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0:42

thank you and enjoy the walk. What

0:53

you love? A ferry and here we

0:56

are going from Porter very to strength

0:58

it across strengthen lock in Northern Ireland

1:00

with chile and a bit damp but

1:03

it's so exciting because we're going to

1:05

be to Vancouver True who are from

1:07

this area and who are going to

1:09

sing songs that are absolutely rooted here

1:12

but at the moment I'm just enjoy

1:14

being it see. The

1:37

morning Really nice to see you. Next not

1:40

just tell us exactly where we are.

1:42

so where in restrict Ninety Nine it

1:44

says on the might have Carlingford Lock

1:46

and we're just about to walk into

1:49

forest known as the Fairy Land and

1:51

it's very popular with families common in

1:53

on a Saturday. I used to roll

1:55

my Easter eggs up here as well,

1:57

so am that? Yeah, lots of. I

2:00

just wanted to introduce yourselves. Yeah, so I'm

2:02

Donal. I grew up in the neighbouring town,

2:04

Warren Point, just down the road. Just a

2:06

few months ago, my mum and dad

2:09

told me that when they were moving to this area, Dad's

2:11

from Darien, Mum's from Van Bridge, they were looking at that

2:13

house right there. For whatever reason, it

2:15

didn't work out. Oh, that would have been

2:17

beautiful. I've been looking to stream here. Pretty

2:19

fast though. Yeah. Pretty fast though. No, but

2:21

Warren Point's nice too. And you're Zach? Yes,

2:24

I'm Zach. So unfortunately, I'm not from here.

2:26

I'm from a bit further north just outside

2:28

of Lidsburne. And Michael? Yes, my name's Michael

2:30

Mormica and I come from Lidsburne also.

2:32

Wonderful to meet you here. Thank you.

2:35

Let's go. Let's get walking. And

2:37

your band is called True. What's

2:41

the story behind the name? So

2:43

True comes from a story that I

2:45

heard at a singing session one night.

2:47

Someone asked me if I knew about

2:49

the myth of the True. And

2:51

it's from the Irish words for three

2:54

people, which is True. And the True

2:56

were a band of

2:58

poet musicians who were singing

3:00

for tribes and clans and

3:02

kings and queens in

3:05

medieval and for hundreds

3:07

of years in Ulster. And

3:09

they were revered across the Celtic world. And it

3:11

was actually, they were thought

3:13

to possess access to the other

3:16

world through their songs. And it

3:18

was an unbroken trio. So you would

3:20

have an elder, a younger and

3:22

then someone in between. So when the elder was getting

3:24

to the end of his or her days, he

3:27

would pass on all of the songs and stories to

3:29

the other two so that when he

3:32

thought that then they would get another

3:34

younger and then it would be unbroken

3:36

for, they say it was centuries. What's

3:38

a fantastic name for a trio of

3:40

younger singers here, isn't it? I mean,

3:42

what a wonderful name. Well,

3:44

like I said, I heard it one night at a session. I don't

3:47

know what time it was. It was in between a few songs. Maybe

3:49

people were at the bar and you

3:51

hear these wild things that, you know, staying

3:53

in sessions and concerts and

3:55

things. And just really piqued

3:57

my interest and looked into it a

3:59

bit. more but it's difficult to find other

4:01

stuff about it so maybe it's one of

4:03

those oral culture things that it

4:06

passes around but it sort of takes on a

4:08

life of its own but certainly there's something there

4:10

and it really inspired us. The idea of the

4:12

three and the clues you've got, a big part

4:14

of what we're doing is the three part harmony

4:16

and it's a very simple

4:19

thing you know we've had a minimalist setup but

4:21

inspired very much by the old

4:23

song. And you've got some instruments

4:26

with you. Would you mind giving us

4:28

a song right here by the river? Yeah we could

4:30

do. What are you going to

4:32

sing here? So we thought if

4:34

we're going to come into the fairy gland we

4:36

can maybe sing a fairy song. So

4:39

this is actually one of the big songs

4:41

of Ulster. It's called Urkhi le Kragan and

4:44

it comes from the 18th century,

4:46

a very very well-known poet

4:49

called Art Macui. He was writing in

4:51

kind of South Armagh along the border

4:53

in a region known as

4:55

the Oriel. It was an old kingdom of

4:57

the Oriel and

4:59

a brilliant singer musician called

5:01

Poggi-Nulhann has done some amazing

5:03

really really inspiring research and

5:05

a book called Hidden Ulster

5:08

and we took inspiration from her work

5:10

and sort of uncovered the song and

5:12

actually a few years ago I heard

5:15

a recording from 1966 of my 17 year old uncle Colin

5:20

Fitzpatrick singing this song. That must have

5:22

been amazing. Yeah it was so

5:25

strange but also all my auntie's uncles were singing

5:27

when my mum was 12 she

5:29

sang a wee song in Irish and

5:32

yeah bizarre but I suppose the

5:34

song has survived for centuries and it'll survive

5:36

another few generations too. What's it about? It's

5:39

about a poet who wakes up

5:41

drunk in a graveyard and

5:43

as the morning dawns

5:46

he dazzles but he opens

5:48

his eyes and sees not just

5:50

the sunlight but a beautiful maid And

5:53

she is coming with the dawn to greet him and

5:55

he knows who it is. It is the Sparavan. It's

5:57

a visitation from the other world. This is an Ashling.

