race now, they go singing; well they might have three verses out of five; they might put the third verse where the second one should be, the second one where the third should be, you see.   Well, the old people now like, if they were in a pub and they listening to those young people singing them, singing…… they have nice voices and all that, but they might sing a song with five verses where they should be ten.  The old people wouldn’t listen, d’you know, because ‘twould prod them into, “Now why didn’t I sing that song”, let’s say, “on Sunday night; I’ll sing it right”, and all that, you know.  Funny enough now, I with the boys all day, although I’m sober and they’re drunk, and they’re singing all my songs. (Laughter)  I was sat there chewing my nails some of the time, saying nothing; oh I say, “Very good, very good”.  (Laughter)

J C       Who, apart from your family, who else….. can you name any of the singers?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh jay, yeah.  The Blackbird now, she was a woman like; jakers; she couldn’t sing inside in a pub ‘cause her voice was too loud like.  They tell her, “Cool down” like, because jay, you’d hear her on through the streets like, she was so loud.  Jakers man, there you’re talking of a voice.  But you had Batty Coffey then, he was a great step-dancer; well all the Gorgies knew them like.  If they went into a pub now like, ‘twouldn’t cost them any money, you know; they was the favourite of the pubs like.  Such as Batty walk in now, well, step-dancing now like, he was a one-man-band we used call him, he used have the melodeon and he’d a mouth organ soldered on to the top of it; and they have it new now, haven’t they?  Well he’d it on to the top of the melodeon and he’d a piece soldered onto his mouth organ, he used to play on his mouth organ and his melodeon and sing at the one time and step-dance.  (Laughter)  But that was the first time I ever see that, him, Batty Coffey, and he’d the mouth organ laid on to the top of the melodeon.  Then you’d his sister, Nonie May, Nonie Flyway we call her, Nonie Coffey.  Well she was a marvellous step-dancer, marvellous singer, marvellous storyteller.  Batty was the same. Batty used come out with those, what do they call them, like a story, them recitations.  ‘Twasn’t alone about the recitation; there was all movements to the recitations with his hands and his legs and the way he did his cap and the way he’d walk over to a person like, d’you know.  You’d listen to that for half an hour like until he get too drunk; he’d start falling then.  But they were marvellous; my father was a great singer, pub singer like.  I used to remember when I a young lad that when my father’d be in a pub, then all the people’d be outside the door; they used listen to him sing on the inside.  He used to draw attractions on to the pubs like.  As big as Puck fair was now, and there used to be hundreds and thousands of people there, but you’d easy know where my father’d be, ‘cause outside the door ‘d be full as well.

J C       Of the singers you’ve mentioned; you’ve mentioned The Blackbird; do you remember what songs she sang Mikey; did she have one song….. favourite, or do you remember any of them?

M Mc  No; she’d an awful lot of songs; My Charming Young Bessie To Mow Down The Hay, that one; well, Big Paddy O’Brien used to sing that as well, that was her first cousin.  Ah, she had ‘Twas Deep In False Waters In The Lakes of Col Finn.  They all had their own songs, and if I knew the song I couldn’t sing it because that’d be The Blackbird’s song.

J C       They were strict about that were they?

M Mc  They were yeah; well you wouldn’t like to do it; they weren’t, but you wouldn’t like to sing their songs like.   Then you’d One-Eared Shay then; there used to be crowds of them together and he’d The Bridle Hanging on The Wall, well, he’d other songs then as well as that again like.  And Nedeen Kelleher, you’d him and all the songs about Tralee and the prison that was in Tralee again; ‘twasn’t Ballymullen…… He’d all those old songs from Tralee; and Take Me Home To North Kerry, he used to sing that.  There used be a group of them; they used be dealing in hens and fowl that time and there was a pub, McCluskey’s we use call it, and when they’d sell all their hens and……. (interruption)

J C       Go on Mikey.

