They have been deep in rehearsal for months, learning an eclectic common repertoire of songs ranging from Ave Maria and Verdi’s Speed Your Journey to Coldplay’s Viva La Vida. Now, they are ready to come together and raise their voices.
All over the country – in Dublin’s National Basketball Arena, Cork’s City Hall, Galway’s Leisureland and other venues in Kilkenny, Mullingar, Longford, Portlaoise, Castlebar, Drimoleague and Ardee – thousands of children are gathering to sing together en masse in an exercise believed to be unique in Europe.
In all, about 8,000 children are taking part in this year’s National Children’s Choir (NCC), a volunteer-led programme that has helped instil a love of choral singing in primary school pupils around Ireland for the past 40 years.
One of the schools is St Brigid’s Primary School in the heart of the Liberties in Dublin’s south inner city. The alma mater of Imelda May, it has a proud history of running a children’s choir.
Though their programme was disrupted by the pandemic, the school jumped at the chance to revive it by working with the National Children’s Choir for the first time.
“The fabulous [NCC musical director] Anne Purcell offered to direct the school choir, and she has been doing that now since September with our fifth and sixth classes,” says principal Thérèse Gamble.
“At the start, there was a little bit of anxiousness around it because they weren’t sure what it was all about. Anne is fantastic with children – she’s a retired principal herself and a fantastic director of music.
“Every Wednesday in the school hall, she has taken three classes together and she has worked with them. When you see the difference at the end of the year now – the boost in their confidence and their emotional wellbeing.
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“It has made a huge difference. We’re bringing children together from different backgrounds and different interests. We’ve seen them form lots of new friendships through the choir.”
Alongside a newfound musicality, Gamble says the NCC is teaching pupils the value of dedication, responsibility and timekeeping.
St Brigid’s is a Deis school, tasked with providing extra supports for its students to reduce educational disadvantages. Extracurricular activities such as the choir are crucial.
“Obviously, we’re teaching the curriculum here in the school, but we’re involved in lots of other initiatives in the school. For a lot of the children here, when they go home, they may not have, say, a play area to go and play in. We do a lot of after school classes and the teachers here are fantastic at volunteering their time.
“Football, Lego, dancing, art, jewellery-making – it’s really important that they get a broader [experience] rather than just focus on the curriculum. The staff here are a hugely, highly dedicated staff and they give above and beyond.”
Katie Guinan teaches sixth class at St Brigid’s and has been working alongside Purcell with the choir. She says the experience has inspired some of the children to take music as a subject for secondary school and, while the concert in Tallaght will be surreal, the school’s focus on arts and performance means they are well prepared.
“They’ll be well able,” Guinan says. “They love the Christmas concerts and taking part. We really drive for the creative arts here in school and we would do a concert for, let’s say, Seachtain na Gaeilge and at Christmas time. They really enjoy performing. I do think a lot of the kids will be really surprised at how big it is and how much it’s going to impact them.”
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Guinan took a handful of the children to the National Concert Hall several weeks ago for the launch of the NCC’s anniversary. After the regional concerts, the same venue will host the top 10 per cent of choir singers from different schools for three nights. There was a sense of pride among all that attended the launch, particularly one pupil who recounted his experience to Gamble.
“One of the boys is from Poland and he said that when he stood in the National Concert Hall, [he thought about how] his granny had said he would always be famous,” she says. “He put his arms out and said, ‘look where I am now – I’m so proud of myself.’
“One of the girls behind him started to cry because she was so proud of him. These children – next Monday night they will be with about 450 other children in the Basketball Arena in Tallaght and that is going to be some experience for them. Something that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”
On the other side of the country, Carrakennedy is a two-teacher national school about 13km from Westport, Co Mayo.
Its principal, Aideen McPaul, sang with the NCC herself in 1993 as a sixth-class pupil. She brought the experience into her teaching and has made the choir a mainstay at the school over the last 12 years.
“There was a local school here doing it with a group in Galway,” McPaul says. “I went to that concert and that’s when I met up with Kathy Quinn, who’s our assistant musical director down here in Mayo. From there, we’ve been organising it. We’ve grown from having a concert the first year with about 250 to having a concert of 615 schools involved.”
Everything the NCC has accomplished over its 40 years can be traced back to Seán Creamer, a music inspector for the Department of Education who had the idea for the choir as a celebration of the European Year of Music, 1985.
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He was McPaul’s music lecturer in college, and when she began teaching on Marlborough St in Dublin in the early 2000s, he would come into her school to rehearse each week with his Park Singers’ choir.
“He was just so kind,” McPaul says. “Charismatic, I suppose, is what he was. He was able to bring children along with him – he had a gift with children. I remember that from my own experience in primary school.
“He had the biggest smile, and he just encouraged everyone. When I started teaching in Dublin, I was in a Deis school in the inner city. There were some behavioural problems and that there, but he didn’t care about that – it was about getting the children to sing and giving them an experience. He was able to bring them with him. It was like this magical spell.”
Pupils from Carrakennedy will take part in a regional NCC concert at the TF Royal Hotel & Theatre in Castlebar on April 10th. Fourteenpupils make up their choir, representing their small rural school as part of a group of about 600 children onstage.
“We wouldn’t have a full orchestra like they have in Tallaght, but we have a flautist, a bass guitar, a guitar, percussion and piano,” McPaul says.
“It’s just fabulous. It’s an amazing venue as well. They’ll have an audience of about 1,500 to 2,000 people watching them ... I think it gives them a gift for life, and it gives them confidence as they move on into secondary school.”
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Alongside fellow musical directors Órla Gillan and Mairéad Déiseach, Purcell has filled the gap left by Creamer since the mid-2000s. She is particularly proud of the NCC for staying the course over four decades without receiving any funding. It survives because of the passion of the facilitators who recognise its importance.
“We’ve seen how affirming it is,” Purcell says. “On the night of the concert – they will never feel that love as they will in the room on the night. If you think of the basketball arena, there’s probably 2,500 people there and they will be guaranteed a standing ovation. They’ll never feel anything like that ever again.”
