Field Trip to Slibh Luachra and Dingle

This past weekend I went on a field trip to County Kerry with my early start music class. Irish traditional music varies stylistically through out the different regions of Ireland. So my music class took a field trip to the Slibh Luachra region, which is current day County Kerry and some of County Cork. The main focus of the trip was to be immersed with Irish traditional music but with an emphasis on the Slibh Luachra style, although it was hard to focus completely on the music because the scenery was almost unreal. From what I have seen of Ireland so far County Kerry is by far a strikingly scenic region of Ireland. So the trip began with a bus tour of the Slibh Luachra area to some famous sights were fiddle masters lived or where Uileann pipers died etc. We made a stop in a very small city where we listened to what we were told by our professors as being some of the best fiddle and accordion players in the whole of Ireland. After that performance we ended up in Dingle where we would be staying for the next two nights. The accommodations were nothing special seeing as how they decided to put all twenty-two students in a single room packed with bunk beds. That night we went to an Irish traditional music concert in a church, which was very impressive. After dinner at the Goat’s Cafe the class hit the pubs of Dingle. We ended up at a pub where our two professors, Daithi (pronounced Dahee which is the Irish name for David) and Stella, had joined a group of musicians and they were all playing traditional Irish music. The next morning we drove to a region of Kerry where almost everyone solely spoke the Irish language. The only phrase I have learned in Irish so far is “Ta me go maith” meaning I am doing well thank you. Here in Ireland almost everyone knows the Irish language because it is the national language and all government documents are written in it, but it is rarely spoken in the major cities. However as you move farther away from the cities more and more people will only speak Irish. Ireland has seen a major boast and revival of the language in the last twenty year in attempts to prevent the language from dying out. But anyways we went to a picturesque region and the most western tip of Ireland and Europe for that matter known as the Blasket Islands. After we had experience the scenery and music of the Blaskets we headed back to Dingle for some free time. The next day we were headed back to Cork but we made a couple stops in Tralee and Killarney and the house of Sean O’Riada who is a pretty big deal over here. O’ Riada is responsible for the revival of Irish traditional music in the 1950s. The trip was a lot of fun and I enjoyed seeing another part of Ireland but I was very excited to be back home in Cork. Also that evening the class went to a Moving Hearts concert at the Cork Opera House. Moving Hearts mixes Irish traditional music with rock and everyone really enjoyed the music!