6:00

Yeah sling is a very old

6:02

former would have been a very

6:04

powerful for the poor t and

6:06

and co op to hang into

6:08

this tradition of the asking which

6:10

means translates as a dream revision.

6:12

So I'm a poet asked to

6:15

be taken away into the other

6:17

worlds either the beautiful halls with

6:19

a beautiful music in the spiritual

6:21

around what's the time ago because

6:23

he has humans and he is

6:25

destined to be mortal so our

6:27

heroes over his graham nice oh

6:29

wow. Ah for that.

6:31

Perfect for the ferry glen movement.

6:34

the I could have up a.

6:42

Were hurt.

6:45

Her and or. Hundred

6:49

and Air B.

6:55

C. Ah,

7:48

Ha! Ha!

7:52

Ha ha ha. Ha!

7:58

ha he

8:31

loves racket

8:34

he gets welcome

9:00

He

9:05

is

9:20

a beautiful, so

9:23

atmospheric, so gorgeous to hear you singing

9:25

in that way Is that

9:28

typical of the way you think about songs? Really

9:31

you strip them back to the

9:33

bare bones and let the melody sing through?

9:37

With any folk song there is a reason it

9:39

has survived and I think that melody is just

9:42

mesmerizing and we noticed pretty early on when

9:45

we started playing it it

9:47

has an effect on us and

9:49

I think like any good song it

9:51

will have an effect on an audience but we

9:53

are the first audience in a sense so that

9:55

is a special one other songs we

9:58

might treat a bit differently always

10:00

deserve to be on its

10:03

own almost. Simple and moving

10:05

I think just incredibly moving to hear you sing it

10:07

here right by the river and people

10:09

were walking past while you were doing

10:11

it and listening to the children who just

10:13

came past were hearing it in the air

10:15

so it was a wonderful experience thank you

10:17

thank you I'm guessing that this river goes

10:20

down to the sea quite closely

10:22

here could

10:24

we could we walk down to the sea do you think? and

10:29

while we're heading for the sea just

10:31

looking back I can see the

10:34

wooded mountain there what is that mountain

10:36

that's going up behind us? Well that

10:38

is where the mooring mountains begin so

10:40

we might take a wee downer up there

10:42

later on but the mountains stretch to the

10:44

north and actually when we go

10:46

down to the sea we'll have a beautiful view of

10:49

the Cooley Mountains which are in County Louth and

10:51

so I grew up overlooking Carlingford Lock

10:53

which is an estuary that comes

10:56

in and it is the border so that's where

10:58

the boundary was drawn in the early 20th century

11:01

and you've got these two mountains rising out of

11:03

the sea and for whatever

11:05

reason they're different countries and

11:08

there's some legends and lore that

11:10

are circulating in the air around

11:12

here as well no we'll talk more about those

11:14

in a minute but what about the legends of

11:16

the fairy Glen because we're in the fairy Glen

11:18

now so what sort of fairies

11:20

should we expect? Well

11:23

I don't know what you might find

11:25

in the fairy Glen thing with all

11:27

across Ireland I think it's more the

11:29

landscape that attracts these sort of mystical

11:32

ideas like we're walking by

11:34

this beautiful bubbling

11:36

river and that's a foot of the mountain so

11:38

it's hard not to think of

11:40

other things and be inspired by those ideas

11:42

and the idea that there's some kind of

11:44

magic in the air is quite a powerful

11:47

thought isn't it? I think

11:49

these areas they're so rich And

11:52

nature almost dominates. You know,

11:54

the non-human natural world dominates.

11:56

and I Think that's where.

12:00

These stories come in this almost like

12:02

they're trying to keep keep it away

12:04

from humans and and see the were

12:06

from humans. A little vet and so

12:08

yeah some the long severe he fired

12:10

and maybe to the me to ferry

12:12

and I am. I think that there

12:14

actually is a local that something to

12:17

say Thera and they are my rhinos.

12:19

Yeah they don't actually exist. there's only

12:21

in the ferryman. Of

12:23

keep an eye on assembly will he

12:25

go gather though he signed with the

12:27

morning while. Ago

12:31

the hook up with. Your.

12:37

Own affairs, my income know

12:39

how I. Will

12:42

say his. Mom

12:45

Okay, With

12:49

his heart is. Not the

12:51

same. Way.

12:58

Or just sort of. It varies here to my. Birth or it's.

