The story...so far

The story...so far.

It seems so long ago now back to Jan 1st 2018 when we first began the Meitheal Ceol SongBook Project in order to support and facilitate everyone who is interested in Singing and Playing along together, with all of the Magic, Craic, Comhluadar, Cairdeas and Folláine an Duine (personal wellbeing) that comes naturally with the SingSong. The first Volume of Songs ‘365 Songs...Your I-a-Day’ in 2018 was followed up by Volume two, ‘The Ones that Got Away’ in June 2019. The feedback from users and singers on both books was a wonderful affirmation of the success of our vision and efforts. While travelling down along the Wild Atlantic Way from West Donegal all the way round to Rosslare and then through Brittany in late Autumn 2019, we met up with and had great Singsongs with fellow motorhomers and locals, with friends in West Cork, sang along with strangers, with open water swimmers like the Lough Hyne Lappers, with visitors to Ireland and those we met in France. We had brought books with us and dropped them off personally, making new Friends along the way. Singing together from a common book proved to be a fluid, pleasurable experience for all. We were also introduced to a number of new Songs as we travelled and sang and while in Brittany, we noted that we had forgotten to include the lovely ‘Lost in France’ in the first two volumes. And so, at the turn of the year in early 2020, we embarked on the final volume of our Songbook Trilogy, which we aptly titled ‘Ones That Got Under The Radar’, gathering together many of the suggestions from our Community of fellow singers, songs from and with memories, stories and experiences.

StarDate March 2020 !

Covid-19…..The Whole World Transformed, in the blink of an eye. Isolation; Quarantine; Physically enforced anti-Social Distancing; suddenly became the New Norm. It was, truly, as Don McLean scripted…..;The Day the Music Died’. The aoens-old, known therapeutic Mental Wellness benefit of Communal Singing was now a danger to our health, due to airborne spread of the virus while singing. Choirs, everywhere, simply ceased to practice, to perform. Live music, Sessions and SingSongs were Banned, for our physical safety. Our weekly Meitheal Ceol SingSongs in An Scioból, the Men’s Shed in Gaoth Dobhair, suddenly ceased to be. Meanwhile, we cowered, fearful of the new, unknown viral dangers, isolated, kept apart from each other in our homes, many of us not even going outdoors, as the World tried to find a vaccine and sought to survive. Dark times, indeed, when every evening we were glued to the Six O’Clock news as we watched the ‘Bingo-number-like’ daily reports of infection numbers, hospitalisations, ICU overloading; Deaths of loved ones without even family members present at their Burials. In response to the enforced isolation and loss of Connection and Nurture of live SingSongs, we undertook an online ‘Meitheal Ceol DailyOnline-Sing-Song-for-the-Soul’ where Every evening , at 7 PM (GMT)from Mar 17th to May 17th 2020, after the news and in order to provide a Positive Distraction from the numbing negativity of the DailyDeath-Roll-Call on the 6 O’Clock News Bulletins, we held an online SingSong on Facebook Live. Yes, there were/are limitations with one-way Livestreaming, but in their hundreds, from far and near, from the Pacific Coast of the US through the Mid-West to the East Coast, from South Africa, Germany, France the UK, Scotland and all over Ireland, viewers in their homes sang and played along with us as we shared the words and chords onscreen and they interacted with us and with each other with their rich, encouraging comments and shared stories. For those two hours each evening we were transported from our locked-down isolation, using Songs and our imagination from The Homes of Donegal down those Four Country Roads, through the Fields of Athenry, imagined the Cliffs of Dooneen and The Curragh of Kildare, singing Sea Shanties, raucous Rebel and Folk, Lullabies and Love songs, recalling memories of times past and sharing our stories. In each of those 63 consecutive LiveStreams, we

rounded off each evening, in Communion, with a rendition of ‘The

Parting Glass’.

