Fiche Bliain Ag Fas is a newly released tape of Irish music, song and poetry, which is deservedly selling in jig-time. It features the teachers and pupils of Scoil Chualann in Bray, Co Wicklow and marks the 20th anniversary of this Irish-language national school. Over 2,000 children have passed through the school and if the next 20 years are even half as successful then the Chualann Gaeltacht will be firmly established on the East coast.
The tape is the brainchild of Garda Pat Fitzpatrick, a musician with the Garda Band. When his son and daughter started in Scoil Chualann he offered his services to the school as a tin-whistle teacher. Being the "cute guard", he did a deal. If he taught the children their music, he wanted them to teach him to speak Irish. Well, Fiche Bliain Ag Fas proves he certainly kept his side of the bargain.
Abundant energy
He started out with just a handful of children, but the fun was so good in the halla that the class swelled and the music got better and better. And Scoil Chualann, as well as having great pupils and parents, just happens to have brilliant teachers who have nurtured music and song for many years. So Pat Fitzpatrick's arrival came at an appropriate time.
The man has an abundance of energy and enthusiasm and once he got the children playing the tin-whistle he couldn't wait to move them on to his own instrument, the flute. Across the road from the school lives Natasha Seery, one of the most proficient and accomplished flute-makers in Ireland. Natasha learnt her craft from her father, Dessie, but has made an interesting innovation: her flutes are made from plastic. And before the purists gasp, Pat Fitzpatrick maintains their sound and tone is indistinguishable from that of the old blackwood flutes - he often plays a plastic flute in the Garda Band. In fact, he says, some top traditional musicians prefer them.
Ideal for children
The plastic can be turned and worked more easily than the traditional woods such as ebony or boxwood. They are ideal for children as they don't require the same care and attention as the wooden ones. They are unaffected by humidity and can be dropped and bumped on the floor, left on radiators and subjected to all the rigours that would have split and destroyed an old instrument. They are practically indestructible and child-proof - and all at a fraction of the cost of the old-style flutes.
Priomh-oide Brid Ni Choincheanainn, ever sensitive to the costs incurred by parents, started a rental/purchase scheme whereby a child could initially rent a flute for a period, then buy it for a nominal sum if he or she showed any proficiency on the instrument. Fiddles and bodhrans joined the tin-whistles and flutes and the music was flowing in Scoil Chualann. Then Pat Fitzpatrick thought about a tape. Undaunted by the magnitude of the undertaking, he set about making the recording himself. He owned a digital computer recording desk and was confident the machine would produce a professional sound that would do justice to the ability of the pupils. So the halla became a makeshift recording studio. Groups of children were assembled. "Bouncers" were put on all exits and entrances and fingers crossed that no one would drop a fiddle bow or scrape a chair.
Musical all-rounder
On the first day of recording, half the material was completed. Listening to it that night, Pat heard a cough and, perfectionist that he is, the session had to be re-done. But he is full of praise for the children's professionalism and despite a little nervousness they really enjoyed the project. Pat has played in the Garda Band for the past eight years, having come from the Army No 1 Band. He plays clarinet, saxophone, flute and bagpipes. He is a talented musical all-rounder, but his heart is really with traditional music. His biggest influence was the late Tony Crean, the concertina player from west Clare, who lived in Gorey when Pat was growing up there.
His next project, he promises, is a tape of his own music. There is no doubt it will be a real treat.
And, of course, he expects the children to complete their part of the deal and make him into an Irish speaker.