13:04

Ah, Him

13:06

on. My home. With

13:09

an old friend of yours Michael Eisner plan

13:11

involved with Honey years ago on one was

13:13

nearing from of the horses weekends on Syrian

13:15

Army reserve as on the death engineering and

13:18

some the local bars. so for just the

13:20

my dining just him in the mind is

13:22

more is one of the things you come

13:24

to the most. Him you a set of

13:26

yeah yeah the faried Nine Hundred and Muffin

13:28

or on. The right

13:30

that song and find it in a reminder.

13:33

It's very will Strike. Who.

13:41

Who's gonna be the had to be?

13:43

Don't think that some people in the.

13:46

Square. Just by the river here. To

13:49

see the song. Consider

13:51

some for these people who dislikes help.

14:00

I thank you

14:02

Almighty. I

14:07

thank you, O dear. I

14:12

thank you, O dear. You

14:17

may come here. I walk alone.

14:23

Walk with me. O

14:30

dear Almighty. I

14:35

walk alone. I

14:39

walk alone. I

14:42

walk alone. O

14:46

Almighty.

15:04

Now we've got the drums out, Michael. Here we

15:06

go. Yeah, and the brushes. Yeah, the broomsticks. Yeah,

15:09

what are they made of? They're dried corn. You've

15:12

played the drums with dried corn. Yeah, and you can

15:14

buy these from a company for 30 bucks, but I

15:16

just bought a broom for a tanner and made four

15:18

pairs. So there you go. Very practical. So

15:22

we're on a pier now, coming out into this sea

15:24

lock, and

15:26

there are two yachts out of the water on the

15:28

end of the pier, and this view is just spreading

15:30

around us now, the

15:33

mountains with mist, lowering

15:35

over the top of the mountains. Donald,

15:37

do you want to tell us where we are and what we can see?

15:40

Yeah, so we are looking

15:43

directly south at the

15:45

Cooley Mountains. That's Le Foy. That's

15:47

in County Lyle, the Republic of Ireland, and this

15:50

body of water here is the border. So

15:53

this is where the border was drawn. So if you look from east

15:55

to west here, you can see there, those houses there, that's

15:58

over There. Me

16:00

a little village called me sometimes you

16:02

life and that building on the right,

16:04

the white building us. Warm point. that's

16:06

where I'm from. Uneasy. They're very rare,

16:08

almost a stone's throw, but it's called

16:10

narrow water. And there's

16:12

think it's her sixteenth century keep.

16:15

If. He. Were to seal up.

16:17

lasted me to keep on a narrower

16:19

A castle is just at the entrance

16:21

to one point as you go up

16:23

to nary. oh yeah quite stunning as

16:26

they said. he takes a lovely expensive

16:28

water with a couple of yachts writing

16:30

an anchor there and then doesn't Tree

16:32

lined hill on the left here. did

16:34

you ever get used to this when

16:36

you're going around here? Did you get

16:38

used to this is a Harley saw

16:41

cause as like I last one point

16:43

to when was eighteen and remember come

16:45

from university and oh. Seeing a for

16:47

the very first time when I was like

16:49

he a team does look another be like

16:51

oh my God is very real in only

16:53

take sometimes it takes up at a distance

16:55

of the desert a main road behind to

16:57

say which you might hear that a bit

16:59

of. This is a great place for a

17:02

song and as he got your flutes you

17:04

got the guitar, we got the drums. What

17:06

are you going to sing Yeah So this

17:08

is one of the songs on our our

17:10

new album attorney Near and we were inspired

17:12

by the mythology of this coastline but not

17:14

only that north coast of Ireland. Western

17:16

coast of Scotland all the way up

17:18

to Norway and Iceland is a creature

17:21

in the mythology that is half seal,

17:23

half human. The sulky on the south

17:25

he comes up from the water, looks

17:27

like a ceiling, you're looking dying but

17:29

then stats on salon and mingles with

17:32

humans only to put a cloak on

17:34

and jump back into the water and

17:36

disappear wagon. But there's actually folklore and

17:38

we added a bit of research in

17:40

the City Folk Law Commission done in

17:43

Dublin that people can plan or the

17:45

Kings or an Irish. the cohens they

17:47

are a family or clan connected to

17:49

the south the people and for centuries

17:51

believed that they were fc se on

17:53

this a bit of a tragedy in

17:56

this song as well as in the

17:58

yeah well this is based on an

18:00

18th century Scottish song called The

18:02

Great Silky of Sulu Scarry. So

18:05

we were inspired by the song, usually

18:07

sung as a sort of slow

18:09

ballad with lots and lots

18:11

of verses. The version we find was in

18:13

the Scots language. So we wanted

18:16

to update it. So we wrote some new

18:18

verses and yeah, through

18:20

our own spin on it. So it was a

18:22

bit of a tragedy in there. You'll hear it

18:24

in the song, but it's to do with

18:26

the tradition of the seal hunters, which

18:28

was very, very big in the 18th

18:31

century. So the gunners or the

18:33

hunters would hunt the seals. But

18:35

unfortunately, in this song, there's a bit

18:38

of a mix up. Mistaken identity.

