The session was in full swing. Uileann pipes, fiddles, flutes and a myriad of other instruments. The assembled musicians numbered among the finest Irish traditional musicians in the world. A mother and her daughter were eating casual lunch while listening to the tunes. You can pack a lot of different tunes into a few hours. They paid their bill and, before they set off, one of them turned to me. ‘They seem very good, we’ve really enjoyed the music,’ she paused, ‘but tell me is that the only tune they know?’
To the casual outsider Irish tunes can all sound the same. The intonation, source, name, style and category is lost on them. The blood, sweat and tears of the person who put a tune together and the moment that inspired it is not even up for consideration. There are many stories about tunes that’d fill pages. I love the one told by James Keane. Born in Dublin, he has lived most of his life in New York. He is an inspiring accordion player and boy can he tell stories about tunes! As a young man, he and his brother Sean made their way into the Fr Matthew Hall in Dublin, the home of Fleadhs and sessions in days gone by. As evenings at the Fr Matthew Hall drew to a close they were always tempted to stay on to hear tunes played by some of the great musicians of Ireland and on many occasions, because of this, had to walk home having missed the bus. That’s the experience Keane thinks of when he plays the tune Last Bus to Driminagh. I often wonder did he write that tune while sitting on the pavement at God knows what hour of the morning wondering how he was going to get home . . . again!
Every tune has a story but sometimes they can all sound the same. This is no different to people. We can all be herded into the one category and lose our individual traits. Every human being is created unique. That uniqueness goes beyond the fingerprint and retina identification. There is something unique in our soul that mirrors the divine purpose. Take time today to spot it in people you meet; even study it in yourself.
I don’t know who — or what — put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone — or Something — and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal. – Dag Hammarskjöld