Tramore and the Feast of the Assumption

How many children could fit in the back seat of a battered, blue Morris Minor? Five of us, though it seemed we had enough writhing knees and sharp elbows to suggest a dozen.

Who cared? It was August 15^th and we were on our way to Tramore in the County Waterford to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption.

We had gone to early mass, my mother packed sandwiches and flasks of hot tea, my grandfather sat stiff-backed behind the steering wheel, and with a roar we shuddered out of sleepy Wexford.

We were not on some pilgrimage, however - far from it - we were hotfooting it to the Mecca of secular excitement in the Sunny South East.

Tramore, as its Gaelic name "Trá Mór" implies, may have had a gigantic strand but it also boasted a veritable Disneyland of swings, rings, carousels, bumpers, and sundry other amusements.

My grandfather, a taciturn widower, even seemed to perk up as we crawled through Waterford City and got in line behind the other culchie cars on our odyssey to wonderland.

Dowdy Waterford had assumed a Vegas-like sheen since the local Royal Showband catapulted into Irish superstardom. Everyone was familiar with Brendan Bowyer, the “Irish Elvis,” who could shake a leg and rattle a tonsil as soulfully as the King himself. 

And hadn’t The Royal got their start playing in Tramore’s Atlantic and Silver Slipper ballrooms. Oh, the glamour of it all!

By the time we caught sight of the rolling waves Tramore’s fabled beach was already packed with countrymen in their dark suits, starched white shirts, and rolled-up trousers.

The ladies’ hair was tall and teased as Dusty Springfield’s, and their bright summer dresses swirled around naked sunburned legs in the devilish South wind.

The Blessed Virgin Mary may have ascended into heaven on Aug. 15^th but in Tramore Lugh, the Celtic god of light and plenty ruled that rollicking seaside town.  

Teddyboys in drainpipe trousers, pink shirts and multi-colored jackets, cruised the proceedings seeking fights with red-faced chaps who’d bicycled in from the country.

But a spirit of randy frivolity prevailed; this was not a time for aggression or repression – either secular or religious. The smell of Brylcreem and Woolworths perfume melded in the breezy Atlantic sun, and sparks of freedom ricocheted all around that brazen gathering.

Old Ireland had come out for the day in the form of itinerant cardsharps, tricksters, contortionists, and the choice of fabled musicians. I saw Maggie Barry there one year, Pecker Dunne another – the last voices of an ancient, if fading, tradition.

They faced a fierce challenge from Bowyer and early Beatles singles blasting from a myriad of tinny speakers. New and old co-existed uneasily but there was little doubt that the times were indeed a changin’ as a nasal young American voice kept on insisting.

My grandfather watched over us in a very unfussy manner; even in our delirium we respected that and stayed within his sight. And yet I sensed his unease. Though he smiled reassuringly he longed for his wife and was wary of this new world that everywhere was swamping the old.

And then a flash of violence – a Teddyboy and a big rawboned country chap went at it, fists striking bone with a sickening thud, sweat and blood flying, until separated by the ebullient crowd. 

At the same moment Maggie Barry’s banjo and George Harrison’s guitar locked horns before waltzing off together in joyful, pagan counterpoint.

The world was changing. Kennedy had been assassinated, rumblings were being heard up North, people were no longer content with sparks of freedom – they desired a cleansing flame.

The shadows were lengthening; it was time to go home. One last tear-around on the bumpers, one last bottle of orange, and if there was enough change from a ten shilling note, some bars of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut for the road.

After we cleared Waterford City, my grandfather began the Rosary. Some of us were already asleep in the back seat. 

A seasoned altar boy, I recited those sorrowful mysteries by heart, but my soul was a million miles away floating along on that mystical lick from George Harrison’s weeping guitar and Brendan Bowyer’s velvety voice.

Radio Dreams

I’ve always loved radio. I can still recall the old cloth-covered Siemens that my grandfather set up next to my bed back in Wexford. The tubes glowed in the dark and cast a ghostly blue light on the fading wallpaper as voices and music drifted in from all over Europe.

I got over television and its force-fed images round about the time I figured that the wondrous equine, Mr. Ed, wasn’t really talking. 

Radio, on the other hand, was transformative. Hearing Like a Rolling Stone and Bob Dylan’s taunting defiance changed my life.

Likewise Van Morrison’s depiction of Madam George conjured an erotic aura of Presbyterian Belfast that we in the South had never imagined.

It wasn’t just music - each of the Soviet bloc countries broadcast English hours on state radio. Propaganda it might have been still it definitely broadened adolescent horizons.

But the real prize was AFN (American Forces Network). On clear nights this station beamed laser-like from West Germany to Wexford and all of a sudden you’d have James Browne, Otis Redding, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran proclaiming the real truth about what it meant to be alive.

And so it was like a dream come true to get my own three-hour radio show on SiriusXM Satellite Radio twelve years ago.

As with many good things in life it came out of the blue. I was up at Sirius doing an interview with Meg Griffin for a newly released Black 47 CD when one of the executives overheard my accent. Turned out they needed such a blas to host a Celtic show!

Nor was anyone exactly sure what a Celtic show might be – including me. But one was needed for the following weekend, so into the studio I went - with Meg to teach me the technical side.

Sirius had around 100 vaguely themed “Celtic songs” in their vaults and I initially brought roughly the same from my own collection. At first I stuck to the music from the 8 Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, Wales, The Isle of Man, The Dutchy of Cornwall, Brittany in France, and Galicia and Asturias in Spain. 

Meg suggested I follow the old FM Radio strategy of a set containing three songs followed by a chat about the music, the musicians, or the price of turnips should nothing else spring to mind.

Unbeknownst to me Sirius had been banging the gong about this new Celtic experiment so I had an audience from the git-go - and a fairly informed one at that - from all over the US and Canada.

One of the few Sirius stipulations was that your show be not parochial or too New Yawk based – North America is a big bloody place, they reasoned, and since the introduction of the SiriusXM App the world is your oyster.

SiriusXM (the two satellite channels merged 9 years ago) is personality driven and you’re encouraged to air your views. Hardly a problem, since it would be difficult to ignore the historical and political roots of Celtic music.

Besides there’s a great hunger for heritage and a visceral need to connect with the past – something I learned on my trips around the continent with Black 47.

In an increasing age of disconnection and banal perfection, there’s also a growing taste for a human voice that improvises, riffs, and even falls flat on its face. 

The show is about the song rather than the singer. Perhaps that’s self-preservation for with Howard Stern down the hall and 150 other channels competing for the 32 million subscribers you’d better have interesting and compelling content. 

But it’s more than that, most radio is so programmed nowadays, it’s important that the unknown with a dream back in one of the 8 Celtic nations, or adrift in the Diaspora, has the same shot as U2, Christy Moore, The Dropkick Murphys or other stars in the Celtic firmament.

Yeah, it’s a long way from a cloth covered old Siemens wireless back in Wexford to the 36^th Floor SiriusXM studios in Midtown Manhattan but what a thrill to be a weaver of my own radio dreams!

Celtic Crush can be heard on The Loft, Channel 30, SiriusXM Satellite Radio Sundays 9amET, Tuesdays 9pmET, Wednesday MidnightET or On Demand.