M Mc  Mcluskey’s, and when they’re selling all their fowl and their eggs and their rabbits, and they used deal in all that that time like, that was their way of living; well they’d all be in the pub, maybe eight, maybe ten of them, and ‘twas a grand thing to look at them like, because they’d be there when the pub ‘d open, maybe half past five; they’d drink away then that night, because they were terrible big men, they all stand around at the counter.  And jay a crowd of us young fellers, we usedn’t even go to the pictures because we used be watching out, peeping at them.  And they’d all; if they wouldn’t be fighting; they were famous fighting men as well, but they wouldn’t fight agin one another like; they knew which one was best.  And then they’d all sing their own songs then one after the other, d’you know.  And then they’d all their horses outside the door and then a challenge race home then; they’d be all racing home then, the only one they’d meet that hour of the night was another horse coming agin them.

J C       Batty Coffey; do you remember any of his songs at all Mikey?  

M Mc  I have songs that le learned; My name is Patrick Sheehan, my age is thirty four; he learned me that one, and One finer summers morning we being walking along, ‘tis off Nonie may I learned the one.  She never knew she learned it to me like.  (Laughter)  They’d so many songs like, but we hadn’t the sense that time of counting; they could keep singing song after song, song after song, no stop.

J C       Was there any difference in the song that were sung in the pub and round the fire at night and the songs that were sold on the ballads.

M Mc  There was an awful lot of difference.  When you’d hear them at the fire or hear them in the pub you got the real thing like; it’s the timing of the music and the way they’d finish their song, the way they‘d finish the verse and the end, when they’d be finishing the song then, a kind of a bellow ‘d go on the end of it then, d’you know.   Sure, they knew how to time their songs then.  Seems that whoever they learned it off of, seems it was the same way they sang it as well.  ‘Twas the timing of it like and….  You’d see an old man and he used have a stick; I forget the songs he used to sing now; and at the end of every verse he’d hit the floor of the pub with the clout of a stick, that was the end of a verse and that’d mean everyone keep quiet again, and he’d go on again, d’you see, and he’d twenty one verses.  (Laughter)  You’d see fellers, they’d be yawning inside in the corner.  (Laughter)  And you couldn’t say a word because he’d a big black thorn stick and he’d hit you a crack of it.  (Laughter) 

J C       Would they get good order for the songs in the old days?

M Mc  The singers used follow the singers I think Jimmy you know, ‘cause wherever they hear tell of the good singer, well the other good singers ‘d go there like, ‘twas a kind of a competition, d’you know, and everybody knew that such and such  feller’s singing and such or such a crowd is up there tonight like, in such a pub.  And whoever ‘d be a good singer, he’d go there as well, you see, so ‘tis kind of easy that all the good singers, they’d be kind of all together; well, everybody ‘d be there like but you can bet your life, wherever the crowd ‘d be, the good singers ‘d be there.  They’d all pull tables around and old chairs then like.  They were well appreciated that time like, even with the publicans now, with the people of the towns, ‘cause they knew that there was interest there like and there was part of history as well, there in their songs, although they never knew it theirself, you know.  Seems then they’d be talking our own Gammon like, what I talk about, the Gammon, and sure, the Gorgies in the wind up could talk the Gammon back to you as well as we could talk it to them. Even to the police; they knew more about the gammon than we did, they knew as much anyway.

(Aside)

Scotch people now look.

J C       Travellers?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       Where there ever any songs in Gammon Mikey?

M Mc  There was, there was; I only know a couple of bits; I think I saw it for you, did I? 

J C       What’s that?

M Mc  (Recited)                     Here’s all the Nackers torgin down the tober,

         Some of them are gatty and more of them are sober.

J C       Would you put down just what you have of that Mikey?

M Mc  (Sung)                         Oh here’s all the Nackers torgin down the Tober,

That’s “Here’s all the Travellers coming down the road.

            (Sung)                         Oh, some of them is gatty and more of them is sober.

That means, “Some of them is drunk and more of them is sober.

                                                We had Bryans, Ryans, and the Quilligans and the Coffeys.

That’s three famous famous names of Travelling People.  I’ll think of the rest of it some other time.

J C       How much of that was there?

M Mc  Oh jay, that was a long one; d’you know, it must be back around there yet like, with some of them, although they’re all dead and gone now like; oh, ‘tis around somewhere.  

