MUSIC A Big Tom cynic is converted

Members of The Country Cats, Sadhbh Thomas,Tonragee, Achill, and Bernadette Ruddy, Foxford, with Big Tom at the recent Michael Commins’ Music Festival in the Salthill Hotel Galway.


There’s life in the auld dog yet


It was hard not to be impressed by Big Tom at last week’s Michael Commins’ Music Festival.

Going out
Willie McHugh

THE hill-walker looked a tad bemused. Returning to the hotel foyer after a day scaling the Twelve Bens the only things engaging his mind were a hot bath, a bit of sustenance and a good sleep. But he inadvertently happened upon the arrival of revellers for the Michael Commins’ Music Festival at the Salthill Hotel.
An hour before curtain call and the queue of eight to ten bodies abreast swelling to 1200 people had already snaked from the ballroom door and beyond through reception and poured out onto the footpath.
They had arrived from the four points of the compass and some even journeyed from the islands of Aran and Boffin. 
This musical rendezvous is fast carving out a niche for itself in the annual social diary of this country. Its success is as much a tribute to its instigator as it is to the entertainers.
Michael Commins will never need anyone else to champion his cause because the man is already a legend in this region. His popularity is such that he has to climb The Reek in dark of night – if he attempted it in daylight he’d never get up beyond yer’ man in the leaba.
His Wednesday and Sunday night Late Show’s on MWR are the most listened to programmes on local radio by a country mile. Bringing the radio to the cot has become the vogue with his multitude of regular listeners.
Michael Commins goes to bed with more women than a Spanish gigolo on Wednesday nights now. He has his finger firmly positioned on the pulse of rural Ireland and can gauge the mood of its people to perfection. He knows what the punters want.
It was a no-brainer then that any musical event organised by Michael Commins was a guaranteed sell-out. For three nights last week the cream of Irish country descended on Galway and full-house signs were rolled out by early afternoon as ticket demand exhausted supply.
On Monday night, buttressed by a select band of backing musicians comprising of Carmel Dempsey, Mike Stewart, Marie Fahy, Paul Vignoles, Colm Naughton and Frankie Coulihan, Matt Keane set the musical tone for the evening with a lively rendition of ‘Ireland for the Summer.’
The genial troubadour from Caherlistrane (or ‘Carlastran’ to give it its local articulation) is imbued with the common touch. His lovely relaxed style of presentation ensures he’s a favoured entertainer in any gathering.
Matt is a member of the famous Keane musical dynasty. It wasn’t from the wind they took it either. Music was their birth-right and they honed their craft at a rich cultural mine.
It’s a known fact that all the Keane clan could sing before they could talk. Even the sewing machine in the Keane home in Carragh was a Singer. From Matt’s intro the pace continued with appearances from Jason Travers, Bernadette Ruddy and Jacqui Sharkey.
Gene Stuart rolled back the years to give the standard polished performance that was his trademark. He still maintains the clarity and delivery that has made him a household name. Other artists included Matt Cunningham, John Kelly, Nan Tom, John Joe Geraghty (yes, John Joe from behind Newport, the very man), Crystal Swing and Sam O’Doherty. If you haven’t seen the Galtee Mountain Boy from Bansha then time you made an entry on your ‘to-do’ list.
The Mass-goers in Barnacarroll Church are familiar with the dulcet tones of Marcella Molloy, but on Monday night she displayed her talents in a bigger arena. It didn’t knock a fritter out of her either and ‘The Lilywhite’ took it all in her stride.
Donnacha O’Dulaing of ‘Highways and Byways’ fame and the presenter of FΡilte Isteach on Radio One joined PJ Murrihy and a lovely moment ensued when Michael organised a presentation to the veteran broadcaster.
Charged with the task of handing over the memento was the inimitable Margaret French from Mervue in Galway. Margaret has long been the doyen of regular correspondents to the Wednesday Night Late Show and a lifelong unapologetic supporter of Irish entertainers. No lady deserved her 15 minutes of fame more. 

