(Westport, Co. Mayo, Ireland)
It’s in practically every guidebook that covers County Mayo in Western Ireland. Every backpacker you meet in the area talks about it. Even the owner of my B&B here in Westport recommended it. They all say the same thing: you have to go to Matt Molloy’s Pub for some traditional Irish music.
At one time or another, I played virtually every kind of music on my various radio programs at CFRC-FM. However, I must admit that I didn’t play much in the way of traditional Irish music. Even when I had a “world music” program, I gravitated towards music from South Africa and Brazil. Nor did I ever (knowingly) play Irish traditional music with any of the bands I played in.
Nonetheless, I always appreciate live music played by skilled musicians who love what they are doing. The type of music doesn’t really matter. Nothing is more off-putting than going to a concert and seeing that the band doesn’t really want to be there. It’s even worse when they crank up the volume to cover up their sloppy playing.
Even though I found it a little intimidating to walk into an unknown and crowded bar by myself, I went ahead and (yes) ordered a pint of Guinness. It took a few minutes to pour it properly. The bartender told me where the session would take place and I found a spot in the very small room. Before long, I was chatting to a fellow traveller and musician from England who was interested in a lot of the same music that I was. The environment facilitates this kind of contact: in Canada, people tend to go to pubs in groups and not mix as much with other people. Anyway, before I knew it, the musicians sat down at a couple of small tables and the session was about to begin.
There were 5 musicians to start, with another one joining in after a few songs. It wasn’t structured and there was no “patter from the frontman”…in fact, there was no frontman. It seemed like everybody took their turn in selecting and starting a song. Most of the songs were instrumentals but my favourites were the ones with words. At first, it was strange to hear unamplified singing. But this is how it would have been a century (or more) ago. Once again, if you ignored the digital cameras, it was easy to pretend that we weren’t in 2014 at all.
The musicians were having fun and the audience was too. A significant number were tourists, but there were locals as well…several of them were friends with the musicians. I was a little concerned beforehand that this would be an artificial tourist production but there really weren’t any concessions. The musicians played what they wanted to play and were even teaching each other some tunes. Nobody came around to pester you about buying more drinks. And then we saw Matt Molloy!
Through my radio work, I had heard of Planxty, the Bothy Band and (especially) The Chieftains. Matt Molloy played the flute for all of them and has been with The Chieftains for 35 years now. The Chieftains are probably the most famous traditional Irish band of all time. As a result, Matt Molloy has played with The Rolling Stones, Sinead O’Connor, Elvis Costello, Sting, Madonna and many others too numerous to mention. They’ve also been nominated for 18 Grammy awards (and won 6 of them).
Molloy could probably make more money from his pub by increasing prices and employing the “hard sell” approach that you see in some other landmark entertainment attractions. However, he seems determined to “keep it real” and still welcome tourists at the same time. There was no cover charge either. In the end, everybody goes home happy and the word continues to spread about this Westport landmark.