J C       They used to make up songs about each other as well, didn’t they?

M Mc  Yeah; there was an old poet, she was among us, she couldn’t read nor write; she was old Brigie The Poet we used call her, and she made up a lot of songs, but the same, like, the Travellers, never interested that time, you know, didn’t bother.  “Oh here, she’s coming, The Poet; she’ll be making up songs all night; they all, they wouldn’t be bothered with her like.

J C       Just made them up on the spot?

M Mc  Just made them up on the spot, yeah.  Yeah, they sings her songs back there now, I believe , for her sons and grandsons and all that, yeah; old Bridgie the Poet, she was a first cousin of my mother.  Oh, she was an annoying old woman; you couldn’t say a word but she’d make up something about it.  (Laughter0

J C       You can’t remember any of her songs at all?

M Mc  No.

J C       There was one I think Mary sang us one night about….. would that be about Martin Carthy?

M Mc  Oh yeah, that’s old Chancer, yeah.

J C       Chancer.  Do you remember that at all yourself?

M Mc  Ah; I’d want to get time, I’d know a verse or two of it.  You’d nearly want the start of it Jimmy, you see, a bit of time.  Oh, there was a lot of songs made out of all of them.

J C       How about storytellers Mikey; who were the storytellers that you can remember?

M Mc  They were all great storytellers.  But everybody praises their own like; I think my father was one of the best.  That old Bridgie The Poet now, she was very good altogether.  What the young people want today is short story and get it out of you; but they could carry on a story all night long, verse after verse.  Whether they were making it up inside in their own head or not we never knew.  You had the ghost stories and come late then, that’s how they get you to bed.  (Laughter)  Ah yeah, and whoever would be up first in the morning then; they’d all put in a penny each, a penny was a lot of money that time; halfpenny and a penny into a little stocking, there might be ten, fifteen, twenty lots in the road, tents and horse drawn wagons that time.  And then, when they’d all be going to bed and all the young fellers ‘d be around the place, every one of them ‘d put in a halfpenny and a penny that time, and they put it into a little stocking.  And they stick the kettle bar, what they call a kettle bar, that’s for boiling the kettles and the pots, that’s what you hang it over the fire with.  And they say, “There now”, and whoever have the kettle boiled in the morning and the fire lighting and the kettle boiled, that’s there reward.  Jay, we’d be all up; we’d be up all night, some of us.  (Laughter)  There might be sixpence or eightpence or a shilling, whatever it was.  Some of us ‘d cheat; we used get up in the middle of the night and light the fire and boil the kettle, go back into bed again.  (Laughter)

J C       When you talk about good storytellers, do you remember what the long stories were about Mikey?

M Mc  Ah, there was stories about Brian Boru now and Fionn McCoon, and then you’d…… there was names on them; The Big Black Man and you’d The Witch; they’d names for them but we were never interested that time in names like.  But mostly ghost stories and come late like, and jay, they’d make your blood creep man; that’s the way they used to tell it, d’you know.  But then you’d the Jack-of the-Lantern stories and you’d Kitty-The-Hare stories.  I’m sure them old fellers; you’d see them old books now today like, them Irelands Owns, I’m sure there’s an awful lot of Travellers stories in them; jay, I reads them now and again, you know, back through the years, ‘cause I heard them all before, every one of them.  My father often told me that Kitty-The-Hare now, that there seven stories of her, seven, and he knew the whole seven.  So she must have them before him so. (Laughter)

J C       What would you…… do you remember the longest story you ever heard Mikey?

M Mc  I’d say ‘twould be that one, Jack-of the-Lantern I’d say; I’d say that’d be one of the longest ‘cause when I tells that now like, then I thinks of another half tomorrow sure, I winds thinking after to myself, sure , that’s the one story; it goes on and on, d’you see, went on and one and on and on.

J C       Were there even any stories about Jack or Prince John or Prince Sean; did you ever hear them at all?

