Our Dear Dark Mountain - Trad

The Great Flood, the partition of Ireland, St Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Waretown, New Jersey and a long-lost collection of traditional tunes all make their way into Dr Seán McElwain’s wonderful new book, Our Dear Dark Mountain With The Sky Over it: The James Whiteside Collection.

Dr McElwain, Seán to his friends, will be well-known to trad fans as a member of Téada but maybe less well known as head of programme development/lecturer in traditional Irish music at the Irish Institute of Music and Song in Co Dublin.

In 2016, Seán achieved the TG4 Gradam Ceoil award for his Our Dear Dark Mountain With The Sky Over It project, which focused on the musical heritage of the Sliabh Beagh region of north Monaghan/east Fermanagh.

Sliabh Beagh might not have the cache of a Sliabh Luachra, south Donegal or Sligo but if you dig a little into the culture of the area, you will find a wealth of traditional music that has been dormant for decades and more.

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And that is what Seán has done in both the Our Dear Dark Mountain CD which came out in 2014 and the newly published book.

How Sliabh Beagh got its name was intriguing to me as an Irish speaker - it is a toss-up between being named after one of the sons of Ceasair who came to Ireland with18 girls and three men, one of whom, Bith, is buried on the carn which bears his name; or the more prosaic explanation that is comes from Sliabh Beatha - the mountain abounding in birch trees. I know which one I’m going for.

But just as fascinating was the effect of the introduction of the border in the early 1920s and its effect on the musical life of the Sliabh Beagh area, a political border through an organic culturally creative space.

As Seán writes in the book, the border “...contributed to the gradual modification of the region’s musical identity and a diminished understanding of its shared musical heritage.”

Although the Boundary Commission recommended that part of Fermanagh should be included in the new Irish Free State, “giving come recognition of the close social, economic and cultural ties” in the region, it was never implemented.

The seeds of Our Dear Dark Mountain were sown when Seán McElwain met a friend of his father and uncle, the Rev Austin Murray, whose own father, Eamonn Murray, was “the authority on Irish traditional music in the north Monaghan region and beyond”.

Seán had been researching the music of uilleann piper Eamonn Murray and so he and Austin met up at his church, the aforementioned St Stephen’s Episcopal Church in New Jersey.

How Sliabh Beagh got its name was intriguing to me as an Irish speaker - it is a toss-up between being named after one of the sons of Ceasair who came to Ireland with18 girls and three men, one of whom, Bith, is buried on the carn which bears his name; or the more prosaic explanation that is comes from Sliabh Beatha - the mountain abounding in birch trees. I know which one I’m going for

After the Rev Murray went through his father’s memorabilia, he was able to place in front of Seán, music collector James Whiteside’s manuscript containing tunes and songs gathered from musicians and singers from the Sliabh Beagh area from the 19th century.

For Seán, it was like being given the keys to the pearly gates.

Eamonn Murray was adamant that local players should keep their own distinctive style of playing but with the sweeping arrival of the gramophone and the radio, there was very little chance of that happening.

The Our Dear Dark Mountain book is as much a treasure trove as Whiteside’s original manuscript, although there is a chapter on Whiteside himself, quite a feat of research as so little was known about them.

McElwain, who is from Monaghan himself, also uncovers the lives of forgotten fiddlers, finds newspaper articles, scans the great and lesser-known collections and comes up with as complete a picture of both the vibrant musical tradition of his neglected (to this day) part of Ireland and the men who saved the tunes and the songs for this and future generations.

But while the history is fascinating, what will really get people’s bow’s bristling and their plectrums palpitating is over 120 tunes and 20-odd songs with the author staying as close to Whiteside’s original transcriptions as possible.

Our Dear Dark Mountain With The Sky Over It is a beautifully produced book, with stunning photographs to accompany Eamonn Murray’s The Mountain Lark while the cover pic, The Coonian Ghost House, is as atmospheric as it comes.

The director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, Liam O’Connor, is rightly fond of the lines by Kerry poet Brendan Kennelly who wrote: “All songs are living ghosts, and long for a living voice.”

The tunes in this wonderful new book might again be heard, not at a house céilí or at a crossroads or at a fair but more likely in a pub, an arts venue or a concert hall. Or even on Murray’s feared radio.

While I have tried to do justice to the book, I cannot possibly compete with this championing of the book, written by Patrick McCabe of Butcher Boy fame.

He writes: “Upon approaching, for the first time, this extraordinary collection, let potential readers and listeners be assured of this: that beyond Sliabh Beagh, the lights have already been lit in the windows of the house – and in the deep dark forest inquiring questers can confidently begin to move.

“With eyes open, listening, trying to find their bearings. Because find them they will; in the company of Messrs Murray and James Whiteside. Don’t let me delay you – step ahead and vanish, into this world of absolute wonder.”

You can find out more and buy a copy of Our Dear Dark Mountain with the Sky Over it: The James Whiteside Collection at oddm.ie