Time off: Cracker of a craic Traditional Irish music seduces Dave Clare while Sligo's spectacular scenery paints a fitting backdrop

• Published in: The Guardian (London)
• Main Author: Clare, Dave
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 29.05.1997
• Subjects: Folk music; Seminars; Sligo County Ireland
• ISSN: 0261-3077

Cathy kicks off the class with an apology. `I know you were looking forward to a rest from my dronin' auld voice, but you'll have to put up with me for another day. Colm can't get here till Friday. He's baling to finish.' That's a blow. No Colm O'Donnell - in Cathy's own words, `one of the great hidden gems of Irish traditional music'. A man of many talents: wonderful ballad singer, magical story-teller, brilliant flute player, champion sheepdog trainer. Colm's a respected farmer in Sligo's Slieve Gamph, the Ox Mountains. Ah, well, we'll just have to put up with Cathy for an extra day. Some hardship! That's Cathy Jordan, singer and bodhran player with the Sligo band Dervish, rapidly touring and roaring into the Irish trad hierarchy; Cathy Jordan, has the humour and charm to tempt the birds down from the branches. Anybody who can get me to sing or laugh in a classroom at 10am must have something special. And she has. But then all the teachers have something special at the South Sligo Music Summer School in the friendly little town of Tubbercurry: they have the will, the skill and the enthusiasm to impart some of their love for a living tradition that surely has no equal in the modern world.