We forged new friendships as an online Virtual Community emerged, determined to preserve our Humanity, Nurture each other’s Spirits and explore new ways of Singing together. One man contacted us recounting how his 90 year old Mother, who lives alone had lost all desire to live with the draconian personal isolation, asking if she could participate. With assistance from the Community, he set up Facebook

Live on a large TV screen in her living room, reporting back that she was uplifted as we welcomed her and she spent many an evening happily singing along. Others such as Nancy and Chuck Polus Hoesel in

Nashville and AnnMarie Turk McGinley in Donegal were motivated to pick up their guitars and ukes and learn to play along.

We have preserved that experience in a YouTube Playlist at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRyWYkI9hIhACD-aVJezf2A. It will be interesting looking back at these sessions, in a few years’ time, on what will hopefully then be seen as a distant glitch in our lives.

In early 2021, as an emergent element from our online training familiarising members of our Community with using Zoom for Virtual

Meetings, we began the, now weekly, Online Zoom Singsong on

Sunday Evenings, where, again in a modality tailored to the context of

Zoom, we meet up, we chat, trade stories and updates and go around the Circle as usual, each one after the other either playing and Singing songs from the books, or, for those non singers, picking a song and we all sing along. Due to the inherent constraints of Latency, each singer’s mic is left on, while all other mics are muted; we share the lyrics and chords on screen and the others play along in time, remotely.

Once again, new participants come along, often through word of mouth and share their love of song with us.

This third volume in this Anthology of Songs has been brewing over the last eighteen months as we all struggled through the Covid wilderness.

The range of songs reflect lots of suggestions along the way and songs picked up from the many TV series and Films viewed through the long winter and periods of Quarantine.

During the last 18 months of Covid the world said farewell to a number of the writers and performers of some of the songs in these books. The fact that such beautiful songs outlive their composers and continue to

Nurture future generations is a powerful underpinning of the creative value of Song writers. Just some of those who passed were John Prine,

Kenny Rogers, Nanci Griffiths and our own Liam Reilly. May their creations continue to bring wellness to the world. 10 | P a g e

What Next?

“Well something's lost, but something's gained In living every day.” As, Worldwide we are beginning to cautiously construct a vaccinated, more tentative, Social re-engagement, it is timely that we completed this last phase of the Songbook Trilogy. Hopefully this Anthology of over 700 songs from so many diverse genres, can facilitate and catalyse manys a get together and shared SingSong. As we move into another dark and oftentimes dreary winter of 2021 the Songbooks will provide a wonderful opportunity for users to practice old songs, learn new ones, perhaps take up playing the guitar or ukulele, to get together with Family and Friends, in a combination of physicallypresent and also online sessions as we’ve been doing on Zoom, with the benefit of singing off a Common SongBook. One of the wonderful features of having so many and varied a songlist is to always hear, either new, or forgotten songs and also to hear so many beautiful and differing renditions and interpretations of the same songs.

Acknowledgments

There are so many people to thank for helping to motivate and encourage us in the tedious work of editing, researching, correcting etc. A particular note of thanks goes out to Tricia Doherty, Margaret Browne and John Coyle for being so meticulous in highlighting chord and word corrections as we sang and played at our sessions. In true Kaizen ‘Iterative Improvement’ collaboration, even though the thought of another version modification was frustrating, we really value and appreciate their critical input. We very much appreciate the company of so many participants along our way during Covid including Annette Rodrigues, Susan Wilmes, Keith Paddy Beefy Burton, Jivan O’Byrne, Paul and Maureen Griffin, Fergus Touhy, Maria Fordham, Dave Kelly, Ray Acheson, Yvonne, Finegan, Sheila McMahon, Natalie Breite, Cathy, Peter and Paul Anderson, Nancy and Chuck Polus Hoesel, Lucia Gallagher, Brian Cleary, Mary Ó Gógáin, Thomas McGinley, Anne Maguire, Willie and Mary Pierce, Paddy Nugent, Peggy Clancy Stenglein, Nancy Cleary, John Hayden, Patsy Rogers, Marian McFadden, Conal Larkin, Aidan McPhillips, Amanda Ferry, Tracy Reindl Palecek, Aine Ní Ruairc and many others

‘Long May You Run’ Liamog and MaryT. Sept 10th 2021