James is back for more

James is back for more

Neill O’Neill

Forty-eight years have passed since Fleadh Cheoil Mhaigh Eo came to Westport for the first time. The festival, which has been hosted in the town on numerous occasions in the intervening years, returns once again this weekend and, as always, promises to be a spectacular celebration of traditional music, song and dance.
For James Roche and his beloved accordion it will be an extra special event, marking over a half century of involvement in Fleadh Cheoil Mhaigh Eo for the Fahy native.
As a member of the young farmers’ club in his youth, James was among the group responsible for forming one of the first Mayo branches of Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann in Newport in the early fifties. Though people didn’t travel around much in those days and events were confined mostly to the local area, they decided to organise a Mayo Fleadh Cheoil in 1955. For James it was the beginning of a love affair that has endured for over five decades.
“We used to have sessions in the school in Newport in those days,” James reminisced. “You wouldn’t have many sessions in the pubs like today, it was mostly in houses and at weddings people would have at home. I often remember playing until 4am at weddings in my village.”
James is not shy about his age. Born in 1930, he vividly remembers the first accordion he ever owned. “My sister brought it to me from Scotland when I was 15 years old. It cost ten shillings and I had to teach myself how to play it. You would go from house to house in the village and people would be playing the accordion and you would pick bits up from watching them. I loved music and I still love it. My grandfather played the fiddle and my uncle played the accordion. They used to just sit down and play for entertainment in those days and often people would go around from house to house in the village and teach the children how to play the fiddle or accordion or whatever their instrument was in return for a bed for the night and some dinner.”
More than 60 years of playing the accordion has not dimmed his enthusiasm one bit, but the changes in traditional music brought by the passage of time have not gone unnoticed by James Roche.
“I still love to play but it is very different nowadays. You played with a slow measured rhythm back then but sometimes now musicians can forget the turn of the tune. There was grand players back then but it’s much more advanced now, you’d want to be Sean Kelly on the dance-floor to keep up with it.”
James also says that, like the style of traditional music, the instruments have evolved.
“Maybe I am being old-fashioned but I think the older accordions sound better. They have a nice soft tone whereas the new ones are very sharp and don’t always sound as good.”
His favourite tune is the foxhunter which he describes as a ‘great lively song’ though he does admit to having a soft spot for the high level hornpipe.
Comhaltas formed a branch in Westport soon after the success of the inaugural Fleadh Cheoil Mhaigh Eo in Newport and held their first Fleadh in the town on June 28, 1959. It was in the old Christian Brothers School on Castlebar Street and James Roche was on the organising committee.
“It was an occasion back then,” he remembers. “You’d look forward to it for months but it’s a different scene today. It was a novelty for us but there is traditional music and dancing in every pub in Westport now and in every pub in the county.”
Now residing in Bohea, Liscarney, with his wife Mary, James Roche says he is among the minority of his generation who never left home in pursuit of a life overseas. Born in the parish of Fahy, three miles from Newport, most of his family and friends emigrated many years ago and many never returned. This may have been a factor in the lull in activity the Comhaltas experienced in the sixties and seventies when the organisation virtually disappeared at local level, but their resurgence in the eighties encouraged James to dust down his trusty ten-key accordion and get back to business at as many Fleadhs as possible.
The Westport branch of Comhaltas have hosted three Mayo Fleadhs and one Connacht Fleadh since they reformed in 1981. James Roche has played at them all and has no intention of breaking with tradition come Friday.
“I like to play at the Fleadh every year if I can and with the help of God I’ll be playing next weekend. I’m looking forward to it very much,” he said.