M Mc  No, not that I know of like.  Well, there was an awful lot of songs about England, Lancashire, old songs like, wherever they came from I don’t know,  My father now; well he used to sing and awful lot of Welsh songs, you know, Don’t Go Down The Mine Daddy, Dreams Very Oftime Come True, all that, you know; he’d an awful lot of them old songs.  And that Devil’s Island now, there’s a song about that sure.  They used to sing them songs, Devil’s Island.  They had the world of English songs but we never paid no heed on them, we just sang them away and never stood to say……. Talk about Lancashire now; we thought Lancashire might be out in County Cork, ‘cause we were in Kerry, we never knew it was in England like, you know.

J C       The songs that you learned, or the people that….. were they learned mainly from other members of the family or did they come from outside the family as well?

M Mc  Ah, they must have came outside the families because there were songs that Travelling People couldn’t make up like, that they had to be made up from the other side somewhere.  Such as, we’ll say, their fathers or their mothers or maybe mates of theirs and all that crack, you know.  But wherever they got them from, they had them good anyway, the old ones, and they had them right like, they had the right air and all.  They’d much the same air now as down in that Blackpool country now, you’d hear the old singers singing from there like.  They had a different air, d’you know, to the settled down Gorgie in Ireland, they’re a different air altogether. See, the Gorgie man singing a song now, it was straight out like, but you’d hear the Travelling Man or the Travelling Woman singing and there was a kind of bellow in the voice all the time like.

J C       How do you men by a bellow?

M Mc  (Demonstration) like, d’you know, the way it goes down like that like.  When they’re coming off the end of a verse now (Demonstration) see; well you don’t hear that with the Gorgies you see.  The Gorgies just sing away straight like.

J C       Was there….. how to put it….. was there a way of judging how good a singer was, you know; if you say your father was a good singer, how do you mean by that?

M Mc  Well they all had their own ways of singing, d’you know.  You’d see one feller, his hand ‘d be under his jaw, you’d meet another feller then, he couldn’t sing without his legs being crossed like this.  Well you’d see another feller then, he’d have to sit down on the floor of the pub; couldn’t sit in a chair, you see.  And you’d see another feller, his eyes closed, another feller, his cap ‘d be down like this covering his eyes altogether, another feller, he’d have to put his hat back at the side; all different ways, they were like gunslingers (Laughter)  Yeah, even the way they’d sit.  They’d sit their position and you’d see them singing again we’ll say, a month after, six months after; well they’d sing in the same position; they’d sit over to one side or, te same thing, you’d the cap sideways.

J C       How about the voice, how about the way they sang; would it be high or low or what?

M Mc  It depended on the air that was with the voice, because they had their own note to pick on you see; because I often see them try out first and they go to high and they start again.

J C       Would there be many Travellers who learned from ballads d’you know?

M Mc  No, no, not that I know of.  No, ‘cause there was none of them able to read nor write.

J C       Well how many of them were involved in selling ballads do you remember Mikey?

M Mc  Ah, there was quite a lot; there was.  You see, selling ballads like was a different thing ‘cause you’d want to be able to sing the song and you’d want to be able to give the people the air; well, there was a lot of people not able to sing then; they wouldn’t be able to sell any ballads, d’you see.  If you went into a pub like, they’d say, “What’s the air of this”, d’you see.  Well that’s how mostly my father wrote in songs because my mother knew them, she wasn’t able to read nor write, and he wrote the songs that she knew that him and her used to sing together.  So then when she’d go to a pub then selling the ballads she could sing it without reading it because she couldn’t read.  And that’s where I had the advantage; I got a little bit of education and then I used to read them and then I used to sing them and I’d make twenty times, thirty times the price of one ballad ‘cause when I’d sing it then like, everybody’d buy one inside you know.  When I’d be selling a ballad for tuppence, well you’d be seeing a man handing me threepence or fourpence or maybe sixpence like.  And then I’d sing that inside in the pub anyway, might sing it two times, maybe three times; jay, I keep singing it all day (Laughter)  I used to get on well; ‘twas the best living I ever got.  But when I was getting old there I was getting ashamed of the girls.  (Laughter)

J C       Was it classed as a low trade Mikey, by Gorgies?