18:41

Mistaken identity. Yes, that's all we've got to watch out

18:43

for. Oh,

18:59

yeah. Singing

19:01

a silky song.

19:11

Shadow rose from right

19:13

to see critterling

19:16

a newborn search of

19:18

the lake. The nurse love

19:20

lived for seven years.

19:23

When he returned, his moment

19:26

he came. This week let

19:30

night go. A

19:32

local girl recognized her.

19:36

A rhino designing

19:39

For a whereas,

20:03

my daughter, I

20:08

had, a

20:11

girl, I

20:13

was wavered with autumn,

20:16

and my daughter's apron, I ate and we're there, a

20:19

takeover I a little more

20:22

often, and the POE

20:24

from hell is run... if

20:26

it gets too close, it's not time but it

20:28

here, it's hard

20:31

to Arena FDA

20:41

the all

20:52

those loved is

20:57

s. whoo

21:28

yeah that's amazing that's

21:30

a very good example

21:33

of you guys taking

21:35

a very traditional song but putting your own stamp

21:38

on it both lyrically and musically absolutely yeah

21:40

well bizarre sort of silky mist mixed with

21:42

that it cross doesn't matter and you have

21:44

a kind of bunch of influences that are

21:46

quite surprising then you I mean I think

21:49

the Beatles have been mentioned in the yeah

21:51

we all love the Beatles Mike

21:53

and I Mike was my neighbor and we were growing up

21:55

and we grew up playing on in a lot of different

21:58

bands together and singing a lot

22:00

of different types of music and

22:02

then I met Donald singing folk songs

22:04

and singing in choirs and things like

22:06

that and so we came together it

22:08

was just a mix of all those influences so yeah

22:11

The Beatles Crosby, Stills and Nash, Joni

22:13

Mitchell and then all the folk and

22:15

traditional music and things like that. What sort of bands

22:17

were you and Michael in? Lied

22:19

Rock bands and a lot of

22:22

rest. Having that, we were rocking all over the country. We

22:24

wouldn't think it really just to look at

22:26

you now, to hear you now but you

22:29

were really into that kind of much more

22:31

noisy music. Yeah but afterwards with True, first

22:33

of all we made it harmony but then

22:35

the influence of more alternative music and then

22:37

doing some of these you

22:39

know 300, 400 year old songs with electric

22:41

guitar and experimenting with strange

22:44

effects and textures but always letting the

22:46

songs live at the front of that and

22:49

supporting it with new

22:51

ideas. Are there other famous musicians from

22:53

this area? Yeah absolutely yeah we're

22:55

just as we're on the waterfront here there's a

22:57

house over there as you walk up into Kilbronie

22:59

Park which is where we're gonna go up to

23:01

the Clapmore Stone up the mountain. Tommy and Colin

23:03

Sands live in there and they have a studio

23:06

and some of your listeners might know the Sands family who

23:08

were you know making music in the 1670s and I think

23:12

they're still touring Germany but yeah Tommy

23:15

gifted us a fantastic song called County

23:17

Down which we recorded on our first

23:19

album and actually that was our very

23:21

first song that we did, the very

23:23

first song we learned. We went up

23:26

to Derry to studio with a great

23:28

jazz drummer and producer called David Little just

23:31

to work out sort of the true sound

23:33

for the very first time so that

23:35

was Tommy Sands sort of supporting us

23:37

with that song and thankfully it works out we do

23:39

it at every gig we do and it's a really

23:41

powerful one. Could you give us a blast of it?

23:44

Yeah. When you're

23:47

right walking and

23:49

there's no one near you

23:53

but a voice keeps calling

23:56

and you hear your near It's

24:00

not the leaves or

24:04

the spring or even

24:08

It's me that's calling

24:10

you back again

24:15

Oh, can you hear

24:17

me? Oh, can you

24:20

hear me? As

24:23

you roam through

24:26

lonely London When

24:30

evening's falling, you'll be

24:35

calm Oh

24:38

Lord, oh,

24:44

do you

24:46

remember the

24:48

fiddlers playing

24:52

And the songs and

24:54

stories the whole night

24:57

long Little,

24:59

little, then you

25:02

can be

25:07

Strange night of

25:10

evening Oh,

25:14

can you hear me?

25:17

Oh, can you hear

25:19

me? As

25:22

you roam through lonely

25:25

London Oh,

25:33

can you hear me?