THE headline act on Monday was Big Tom McBride. It was nothing personal but Big Tom and I went our separate ways a long time ago.
But whether he was back in the late Nancy Murphy’s House of Music in Cong, booked by Seamus Gallagher to play The Town Hall in Claremorris, beyond in Joe O’Neill’s Sound of Music in Glenamaddy or up in the Ranch House in Cummer, you were always guaranteed a full house whenever Big Tom came to town.
On such nights lads had a rich crop to choose from. His pulling power abetted our pulling power if you get my drift. As the man from Boula often said, “Jaysus a fella would be fierce quare entirely if he couldn’t get a woman at Big Tom.”
And I wonder who’s kissing her now.
But despite our parting I often met the scholars over the passing of time and was kept up to speed on his perpetual prominence. But no account of his popularity could have prepared me for the happening that unfolded before my eyes in Galway last Monday night. Someone somewhere flicked a switch and the sound system amplified the Michael Commins tribute song ‘The Great Big Tom McBride’ into the venue.
It was showtime in Galway. As he promenaded towards the stage the audience erupted into a sustained standing ovation and mayhem and bedlam reigned supreme. Some abandoned their seats to dance in the aisles.
The colossal rise in decibel levels smashed the sound barrier to smithereens. The hullabaloo was enough to waken the poor devils sleeping in the dormers of Heaven. The mountaineer in Room 321 abandoned all hope of getting a bit of kip such was the commotion three floors down.
When Big Tom took to the podium he was met with a battery of cameras and mobiles flashing in front of him. From his vantage point he must have thought he was staring into the main beam of the Aurora Borealis.
For a man who has already togged for 75 summers he rolled back the years to churn out the songs for which he is renowned and have made him a legend in his own lifetime. And he still possesses the same passion as he did when he made his first recording back in 1966. 
Here’s an indication of his enthusiasm: On the previous Thursday, Tom McBride underwent surgery in a Dublin hospital. Sitting up, talking and eating a bit on Monday night would be regarded as satisfactory progress on the road to recovery. Instead Big Tom was in ‘The Salthill’ on Monday night honouring a promise he had already made to Michael Commins to perform at his music festival. Proof, if indeed proof were needed, that the man from the rolling hills of Monaghan definitely intends going out the same way he came in.
And again Commins pulled another ace from the deck when it came to marking the appearance of the warbler from the Farney country. Margaret Naughton from Kilkeeran near Carna is now domiciled in Boston. Last week she travelled from the land of Paul Revere to fulfil a 30-year longing to meet her idol.
Commins made her wildest dreams a reality when he got her to present the legend from Castleblayney with an inscribed mirror in recognition of his contribution to the music industry. Margaret Naughton will take the memory of meeting her idol and performing the official presentation back to the banks of the Charles River to treasure forever. Is it any wonder Commins is big in America too?
The cynics might peg the acclamation in a Galway hotel on Monday night as the hullabaloo of a bunch of old fogies who are desperately clinging to a romantic Ireland of Green Shields Stamps, petrol watches and Billy Fitz’. They are anything but.
The audience comprised of ordinary decent people and their reactions weren’t fuelled by any foreign substance, be it solid or liquid. They’re the decent people we encounter every day and who would assist in changing a flat tyre or the loan of a spade.
Many of them are parents who have reared the youth we’ve now lost to places like Montreal, Brisbane and New South Wales where our moonlight is their sunlight.
They’re the generation who unwittingly had to become au fait with Skype and Facebook to keep in touch with sons and daughters far away. And all they are doing is acknowledging an era underpinned by loyalty that the rest of us abandoned in search of something less tangible.
We should have been more careful what we wished for. And if truth be told (and it rarely is) about the economic situation in this country, it’s those very same people who were in The Salthill Hotel that are now generating the only bit of cash flow that pays the piper now.
So scoff at your peril.
To be in the Salthill Hotel last Monday night was an eye-opener as to what happens when someone goes to the trouble of giving the people what they want.
The sun had long gone down on Galway Bay as the patrons began the journey home. And remember our mountain man tossing and turning in 321 – he could finally turn over and dream of higher peaks. But at least he had good music to entertain him as he lay awake.
Michael Commins saw to that.