M Mc  Oh no, no.  Oh, it depends like.  ‘Twould be a low trade I suppose; but I’m not saying I was a good singer or anything, but I knew what to sing and I knew how to sing it.  ‘Tisn’t for selling the ballads alone that I used go into the pubs.  When you were young like, you’d sing nice songs but there might be a group then inside and they’d ask me in to sing and sit down, have a lemonade   I’d sing away and they’d pay me for their night then; they’d all give me maybe two bob each or a half a crown that time, that’d be a lot of money that time; maybe a shilling each, d’you know.   I was in Listowel one day and I was singing in Listowel Races and there was a group inside; they called me in.  I sang that song, I Wish All My Children Were Babies Again, and there was a Yank there. 

And he said, “Every time you sing it”, he said, “I’ll give you a pound note.

“Oh”, my mate said, “I hope it lasts for twenty years.

Well he kept writing it out there, and his girlfriend was writing out the other verse, and I would sing again; more lemonade, more biscuits, and I would sing it again.  And I’d say when I came out the pub I had eleven pound in my pocket, in my top pocket.  Every time I sang it he gave me a pound.

J C       Could your Peggy or Katie sing at all?

M Mc  Oh, they were all great singers, Kateen was a great singer; she used to sing that Father Murphy now; When England Called to His Warlike Friends, she used sing that eon; she was a very good singer.  But when I was sixteen I sang the championship of Tralee; I won it in Kerry.  Yeah, I won it, I won it Castlegregory first, then I won it in Dingle, then they brought me to Kilorglin and I won it there.  Miltown there was a come back; I won it there.  I wound up winning it, the lot then in Tralee.  I was sixteen that time.

J C       What did you sing?

M Mc  When England Called to His Warlike Friends, I sang that one, and The Wild Colonian Boy, I sang that one.  I sang a lot of songs, all different songs.  What’s that one I won it in Tralee with now, The Spinning Wheel, but I don’t even know a verse of it now.  (Laughter)  Yeah, The Spinning Wheel I won it in Tralee.  Well, ‘twas the Gorgies brought me around like; just come and picked me up in a car; we used only have a tent that time.  And there was three or four of them together used come and pick me up in a car and they brought me all through all the championships right around.  Only sixteen.

J C       Who was it organised these; d’you know, the championships? 

M Mc  Oh jakers, I don’t know.  They’d a few things on, the same group, whoever they were. They’d smoking the longest cigarettes in the shortest while and all that, d’you know.  There was step-dancing; there was a lot of things.  Tin whistle playing, all that crack.  Oh jay, I’m going back; I’m fifty two now; when I was sixteen.  That’s a good while ago.  I won it with The Spinning Wheel.  What’s that I got at all; twenty pound I think, hundred cigarettes, some other bits of things; I forget now what I got.  Sure, I had to halve the twenty pound with the crowd that used bring me everywhere.  (Laughter)  They had a good night’s drinking anyway.

J C       Just before we finish Mikey, there’s just one more thing.  You were talking before about singers following singers in the pub, you know, if there’s a good singer there there’d be other singers come on; did you ever hear of two old singers trying to outdo each other?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh yeah.

J C       Do you remember that happening?

M Mc  Oh yeah, several times.  They’d sing all night and they wouldn’t take a drink and nobody could give one….. nobody could say he’s better than he is because they’d be all cousins, d’you know.  They’d say, we’ll leave it between you; one is as good as the other.  But they’d know which one ‘d be best like.  (Laughter)

J C       Where you ever there when that happened?

M Mc  Oh, I was, yeah, several times, yeah.

J C       Can you remember two singers in particular it happened among?

M Mc  Yeah; well Batty Coffey is one, and there was an old man, ah, he’s dead now, he’s dead with years; old Black Paddy was his name, Black Paddy Coffey was his name again, and he was a very older man than Batty was.   And bejay, they winked at Batty, d’you know. 

“Ah”, he said, “he’s best”. 

The old man said “Batty’s best”, he said; he knew he was like; ‘cause the old man was about seventy.

