Above: Harry Hughes, Maureen Kilduff and Aine Hensey at the announcement of Aine's appointment as Cultural Projects Animator at Oidhreach an Chlair in Miltown Malbay on Thursday.    Brian Arthur/ Press 22

 

More than 20 years in the making, it has been a long road from there to here for Oidhreacht an Chlair. As the Clare Institute for Traditional Studies prepares to ramp-up its activities this spring, Andrew Hamilton travels to Miltown Malbay, to speaks to Harry Hughes and Aine Hensey about the house that Willie Clancy built.

THE day's work is all but done when the senior tradesmen down tools and head for dinner, leav­ing a young carpenter to tidy and sweep up. The carpenter, though tired after a long day pushing a saw, still has energy to climb into the rafters and, once there, carve his name into the heavy wooden beans. It is a secret autograph and one, he must have thought, would stay secret forever.

The year is 1947, the house is a small cottage on the Flag Road in Miltown Malbay and the carpenter is the 28-year-old Willie Clancy, yet to announce himself as one of the first superstars of Irish traditional music.

Sixty-five years later and the signature of Ire­land's greatest uilleann piper has been rediscov­ered. Fate is a difficult thing to measure, but what else could it be that would bring Willie Clancy into the very walls of the Oidhreacht an Chlair.

"We had no idea that it was there. Himself and his father must have been involved in the work that was done on this house in the '40s. We could not believe it when we saw it - it's serendipity, I suppose. From what we can guess, the house here was remodelled in 1947 and the people who were employed included one Willie Clancy and Gilbert, Willie's father," says Harry Hughes of Oidhreacht an Chlair (OAC).

"It really was serendipity. Our location here is right beside where Willie Clancy would have lived. But it wasn't that that made us choose the house, it just happened that way. And then it turns out that Willie has signed his name into the raft­ers of this building. You couldn't make it up."

The idea for a traditional music and cultural archive has existed in Miltown Malbay for almost a generation. But it wasn't until the last decade that things began to really happen for Oidhreacht an Chláir.

"The idea was hatching for about a decade or so before anything really happened. It was some­thing that we would talk about a bit, usually in pubs, and usually around the time of the Willie Clancy Summer School," says Harry. "The idea kept coming up and kept nagging at us. In fair­ness, I think it was Donal de Barra who really got

it going. We started meeting in .2003 and 2004 and talking about the archive. We all knew people who had the material, whether it be reel-to-reel tapes or manuscripts or whatever they had. And we knew that we needed a base to put them all."

A base finally arrived in 2009 and, since then, the archive has been growing and growing. With the help of LEADER, the OAC has just been able to appoint its first staff member, and plans to wrap up its activities in the months and years ahead.

"At the moment, we have one station here in the office where anyone can come in and gain access to the full archive. They can listen to music, they can read through the manuscripts or look at the photos. Every piece of music that we have archived will have a document with it which

From what we can guess, the house here was remodelled in 1947 and the people who were employed included one Willie Clancy and Gilbert, his father. We couldn't believe it when we saw it - it's serendipity, I suppose.

gives the details of what you are listening to - the details of where it was recorded, who you are listening to, what the tunes themselves are," said Aine Hensey of the OAC.

"We are really up and running now. This is a permanent presence and it takes the whole thing into a new phase. This is a beginning, I hope. Hopefully, down the line, we can have more and more people involved here. Who knows where it might go in the future.

"We are, of course, looking for students or any­one to get involved and help out with the work. The more people that we have here cataloging, the more work we can get done. So anyone who wants to get involved is more than welcome."

In truth, the music archive is only a fraction of the work undertaken at the OAC. It also hosts a

diverse calendar of lectures and a growing collec­tion of local, cultural artifacts.

One such collection celebrates the work of another of Miltown Malbay's most famous sons, Tomas O hAodha.

"Tomás was the man who produced the first map of Ireland as Gaeilge. Anyone of my age would remember this massive map of Ireland which used in nearly every school in the country. The original map that Tomas worked on is here with us in the OAC," said Aine.

"It is a very historic document and it is won­derful that we have been able to bring it back to Miltown. Tomas was a very busy man. He wrote plans and songs and was a playwright. He was an activist with the INTO. In all of this work, he re­ally expressed the work of the Gaelic League and the cultural movement from the 1890s right up to the Easter Rising.

"It is a great thrill for us to be able to bring the original map back to Miltown. The map itself is very large and it has all of his own handwriting all over it. It really is something."

The OAC are currently finalising a timetable for their opening hours for the coming months but it will include midweek opening hours as well as weekends. The group is always open to receiving new material but there is currently a backlog of artifacts to be copied and returned to their owners.

Oidhreacht an Chlair has been made possi­ble thank to help from the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism and the Clare LEADER Programme.

A fundraising ceili will take place at the Westbridge in Miltown on Saturday, May 19, featuring the Four Courts Ceili Band. For more information on the OAC, contact 065 7085785 or 086 2612127 or visit www.oac.ie.