Traveller music series features Cork singer

IN recent years, the immense contribution of Irish Travellers to Ireland’s music tradition has begun to be realised.

For centuries, they carried tunes and songs from town to town, made and repaired instruments, and transmitted their unique musical style, adding a distinctly recognisable layer to the nation’s musical and cultural heritage.

Many of the songs that are now standards of the folk singing tradition have been kept alive by the Travelling community.

We get an insight into this in the new series Songlines on RTÉ1 on Monday at 10.15pm, and the first episode includes a trip to Cork.

The series journeys with traditional Traveller singer Thomas McCarthy as we meet an eclectic collection of his ilk throughout Ireland - charismatic performers and carriers of tradition but rarely seen or heard outside the Travelling community.

McCarthy appeared in a 2022 RTÉ documentary called Songs Of The Open Road, and embarked on a project with the Irish Traditional Music Archive, about Traveller music.

His new series begins in Paris, where Thomas has been performing for the previous six months in the show Cabaret de l’dxil, Irish Travellers, an international theatre show telling the story of Irish Travellers. Thomas is a lynchpin in the production, which went on to attract an audience of over 60,000 people in its six-month run.

From Paris, we travel to meet Rosie McCarthy at home in Macroom. Although just 16, she’s already a powerful and expressive singer who loves singing the old songs.

Thomas then travels to meet Kitty Cassidy in Waterford, now 84, but still a powerful performer. She sings and talks about her parents Johnny and Julia Cassidy who were themselves storytellers and singers.

Later, we catch up with Kitty again the Irish Traditional Music Archive where she tells Thomas where she learned her songs and sings extracts of three songs: Please Mr Conductor, Lovely Willie, and Mother Malone.

In the course of the film, we also meet cousins Stephen McDonagh and Ned McCarthy in Tullamore, who are related to the famous pipers, Felix and Johnny Doran.

We also see the Keenan sisters, Kathleen and Mary, in Ennis and in Ballymun, we meet Ellie Stokes daughter of Traveller singer Mary Kate McDonagh, who was recorded by the great collector Tom Munnelly singing The Tri-Colour House.

In Drogheda, Thomas hears the songs False Lankum and Smuggling the Tin.