25:36

Oh, can you hear me? Come

25:43

on home to

25:46

the sky Come

25:52

on, Tommy So

25:56

now we're up the mountain. Which

25:59

mountain? Where have we come? Yeah,

26:01

so we've come in past Kilbronie Park on

26:03

the Strava and we're up at the

26:05

top car park and we've got a wee jaunt

26:08

pretty steep now, must say a wee steep

26:10

jaunt up to Cloughmore. So,

26:12

Steve Martin's just up the top of this and it's

26:14

a beautiful view down on the lock itself. There's already

26:16

a view starting there and I can just see some

26:19

smoke rising as well there from a

26:22

fire, yeah, down below. And we're

26:24

surrounded by conifers now, aren't we? Yeah, it's

26:26

beautiful, really, really beautiful here. But this, I

26:29

have very strong memories. I used to play

26:31

a lot of Gaelic football and do a

26:33

lot of hard training sessions with down miners

26:35

and with my school, St Colman's and Nury.

26:38

And so we would run up from where we just drove.

26:40

What from the bottom there? We'd run up through the mountain

26:42

and then we'd get up to this point and we had

26:44

to sprint what we're just about to walk.

26:46

We'd just sprint all the way up to Cloughmore and you

26:48

didn't want to be last, so it was a hard one.

26:50

Okay, let's try it. Yeah. Let's

26:53

give it a go. I've got my trainers

26:56

on. So

26:59

we've heard a lot from Donal. I think we should hear from

27:01

you as well, Zach. So I grew

27:03

up just outside Lidsburne, which

27:06

is just outside Belfast, really. And

27:09

I came to music. I had piano

27:11

lessons as a child that was never

27:13

really into it. And

27:16

then it was rock music, was my first love in

27:20

terms of music, so that's where the guitar started.

27:23

Did you pick up the electric guitar or the acoustic guitar?

27:25

Well, my dad had an acoustic guitar. You

27:27

know, sitting in the house and he would have a

27:29

few chords. So I could strum

27:31

a bit of that, but that was when the

27:33

electric guitar. That's where it all

27:36

really kicked off for me. And then in school, as a

27:39

teenager, I was just playing in loads of bands. Were

27:42

we aware of traditional music being around you?

27:45

My dad had a few albums, but

27:47

it wasn't something that was massive. Traditional

27:50

music didn't really come in to my world until

27:53

I started singing in a group down in Dublin,

27:56

which is where I'm at, Donal. And this

27:58

group is the first sort of... encounter

28:00

as well with singing in Irish and

28:02

the Irish language as well, which wasn't

28:04

really part of my upbringing. So

28:07

did you have to learn the Irish language? Yeah, uh-huh.

28:10

That's been a great journey for me. And what impact did

28:12

it have on you? Why did you feel

28:14

drawn to it at that time, coming out of a rock

28:16

background? I think it was

28:18

just the stories, songs and stories about

28:21

where I'm from and the things that are going on where

28:24

I live. So just fell in love

28:26

with it that way. Then me and Donal, we

28:28

started, when we were touring with

28:30

this group, we started experimenting, arranging the

28:32

songs and singing together. And

28:35

I was already singing and playing with Mike. And

28:38

so we had the idea of sort of bringing

28:40

the two worlds together. And was

28:42

there any kind of reaction from the people that

28:44

you'd, the kind of scene that you'd been in

28:46

before? Just wondering whether it was fashionable

28:48

or not fashionable to get involved in traditional music,

28:50

coming out of rock music. You know, I wonder

28:53

if other people of your age would think, what

28:55

the hell are you doing? Well,

28:58

definitely there was a few people who perhaps,

29:01

yeah, didn't understand, you know, why

29:03

are you singing in this different

29:05

language? Or things like

29:07

that. But to be honest, I haven't really,

29:09

I've never really taken much

29:12

notice of that. Yeah, I just

29:14

follow my nose in terms of whatever feels

29:17

right and natural in myself.

29:20

And when we started recording

29:23

and singing together, it felt, it

29:26

just came so naturally and

29:28

felt great. So

29:31

kept doing it. And so the first album,

29:33

No Fix The Boat, the main

29:35

themes of that place. So

29:39

we started digging into the local

29:41

songs from our areas where

29:43

we all grew up. So we

29:46

arranged songs from around here, Nuri

29:48

and the Mourn area, and then

29:50

where I'm from, County Antrim. And

29:52

so that gave us a real sort of theme for the

29:54

first album, which was a great process. I

29:56

think we first got in touch with these, isn't it? I

29:59

think there was a sense of... that what you

30:01

were doing trying with what we were doing on folk

30:03

on foot. It's been a bit of

30:05

a long gestation period but you

30:08

were aware of the sense of place. Exactly, yeah. A

30:10

bit of make for a comfort so... That's

30:12

how I feel. This

30:14

is exactly what we're

30:16

into. The sense of location

30:19

and place that these songs can give us.

30:22

I still want to point out that if I am

30:25

a little bit out of breath, because it is getting

30:27

a bit steeper. Oh me too. I'm

30:29

not saying obviously. Absolutely, getting a train

30:31

and then... So

30:34

the climb is getting

30:36

higher and I can imagine there's going

30:38

to be a spectacular view at the

30:41

top here. But

30:43

Michael can we bring you into this conversation a

30:45

bit? Sure, sure. I believe you

30:48

have some Ukrainian heritage. That's right, yeah.

