Ireland's Music: Thar Toinn/ Seaborne from Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

The sea, especially the sea in the west of Ireland, has always been part of Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s life. So has Gaelic. Music has, as well. It is natural, then then that she should bring these things together in her six song project Thar Toinn/Seaborne.

Nic Amhlaoibh plays flutes and whistles, and sings. Those are talents she often put to use in her thirteen years as lead singer with the top traditional band Danu, and in collaboration with other artists as well. She has traveled the world with her music. but it is to west Kerry, to the Dingle peninsula, that she returned to build her own career as a solo artist, and to raise her family.

For all that it is somewhat shorter than a full album, Nic Amhlaoibh makes the most of that concentrated form. There are stories told in Irish and in English, as well as one in Scottish Gaelic, with narratives drawn from truth, legend, and maybe a bit of both. The arrangements serve to enhance Nic Amhlaoibh’s choices in how she presents the lyrics. She has one of the best voices around, and that’s illuminated with a musical and poetic intelligence which makes her performances last well beyond first hearing. All that is present as part of what’s going on here.

One of Nic Amhloaibh’s gifts is saying much by saying little, in both story and style. That holds true whether she is telling a story of a faithless lover in Blackwaterside, venturing into Scottish Gaelic to sing a Cape Breton song of a woman whose sweetheart is lost on the sea, offering a west Kerry song wishing good luck and safe home to fisher folk, or telling a story of looking back at a well loved place in Ireland which may have been written by a man who survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Nic Amhlaoibh bookends these pieces with a song written by a friend who was both poet and boatman, and a song which may have come across the water from the singing of fairies.

The opener to Thar Toinn is Faoiseamh Faoistine, with words written by Danny Sheehy and music from Gerry O’Beirne. The song urges and encourages the listener to connect with land and sea. As Nic Amhlaoibh writes in her sleeve notes, Sheehy’s words also encourage listener to seek solace there.

Many years ago, a fisherman from the Blasket Islands heard the music of Port Na Bpucai one night while out on the sea. Perhaps it was wind, perhaps whale song, but then again, those fairies... it is after all a story fo a woman taken across the sea by fairies. It is also the song from which the title of the album comes.

For this arrangement of Port Na Bpucai Nic Amhlaoibh is joined by Billy Mag Fhlionn, who plays the Yaybahar, an acoustic instrument with which adds an otherworldly sound fitting for the song’s story. Mag Fhlionn built the Yaybahar himself after a concept by Gorkem Sen.

Others join in to support Nic Amhlaoibh through the album, too. Scottish singer Julie Fowlis adds her voice to the Cape Breton song,. Among others who sit in are Donal O’Connor, Gerry O’Beirne, Niamh Varian-Berry, and Donogh Hennessy.

It is, however, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s voice, vision, and connection with the waters which center Thar Toinn/Seaborne. It is a gathering of songs which invite repeated listening to explore the many facets of that vision and connection.

You may also wish to see
Seeing Ireland: 3 Music videos
Foxglove and Fuschia, another album from Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
About the album Buan from Danu
About the album Alterum from Julie Fowlis.

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Music and the Waters

It is a time of year when -- in the northern hemisphere anyway -- people head to the waters, when across the world people remember good times had along the shore, and plan to create more of them.


The world’s oceans, and its other bodies of water, sustain life for those who live nearby such places and for those who live at distance, as well. There are stories too, of sailors seeing the vast expanse of the sea as an open field, and of farmers and travelers seeing the prairies as the sea.



However you may see it, water and the world’s oceans, and the rhythms of the music they make are a vital part of life, and call to the imaginations of people both on the waters and in landlocked places. At this season when we are asked to care for the oceans, pause for a moment, and listen.

Music to go along with these ideas

Oceans & Journeys
rest in music
Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave
People And Songs Of The Sea



Photographs were made along the Irish Sea, on the east coast of Ireland, and are copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.


you may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.
World Oceans Day site

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Rest in music

Rests are part of the structure of any sort of music, aspects of space and time interwoven naturally within the conversation and dialogue that make up a piece, be it a lively tune, a folk song, or a concerto. These places take the conversation forward as much as do notes and words, melody and lyric. Rather like spaces which occur in conversation with friends -- places for the mind and heart to take in what’s going on, to make a point, to get ready for the next turn.


music where you can hear this, and to help you think about these ideas
Music road trip: Cape Breton
Three Fiddle CDs for Fall
Celtic Kenya musical connection


photograph was made on the eastern coast of Ireland, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

If you enjoy what you are reading here, check out my newsletter at Substack for more stories about music, the people who make it and the places which inspire it.

