THE IRISH TIMES, Weekend Review, Saturday, June 28 2003
Carrier of the flame

Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola is far from being a stereotypical traditional
singer, writes Siobhán Long

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The Aran Islands have produced more than their share of artist, most of them literary. But although they
have never had a shortage of songs, few locals have had the impact of Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola in the
past year. It has taken her just one outing to the studio, to make her début CD, An Raicín Álainn, to
dispel all manner of myths associated with traditional singing.Far from being a finger-in-the-ear singer,
Ní Chonaola takes possession of the songs handed down to her with the alacrity and comfort of a singer
who’s not even on conversational terms with the hang-ups
of a generation reared to believe that sean-nós was a wry joke played by islanders bent on recreating
the delights of root-canal treatment for unsuspecting listens gathered round the session.
And then there are her own songs. Tales with a tincture of the magic realism of Central and South
America. Gemstones that reveal layer upon layer of riches compacted beneath deceptively simple
surfaces.She may be a graduate of Celtic studies, with enough history and genealogy tucked beneath her belt to
fuel a gabháil of songs, but Ní Chonaola, a native of Inishere, is a carrier of the flame from as far back
as the cradle when singing held a place only usurped in other parts of the country by the all-consuming
television.“Since I was a child I was always singing”, she says, “and there’s a great tradition of singing
on the islands. The singer was respected. When somebody sang people were quiet. The singer and the
song were equal. So I came from that tradition. There was more emphasis on the song than on music,
though that has changed since. There are plenty of young musicians playing now.”
Ní Chonaola isn’t afraid to strip the songs bare, sometimes pairing voice with bodhrán and nothing else,
as she does on Bean Pháidín.
“There’s nothing like the bodhrán and the voice”, she says. “They’re the two oldest instruments we have.
You can imagine people long, long ago. Johnny MacDonagh (the bodhrán player) is brilliant. He has
a great ear for listening to the singer, because there’s a language going on other than the words of the
song. There’s something special, something beyond. Music reaches people in a way that maybe words
don’t. It’s at a higher level,”For Roundstone Ní Chonaola plans to bring more than a knapsackful of songs.
At Errisbeg House on Wednesday she’ll be joined by her father, the Inishmaan writer and poet Dara Ó
Conaola.“My father is going to read some of his poetry, and I’ll be singing some songs,” she says, “but
we’ve set up a project called Dán Aille, an Aran project with a visual artist called Sean Ó Flaithearta, which
we’ll be performing in other places. We were thinking that people like John Millington Synge and
[George] Petrie have come to the islands looking for creativity, so it’s the first time that we islanders
are looking at our own culture and bringing something to the people.”Ní Chonaola hasn’t been shy when it
comes to bring the music to non-Irish–speaking audience, either,
as is evident by her appearance in the 10 most promising folk and trad acts in last year’s Hot Press
readers’ poll. Her debut CD was also voted on the top 10 debut albums of 2002. Proof, if she needed it,
that the music can traverse generations as well as linguistic codes with ease.
“I was singing in the Town Hall in Galway recently, and in the audience there were a lot French, Italian,
Japanese, Germans and Spanish, and they were all very happy with the songs. Somehow, when I was
recording the album, I had a load of songs, but all of the songs that made it on to the album were Irish.
It just seemed right. It’s what I speak. It’s my everyday language. It just seemed like a natural
progression.”She has few fears of being boxed into a category of someone else’s choosing. Sean-nós may strike fear
in the hearts of some, but Ní Chonaola refuses to be dragged into arguments about a genre in which she
feels at ease.
“On the islands there were just songs,” she says. “We just sang songs. We didn’t call them sean-nós. I
came from a sean-nós background, but I live in the modern time, too, so there are inevitably influences
there.
“I come from a creative family: on my father’s side there was writing and music, and on my mother’s
side there was art and sculpture, so it’s natural for me to created, and it’s important for people who are
creative to try out new idea. It’s natural. And on the CD there’s oldness but there’s also newness. And
I like to push the boundaries – for myself, because I feel comfortable with it.