30:51

Grandad came over and landed in England after

30:54

the war in about 1948.

30:57

Second World War. Second World War after

30:59

having been taken

31:01

from Ukraine by the Nazis

31:04

for forced labour. So he worked

31:07

in Austria and ended up

31:09

in England as a

31:11

refugee in 1948. Fell

31:14

in love with a Scots lash

31:16

and that was Granny and then we

31:19

had two sons, one of which ended up as

31:21

a British soldier patrolling the streets

31:23

of Belfast in the 70s and that's where Dad

31:26

met Mum. That was the

31:28

start of our family. What a story. Yeah, yeah.

31:30

What effect does it have on you having that

31:32

knowledge? It's always been an

31:35

interest in trying to connect

31:38

or know what part of your

31:40

heritage to connect to and not really appreciating

31:42

it until getting

31:45

a bit older and realising what

31:47

it actually means to have

31:50

blood from Eastern Europe and being

31:53

able to have a sense of pride

31:55

of different parts of blood and family.

31:57

Yeah, I'm guessing that the

31:59

recent event... in Ukraine and had a big impact on

32:01

you then? Yeah well we still

32:03

have some family and friends out there and a

32:06

couple of friends and I took two

32:08

trips out there in 1921 to deliver some humanitarian

32:15

aid and that was the first time

32:17

visiting Ukraine. So the first time you'd

32:19

ever been there? Yeah. What

32:22

was that experience like? It was

32:24

amazing I mean it was unfortunate

32:26

circumstance such a trip.

32:30

I'm the first one in our family to return there

32:32

so really sort of felt granddad's

32:35

blood crossing over the border and returning to

32:37

the country after he'd been taken when he

32:39

was 18. So it was... And where did

32:41

you guys get in Ukraine? A

32:43

place called Trinity in the southwest

32:46

so relatively safe at that time

32:48

so it was we were only going to go

32:50

to Romania and leave our aid

32:52

stuff there but I felt safe

32:55

enough to nip over the border. And did you

32:57

meet relatives there? Yeah yeah we did yeah. That

32:59

must have been very strange to meet people with

33:01

whom you have a big connection but you've never met

33:03

before. Yeah it was powerful yeah and it's

33:07

always been a worst was it when 2520 kicked in

33:09

a lot of people hadn't maybe

33:12

heard of Ukraine or knew what it was or but

33:14

all of a sudden it was in everyone's mind

33:17

but it had always been on ours

33:19

and the family so yeah it

33:22

just sort of embedded even the more sense of

33:24

the hero and warden where

33:26

my family came from. Has it had any

33:28

musical influence on you having that heritage? It's

33:33

hard that there's no other musicians in the family as

33:35

such but you know lots

33:37

of creativity but not

33:40

long after that actually we

33:42

through tackled a Ukrainian folk song and

33:44

we have a friend in Belfast

33:47

who helped us translate a verse

33:49

or two and we kept a couple of verses

33:51

in Ukrainian and you know that was very special and

33:53

released that as a fundraising he's a

33:55

track of awareness for the time so that was

33:57

really it's really beautiful it's called plain academy. a

34:01

story about a son and

34:03

a mother partying during the war but I

34:05

suppose it could speak of the

34:08

country partying you know because it's had

34:10

a turbulent history but that especially that

34:12

corner where Grandad was from at one

34:14

point it was part of Romania and

34:16

part of Poland and Soviet Union. And

34:18

what about your father being a

34:21

British soldier in Belfast?

34:23

Again that's a controversial bit

34:26

of history isn't it? Yeah it is indeed

34:28

yeah and again the

34:30

more time goes on and only now 50 or so

34:32

years later

34:35

having the perspective on how I sort

34:38

of dealt with the thought of that

34:40

but you know he was

34:42

only I think 20 at the time as

34:44

well and walking around Belfast

34:46

you know patrolling the streets. Does

34:49

he share memories with you about those times? Yeah

34:51

a little yeah but yeah

34:54

I suppose it was a good job that he

34:56

fancied the girl giving it flowers for her church

34:58

you know or else we wouldn't be having this

35:00

conversation right now. And

35:02

I suppose you guys are of the

35:04

age where you are the sort of

35:07

children of the Good Friday agreement aren't you?