Another way to support: you could

Great American Music Trip: Massachusetts

The Great American Road Trip over at A Traveler's Library is in Massachusetts, particularly an area near the sea coast town of Gloucester. The music of the sea, and the lives of those who live by it, inspire music of all sorts. Two modern day musicians take a look at the seafaring past of Gloucester, both serious and funny, in the album Souls of the Sea.

From Gloucester to the Apalachee Bay, from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland to the China Sea to the Straits of Magellan to Galway Bay and back again, and all seashores and waters in between, there’s great music and inspiration for music in and on the water.

for more music of the waters in America, Ireland, and Scotland, you may also want to see
Music Road: Oceans & Journeys: Road Trip in Maryland

Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

and to learn about the Great American Road Trip and the musical ideas I'll be adding to the journey, you might want to see this: Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you’d like to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

creative practice: lighthouses

A company which makes windows wants to demonstrate its expertise by giving a landmark light house new windows.
You may vote for your favorite lighthouse, from a selection of ten. That's one of my top favorite lights to the left, but it's not on the list, which is fine, doesn't need the windows anyway.

Launching out in the deep, finding your way past rocks and currents that would wreck you and take you off track, finding a welcoming light -- all sorts of parallels to creative practice there. Also the fact that you may not actually recognize the light or know where it is exactly until you are close up on it.

Those who work the water have an uncertain life, as do artists. Music to go along with this idea could be this CD from the BBC series Voice of the People. You can hear the sea in these men's voices.


My Ship Shall Sail the Ocean





you may also want to see these posts
Music Road: now playing: Jennifer Cutting & the Ocean Orchestra

Music Road: now playing: Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Music Road: now playing: Souls of the Sea

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

creative practice: silence, again

The quiet spaces, the breaths and pauses and rests are as much a parts of the music, and as creative a part of the music, as are the notes you play or sing. The white space is as much a part of the image as are the colors and design. And time alone and time in community, time listening and time speaking are both part of an artist’s work and life. As is time for the bread to rise and the sun to set, and time and space to notice these things.

you may also want to see these posts

now playing: Emily Smith: Too Long Away

creative practice: the spaces between

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

now playing: Jennifer Cutting

Ocean

Voyages to love and away from it, into time and out of it, moved by the waters and on the waters, shown in words and melody, voice and the voices of instruments. It is indeed a voyage. Songs for the Night Sea Journey is the subtitle, so to speak, of Jennifer Cutting’s project Ocean, an endeavor which took the composer seven years and likely seven crossings of the seas to complete. Musically, she draws on elements of American folk, classical music, the music of Ireland, and even some sea green indefinable ground in between. There’s excitement in the journey starting out, and sensuality of the sea, turning to loss, and searching and time between, and reconciliations and recognition and return. Though it does not fit easily into any category except perhaps original music, there’s much here to please and intrigue those who like classical, new age, Celtic, and folk genres -- and the spaces between. It's also a recording which works well with the sometimes contemplaive nature of winter, though it's good for any season.

You may also wish see
Song of Solstice: Music for Changing Seasons, a story about another recording by Jennifer Cutting and the Ocean Orchestra here at Music Road
Music & the Power of Connection, a story at Wandering Educators which included music from The Ocean Orchestra's recent album Waves

now playing: The Brendan Voyage

The Brendan Voyage


This is now reading, actually. It's a book. more on this in a bit...
as promised. Explorer adventurer Tim Severin set out from the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, in a leather and wood curragh, with 4 other men (later three), to see if the stories told in the 9th cenutry manuscript telling of St. Bredan's voyage and long thought to suggest the Irish reached America before the Vikings and before Columbus, could be true. Long and short of it, yes. Severin's Voayge took place in the late 1970s; Brendan's if one believes that, in the fourth century. Each worth reading about for connection and confrontation between people and nature, and one's own nature. They made it to Newfoundland -- Severin and his companions, that is, and if one follows on the evidence, Brendan and his too.

Creative practice: curragh, storms

Several posts back, we started talking about the curragh, that Celitc v ersion of the hero's journey, where one sets out with only the smallest of boats to cross the sea. Any sea journey runs into storms, of all sorts, and their aftermaths. As does, when you think of it, any creative project.

Alison Brown has a tune inspired by legendary small boat sailor St. Brendan on her album Replay

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

creative practice: horizon

and speaking of curraghs and sailing out -- horizons change when one does this. this is a meeting of sea, land, and sky at a particular point on the Irish Sea. what do horizons have to do with creativity?

you might also want to look at the creative practice entries about risk, and about the curragh, below.

creative practice: curragh

There's a part of Irish myth in which a person sets out -- sometimes by choice, sometimes is forced to, depending on the story--in a curragh with only the night stars as guide and a knife for tool. A curragh is a small fabric framed boat. Having made the night (and day) sea journey to distant lands, the hero is then able to accomplish great things.


Composer Jennifer Cutting has some thoughts about sea journeys on Ocean