Various - Here Is A Health Various

What is this compilation?

Here is a Health is a 40th anniversary re-issue of a double cassette and booklet that came out in 1986.First time on CD and Vinyl! All recordings are made by SEÁN CORCORAN. Re-mastered from the original tapes by Aidan Foley at Master Labs with an updated booklet edited by Rosa Corcoran and new artwork by Denise Conroy at Votive Illustration. The booklet contains extensive liner notes on each song and about the area where it was recorded.

The recordings that make up this wonderful collection are mainly of traditional songs, with a few fiddle-tunes and stories, made in the Derrygonnelly area of West Fermanagh, N. Ireland at various times between 1979–1985, with the assistance of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. They are “field-recordings” (actually mostly kitchen-recordings, with a few pub-recordings and even one bedroom-recording). The performances were recorded in their own natural
context where art and life are not separate. Hence the occasional background sounds of food being prepared, tea-cups rattling, clocks ticking, pots boiling, tractors passing. Singers are usually surrounded by family or friends who comment, encourage, and even help out if memory lapses. The selection of a couple of dozen items from a vast amount of recorded material was quite a difficult process and meant the omission of many fine singers. It is hoped that this may be rectified in a future publication. The intention was to give a general impression of the kind of material to be heard at a typical “house-kayley”, with its mixture of serious and light-hearted songs, stories, jokes and fiddle-tunes.

Political or “party” songs are excluded since their documentation requires a different approach. While highly valued within communities, their importance is socio-political rather than musical, and they form only a small part of the traditional repertoire and are seldom performed at typical gatherings. Another omission is the place-praise song tradition—widely popular and rooted in early Irish poetry—whose texts are often too localised for general audiences. Similarly humorous and satirical songs based on local events and characters are excluded.

In religious terms, the district has a mixed population, and the performers on this tape come from different traditions, though this is of little consequence to the music itself. The song tradition is emphasised here because, although it is widespread and vigorous, it has had a low profile and its processes are often poorly understood. It is a tradition of the hearth—personal and almost secretive—conservative in form yet radical in content, expressing both communal identity and individual creativity. No living culture dies a natural death; it is diminished by social changes driven by
human actions. The oral culture represented here does not sit easily with commercialism, regimentation or bureaucracy. Many performers have passed on their repertoire and skills to younger generations, and it is hoped this recording will support that continuation. This is not music of the past; understanding its processes may reveal insights into the music of the future.

Who is Sean Corcoran?

Seán Corcoran (1946–2021) collected traditional music, song and dance extensively in the field for the Irish Music Archive from 1994 to 2001. Operating on his own initiative, Seán organised and recorded over 70 sessions on audio or video throughout the country, and he has been the main collector for ITMA of field recordings from Northern Ireland. Seán had an extremely varied life in Irish traditional music. A much-admired singer and bouzouki player with an ear for a good song, he was also a collector and researcher, writer and editor, recording artist and lecturer, maker of radio and television programmes, and club and festival organiser. A native of Drogheda, Co. Louth, with a family background in traditional music and trained as a choirboy, he began his traditional singing career in the early 1960s in Carberry’s pub there, which would become the centre for traditional music in the town for decades, and he went on to sing professionally and non-professionally at intervals for the rest of his life.