35:09

Yeah well you know I just remember still

35:12

you know being a kid and seeing soldiers

35:14

on the street with guns and

35:16

road blockades and checkpoints so I'm actually

35:19

really glad of that because I can

35:21

still appreciate what it was

35:23

even for the generation above us to

35:25

what they grew up even more

35:27

of that you know and hearing a bomb

35:29

or two in your day and of course

35:31

the Ummah bomb and you know being old

35:33

enough to know what that meant

35:36

but yeah and

35:38

as Zach said we grew up

35:40

in Lisbourn just outside Belfast and

35:43

especially I grew up in a

35:45

housing estate that was staunchly loyalist

35:48

and never heard of trad or

35:50

these songs so true as well

35:52

as being a gateway you know

35:54

only in my thirties to have

35:57

that door and opportunity open. amazing

36:00

journey and reconnected me with parts

36:03

of Irish heritage and stuff to be proud

36:05

of and now it's a never-ending fountain of

36:08

songs to explore that you know that

36:10

we're getting our way through. So it's

36:13

interesting what you're saying because it sounds like

36:15

one of the songs that I've heard you sing

36:18

and I wonder don't know if you can just tell us about that and

36:20

maybe standing here with this amazing

36:22

backdrop of the mountains and the mist and

36:24

the water I wonder if you

36:27

could you could sing the song as well.

36:29

Yeah well just behind us here we look down

36:31

on Carlingford Lock and this is the border

36:33

this is actually the southeastern

36:35

Leemos point of Northern Ireland so if

36:37

you look across there those

36:39

mountains that's the Cooley's that's County Live the

36:41

Republic of Ireland and we're standing here in

36:43

the north and there's a

36:46

particular song that we put on our first album

36:48

we actually got a chance to sing it in the

36:50

Ulster Hall at the ceremony for the Northern Ireland music

36:52

prize when we were nominated for best album but it was

36:55

a special moment for us but it's a

36:57

very typical folk song because

36:59

this melody actually dates back to

37:01

maybe 18th century it's known as

37:04

either the Merry Month of May or the Nightingale so

37:06

it has two names but in the 1950s a very

37:09

famous Irish artist called

37:11

Dominic Behan a writer

37:14

poet a singer he wrote a song which

37:16

is very very well known a Republican

37:18

song called the Patriot Game. The

37:21

Clancy brothers took that they were friends of

37:23

Behan they went over Concord America

37:25

went to Carnegie Hall sang this song

37:28

and the wee lad called Bob Dylan heard

37:30

it and he loved it but he did

37:33

his own thing with it and he wrote a song called

37:35

God on our Side which was a sort

37:37

of a protest song anti-war against the

37:39

Vietnam but the melody is

37:41

the same and goes back a century

37:43

so we wanted to do

37:46

something and obviously what's happening in the

37:48

last decade here is really changing the

37:50

culture and with Brexit it has changed

37:53

a lot it caused a lot of

37:55

cultural conflict which obviously was there but

37:58

it's putting another spanner in the works It's

38:00

coming back to the surface. Yeah, very

38:03

much. I was already pretty close to

38:05

the surface. So

38:07

we just wanted to write a song. What

38:10

can a song do? But sometimes a

38:13

song is all you have. So we wanted to

38:15

write our own. And this is our version. We

38:18

called it Rebel Song. Oh,

38:26

my name is nothing. My id and means less. The

38:34

courage of your income

38:37

is called all distress. The

38:41

name is discreet. It

38:44

depends when you've cried. While

38:47

the smoke at the border

38:50

blows on the

38:52

wall. On

39:00

all these young rebels this

39:04

ivy lost. A

39:07

beauty born terrible and

39:11

war-swung the cause. Looking

39:14

up at the stars.

39:17

Did I see a sign? Laying

39:21

there in the graveyard

39:24

with God on

39:26

their side. Laying

39:29

there in the graveyard

39:32

with God on their

39:34

side. With

39:39

the speed of

39:41

the sea. We

39:48

are caught

39:52

in the

39:55

patriot king.

40:08

By the rivers and

40:11

shocks, where the singing

40:13

birds flew, frontier

40:17

is creeping into

40:20

a room, and

40:23

soon will be the soul of

40:26

our friends. And

40:30

the people will fight

40:33

in the status-conveyor. Yes,

40:37

the people will fight in

40:41

the status-conveyor. With

40:48

the speed

40:51

of the free, we

40:56

are caught

41:00

in the

41:03

patriot gaze.

41:09

We are

41:12

caught in

41:15

the patriot

41:19

gaze. We

41:24

are caught

41:27

in the

41:31

patriot gaze.

41:37

We are caught in the patriot gaze. So

41:52

beautiful, the harmonies that you put into that

41:54

song, and such evocative language. The

41:58

image that you have of... people lying

42:00

in the graveyard with God on their side

42:03

is such a powerful lyric.

