The Irish Times, Arminta Wallace
‘Sé seo m’Oileán is a treat for your eyes and your ears.
Songs from a small island

In a world where you can be killed for pulling a mobile phone out of your pocket, it’s strangely comforting to discover that Inis Oírr is still the sort of place where everybody knows everybody else’s phone number. “There’s, what, about 100 phones on the island, so all you have to do is adjust the last two digits,” says Moira Sweeney, producer and director of ‘Sé seo m’Oileán, (This Is My Island), a portrait of the smallest Aran island at the beginning of the 21st century.

“It’s really is a magical place. No traffic; everybody walks everywhere. Although,” she adds grimly, “they’ll charge you 15 euros for a vegetarian pasta.” This gorgeously photographed Léargas documentary (take a bow, cameraman Breffin Byrne) presents Inis Oírr as seen through the eyes of one of its native daughters, the young sean-nós singer Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola.

It is a subtle and engaging positive; at once a celebration of change on the island an a plea that the changes should help preserve the otherness of island life, Lasairfhíona – pronounced Lasarenna, it means “flame of wine”, - has a degree from Trinity, a mobile phone and a penchant for designer clothes. Like many islanders, she thinks nothing of commuting to and from the mainland by plane. “It’s fine if you work in Connemara, though Galway city is a bit of a journey,” she says. “You wouldn’t be in for nine o’clock, now – it would be closer to 11. But it’s good to have the option.”

When she was growing up, there was a boat just once a week. “Nearly everybody would go down to the pier to see it, and see who was coming and going. It was an event.”
The people who came to stay have, more often than not, been women who fell in love with an islander – such as Lasairfhíona’s mother Pacella, who married Dara O Conaola and moved from Dublin to an Inis Oírr where no electricity and no water were the order of the day. There were tough times, but there must have been plenty of laughter, too. Certainly there was plenty of song, and Lasairfhíona was taught to sing by her father – simple little songs at fires, then the ancient sean-nós melodies. “Some people understand music,” says Lasairfhíona. “My father is a writer, but he understands music – and he understands singing also.”

Some of the songs from Lasairfhíona’s first solo album, An Raicin Alainn (The Beautiful Comb) are used as a soundtrack for ‘Sé seo m’Oilean. On one track she takes one of her father’s poems, Oileán na Teiscinne, reads it over the sound of the waves breaking on the shores of Inis Oírr – and adds a verse of her own, a creative liberty with which, on screen, Dara O Conaola professes himself delighted. But was he – really? Lasairfhíona chuckles. ~”He said I only got away with it because I was his daughter.”

The most striking thing about the CD, apart from the extraordinary clarity and charm of Lasairfhíona’s voice, is how varied the songs are, from the impish humour of Amhrán an Phúca through the romantic simplicity of Inis Oírr in Inis Oírr to the brooding melancholy of Úna Bhán. Lasairfhíona, it seems, is a singer who isn’t afraid to experiment and innovate. “Sean-nós singing is my backbone musically and I don’t want to lose the sean-nós, but I enjoy singing other types of songs as well – blues and jazz,” she says. “It’s important to try out different types of songs to see what happens.”

Though the recording is all Lasairfhíona’s own work – she chose all the tracks, assembled a terrific group of backing musicians including Máire Breatnach and Johnny ‘Ringo” McDonagh, and launched the CD at the Lorient festival in Brittany – it is also very much a family affair. Several of the songs were handed on by her grandparent, and her brother MacDara, who’s also appears on the Léargas film, adds a cheeky, lilting vocal on Bímse Fein Ag Iascaireacht (I Myself Go Fishing).
The film, shot in the balmy weather of mid October - remember that? - is a treat for both eyes and ears. “And my hand is fine now,” adds Lasairfhíona. Hand? Is this a sean-nós thing?
‘No - I slipped on a shoe two weeks before the programme, and my hand was in a cast,” Over to you, eagle-eyed viewers.