Traditional Irish Music and Traditional Owners

BY LLOYD GORMAN

MOST MUSICIANS ARE BORN INTO THE WORLD OF TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC. OTHERS DISCOVER IT LIKE SOME FOREIGN BUT FAMILIAR COUNTRY. STEVE COONEY IS ONE OF ITS GREATEST EXPLORERS AND EXPONENTS. AND AS HE TOLD RTE PRESENTER MIRIAM O’CALLAGHAN ON HER SUNDAY MORNING PROGRAMME ON MAY 2, HIS JOURNEY WAS A HOMECOMING OF SORTS THAT HAD AN UNUSUAL STARTING POINT.

“I was born and grew up in Melbourne, Australia” he said. “I didn’t know much about Irish culture at all, I didn’t know any Irish music until I was 28”. He was separated from his Irish heritage for good reason. “My father had grown up from an Irish Catholic family in Manchester. His mother died in the TB epidemic in the 1920’s and his father brought him to Australia to escape the TB and to get the fresh air in Australia, so they came for the health. I remember my father saying the first time he saw oranges and bananas and fresh fruit was when he came to Australia. They were a Republican family. His aunt kept a safe house in Manchester but he fell out with my mother who was from a staunch line of protestant ministers and that didn’t go down well with his father, my fathers father. He was disowned and subsequently we were disowned for having a Protestant mother so I grew up as part of the schism between Protestants and Catholics.” While it might be seen as an excessive reaction by today’s standards, Cooney knows that it was not uncommon in Ireland or even here in Australia for feelings to run that strong over the religious divide. “The Catholic faith was very strong and when you think about the Famine and people not taking the soup and they would rather die, condemn their own families to death rather than convert their religion, shows how strong that was. So my dad said he was an Australian, an egalitarian society and he put his Irish heritage into the background because it was hurtful to him I suppose and thats one reason why I needed to come here and discover that heritage.”

In 1980 at the age of 27 he first came to Ireland and has remained in the country since. But the inspiration to move to the land of his ancestors – in particular Tipperary, Cavan and Galway – came from an unexpected quarter. “It came about as a result of living with the Aboriginal people in a tribe in the Northern Territory of Australia,” Cooney explained. “I had gone up to learn the Didgeridoo and they said – after I’d been through processes with and initiation with them – how do you expect to understand our culture when you don’t even understand your own culture, go back to the land of your ancestors and a series of things they told me to learn and I came here as a direct result of their interaction, their direction.” He has maintained a connection with the Aboriginal culture that launched him towards Ireland where his contribution to Irish music has been prolific and prodigious. Based in “beautiful Donegal” which he says is home, Cooney is a fluent Irish speaker and has been closely involved in making more than 250 CDs, countless collaborations with other Irish and international musicians and writes poetry as well. He completed a PhD in 2018 at NCAD on an intuitive musical notation system that he developed for early learners and those who experience difficulties with staff notation, and he lectures in tertiary institutions on the calculation of harmony and syncopation. In 2020 he was given the RTÉ Folk Awards ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Award. His latest project is a harp based record with the incredible sean nos (old style) singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. Ó Lionáird spoke for many when he said on the programme that he was relieved that Cooney never returned to Australia. “He has brought so much to our culture and speaking personally he has brought so much to my musical world, my musical landscape,” he said. “He has shown the way in how one might accompany and investigate traditional Irish music using the guitar in new and beautiful sophisticated ways that just weren’t attempted before. We do need people like Steve to teach us – to reteach us – how to become aware of these possibilities [of culture/folklore/landscape) again, we have been playing music for a long time but we have not managed that.” As a working muso, Cooney is also happy with his choice for another reason. “Ireland is ideal size, when you are touring Australia by road for a gig between Melbourne and Sydney it’s a long days drive there and a long days drive back, but here in Ireland you can drive there and get back if you have to, its a nice size of a country.” Cooney’s encounter with the Indigenous people of the Northern Territory and experience with traditional Irish music is yet another example of the strong connections and crossover between the two cultures as exemplified by the Hand in Hand Irish Aboriginal Festival in Kidogo Arthouse, Fremantle in March of this year. Hopefully this incredible event – which may have been the first of its kind to date – will return next year and become an international fixutre.

Tony and Veronica McKee

PO Box 994 Hillarys WA 6923