42:06

Yeah and the folk tradition has all

42:08

these lyrics in there and if you're

42:10

dealing with words in there there's a

42:12

W.E.B. Yeats line in there as well

42:14

from an Easter 1916, a very very

42:18

evocative poem and it's

42:20

just a matter of seeing and hearing these

42:22

words and I suppose they're

42:24

in the tradition so we feel it's

42:26

okay to borrow lines

42:28

and then actually

42:30

try and use them to express ourselves

42:32

and to express what's happening now because

42:35

I think folk songs, folk music, it's

42:37

not about the past, it's about what's happening

42:39

now. Now I see over

42:41

to my left here that there's a great big

42:43

boulder on top of the mountain, can we walk

42:45

up there and see what that is? So

42:52

here we are at

42:54

the top of the mountain and there's a huge

42:57

boulder here, how did that get here? Well it's

42:59

a 50 ton granite stone and

43:01

they call it clockmore, a big stone, there's a

43:04

few people up here, it's kind of a bit

43:06

of a ritual, local people walk up here and

43:08

it looks right over the

43:10

lock. And the view, I mean just

43:12

to be clear the view goes all the way around

43:14

us now and you can see the sort of patchwork

43:16

of the fields below and the hills over the other

43:19

side, it's very green isn't it from here and then

43:21

the conifers rising up behind us and then the lock

43:23

over to that side. Yeah and behind us here

43:26

you can look and that's Carlingford, the little

43:28

beautiful little village down over there and the

43:30

story goes that this stone

43:32

was thrown here by a giant, Fjallmakul

43:35

is a very prolific giant in

43:37

the mythology of Ulster and

43:39

he was in a fight with

43:41

Ruskirah, the giant of winter and

43:43

ice so obviously Fjallmakul beat him

43:45

and this is a stone that did it. He

43:48

cracked Ruskirah in the skull and he fell over and

43:50

died. Yeah I can see how it would, it's big

43:52

isn't it? It's absolutely

43:54

big and a lot of people seem to have carved their names

43:56

into it as well, you can see where people have left all

43:58

graffiti here. didn't. But

44:00

what a spot for a song

44:03

and this is a song that's been recorded

44:05

by loads of different people it's one of

44:08

my all-time favorite songs so I'm so glad

44:10

you're gonna sing it and this is Wild

44:12

Mountain Time and why did you decide you

44:14

wanted to put your stamp on on that?

44:16

Well as you said it's an absolute classic

44:18

that's sung the world over but

44:21

I think it was actually at Donal's

44:24

wedding and it was a bit of a session and

44:26

we're all singing Wild Mountain Time Broke Out and

44:29

then for some reason and it just occurred to me why haven't we

44:31

done this with True? So

44:34

then we kind of looked into the history of it and there's sort of a debate

44:37

on the origin of it is it an Irish song

44:39

is it a Scottish song but

44:41

as we understand it's based on

44:43

the poem of called The Braid

44:45

of Belquither by Robert Tannehill he

44:48

wrote that in the 1770s in

44:50

Scotland but it's made its way

44:52

over to Ireland in various

44:54

forms and various guises. So

44:56

you're claiming it are you? I think

45:00

the McPeeks, the McPeeks, the Belfast

45:02

family in the 50s and 60s

45:04

they managed to get their stamp on it and

45:06

it's I think it's their song now so it's

45:09

a Belfast song now no longer Scottish. Yeah I'm

45:11

sure there'll be one or two people who might

45:13

get in touch with us. I

45:16

can take issue with that. Call us

45:18

now. Email info at folkonfoot.com if you

45:20

take a different view. Absolutely. So it's

45:22

great to play it up here with

45:25

all the Heather. The

45:27

Heather is absolutely gorgeous because it's not just

45:29

purple is it actually it's kind of russet

45:31

colours as well around us so it's a

45:33

perfect place to sing this. Will

46:03

you go, Lassie

46:05

blue? And

46:08

we'll all go

46:11

together To

46:14

black, wild, mining

46:17

time From

46:20

Mariah to Blue,

46:22

and ever I

46:26

will build my love

46:28

and heart Need

46:31

your dear

46:33

crystal-fire And

46:37

not I will

46:39

leave All

46:43

the flowers of the

46:45

mining Will

46:48

you go, Lassie

46:51

blue? And

46:54

we'll all go

46:56

together To

46:59

black, wild, mining time

47:04

From Mariah to

47:07

Blue, and ever Will

47:09

you go, Lassie

47:14

blue? And

47:37

if my true love

47:39

won't be Then

47:43

I'm sure to find a

47:45

love Black,

47:49

wild, mining time

47:53

From Mariah to

47:55

Blue, and ever

48:00

I see

48:02

you go and

48:05

we'll all go

48:08

together Just

48:10

like a wild

48:13

mine to hide from

48:16

where I've been And

48:19

where will you

48:22

go? I

48:26

see where

48:28

you go There

48:54

could be no better place to hear that

48:56

song than here in the mountains surrounded by

48:58

Heather And with the mist just

49:01

coming down in the valley there across

49:03

the conifers Thank you so much

49:05

Michael, Zach, Donal, it's been a joy to

49:07

walk with you today Thank

49:10

you very much indeed This has been

49:12

true ladies and gentlemen Thank you We

49:31

really hope you enjoyed this episode as

49:33

much as we enjoyed making it And

49:35

if you'd like us to go on

49:38

making more of these podcasts, please support

49:40

us by making a contribution through Patreon

49:43

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49:45

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49:47

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49:50

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49:52

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49:55

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49:57

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50:00

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