“And sure”, says he, “only for me you’d know nothing boy; sure, I leaned you everything”, says he.  He got his own back.  “I learned you everything”, he said, “you’d know nothing only for me”.

J C       How would something like that start then on a night?

M Mc  ‘Twould be… ‘twould start from itself; wasn’t that funny?  D’you know a feller’d sing a good song now; well you’d hear the other feller say…… they’d be doing that like, and once they’d do that like, that’d be good, you know.

J C       The winking.

M Mc  If they done that at all, that was bad, you see.

J C       If they nodded it was bad.

M Mc  They’d do that; well that was no good.  But if they heard him singing, he’d do that like; that was good.  Well then, another feller’d start above then and they’d draw the good out of one another.  But I never see the winner yet.  (Laughter)

J C       And what would it be, would it be good songs or good singing or long songs or what?

M Mc  A good song and sung well, that was it.  ‘Twasn’t the song, it’s the way he used to sing it, and the way he’d time it; that was it.  You, you used to see them, as I say, they have funny old….. they might have a fork or a knife in their hand, and the end of the verse then, they tipping like, you know, they’d be kind of  music as well.  (Laughter).

P Mc   You were talking about stories Mikeen; did they mostly come from your father as well; the stories that you have like Jack-o-Lantern?

M Mc  Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah; they were all my father’s. Ah no; other old people, other old people.  But when you were young like, you’d pick up a thing very quick, and then you’d hear an old man….. ‘Tis mostly the strange stories that you’ll learn because you’d hear them all before off my father now, we’ll say and off of our own people.  ‘Tis the stranger come down and he’d tell a story wouldn’t be as good at all as my father’s, but you’d try and learn that one, you know, because it was a strange one like.  Oh it was strange stories and strangers mostly, such as them ones now about the woman had the child….. I think it was a Galway man I leaned that one off of; I heard him telling it.

J C       That’s the County Home one?

M Mc  Yeah.

J C       You mean it wasn’t you and Nonie then?

M Mc  (Laughter)  Nonie used to have the same point, I was telling it one time and she used be looking at me.  (Laughter)  She’ll tell the end of it.  (Laughter)

J C       Were the stories the same as the songs in the way that you don’t tell another man’s story?

M Mc  Yeah, “Come on”, they say, “give us so and so, you, John or Mick”, or whoever it’d be; that’d be his story.

M Mc  Ah’ you’d never tell their story or sing their songs.  If they were in a different place, different area yeah; they’d sing his song or tell his story, but if he’s present at the fire now, or in the pub, they wouldn’t.  Because most of them only had one song.

M Mc  Most of them only had one song?

M Mc  Yeah, some of them like, and they only had one story, and you’d never know whether they had another song to sing or not; if we sing that he mightn’t have another one to sing.  But for the man with the one son, that was properly sung; he might have dozens of songs but he’d always sing that one ‘cause he’d be really good at that like, he’d know it.  And the story was the same way.

J C       Did you ever hear tell of it getting bitter Mikey, between two singers at all?

M Mc  Oh, I did, yeah.  If a feller sang a song and another feller might know it right he’d say, “You’re wrong there”, he’d say; oh, there’d be coats off very quick; “You’re wrong”, he’d say, you’re mixing it all up man, you’ve the fifth verse where the third one should be; you’re all wrong man, you shouldn’t sing that song at all”, d’you know.  Oh jay, there’d be coats off over it in the pub man; often caused trouble.  Oh, they didn’t like to spoil their songs.  (Laughter)

“Jay man, you’re wrong”, they’d say; rear up job.

P Mc   Did the people interrupt during a song or during a story?

M Mc  No, no, no, jay no.

P Mc   Never during a story, even if they thought it was wrong?

M Mc  No, you wouldn’t hear a match cracking, except now then one feller pick him up, he’d say, “No, that’s such and such a man’s song, you’re wrong there.  The story was same way; they would, they’d be contradicted very quick.  So that’s so you had to do it the right way or nothing at all.  (Laughter)

J C       Sounds like a dangerous business.

M Mc  ‘Twouldn’t do if I was around at that time; I’d be killed today.  (Laughter)