Johnny Óg Connolly, melodeon, playing 5 tunes collected by Séamus Ennis in Conamara from Darach Ó Clochartaigh (2) and Colm Ó Caodháin (3)

Colm Ó Caodháin 

(Colm Mháirtín Thomáis) (1873-1975) was from Glinsce, between An Caiseal and Carna. He received little formal education and was a fisherman and farmer. Of all the people from whom Séamus Ennis collected songs, music and lore, Colm was his favourite. Colm was also a dancer and composed songs. He was full of fun and had his own personal philosophy of life. He would visit the well on Cnoc an Chaisil in search of peace of mind if anything troubled him. He lost the dole because of scallop fishing. He gave his songs to his family and his daughter, Mary, recalled learning songs from him. His brother John died at a young age in Glasgow and another brother Tomás (1910-1934) died at home. It seems Ennis tried to arrange for Colm to go to the Oireachtas but he did not go.

From his very first meeting with Colm Ó Caodháin or Colm an Bhlácaigh as he was also known, Ennis recognised that he had met with an amazing informant. When this the collector wrote:  ‘Colm an Bhlácaigh was expecting us, as Maidhcilín had sent him a message. We brought our musical instruments along. We were made very welcome and we played music, danced and sang. Colm sang songs and lilted tunes and danced as well. An individual dance is called a ‘breakdown’ in Conamara. We spent the evening egging Colm on.’ And the following day, he realised what a discovery had been made. He wrote on 26 May 1943: ‘I spent the afternoon and the evening (a wet day) with Colm an Bhlácaigh [Ó Caodháin] and I wrote down a considerable number of old tunes. He asked me to come again tomorrow.’

As they became better  acquainted, the collector was able to write, on 26 June, 1943: ‘He [Colm] made me very welcome and was delighted to see me again. I spent a long time talking to him. I wrote material down from him while he was cutting turf.’ At the end of that particular collecting trip he further underlined the closeness that had come about, writing on 4 August 1943: ‘I was very lonely leaving Colm and he was lonely as well, because we are very friendly with each other. Colm is a man who is rough and hearty in his ways, but he could sit in company at a grand feast, say in the President’s residence without embarrassment or fear of embarrassing anyone with him, he is so courteous. He can make clever conversation on any topic, I was sad leaving him and I look forward no end to seeing him again.’ Ennis also discovered that Colm had all kinds of material and this emerges in the diary entry for 19 May 1944 when Colm ‘started to describe his own work since Christmas – planting, seafaring, gathering scallops and decorating the house, building walls, making a quern for grinding among other things.’

On occasion, Ennis had the use of an Ediphone machine on which he recorded Colm. The collector wrote of Colm’s reaction to it on 12. June 1944: ‘Colm was initially very frightened by the Ediphone and for a long time he would not place it correctly to his mouth and would not speak properly into it. He spoke a few pieces that were very poorly recorded. At last, he placed it on his chin and when he was about to speak he asked me what he should say…. He started then in a single flow of speech and he said:  “I wonder if I put it under my chin like this would it not produce a better sound? I do not like the sound that comes from it – it seems to me to be very deafening and so on.” We recorded a few songs and a few items of lore on it before bedtime. Colm had great sport listening to his own voice coming again singing the songs and saying the pieces.’

Collectors with the Irish Folklore Commission often helped informants with official letters, forms and other matters. Ennis wrote that he helped Colm in relation to unemployment assistance on 2 June 1945. He wrote that Colm ‘ wanted me to write a letter to the people in charge of the dole in Galway – they do not believe that scallop fishing has finished. When I had written it on his behalf, I started reading and correcting his text with him and had completed almost forty pages of it by eleven o’clock, and we decided to visit to Inis Ní tomorrow, please God, if it is a fine day.’ Ennis often visited Colm to ensure that he had written what Colm said correctly and to ask any questions he might have for Colm. Ennis was seen almost to be part of the family and was sure of a great welcome when he visited. Ennis wrote once when he arrived at Colm’s house on 26 April 1945: ‘”May there not be more straws on the house than the number of welcomes for you!”’ said Colm’s mother.’ Colm’s endless store of material was highlighted by Ennis when he wrote about Colm at the end of his collecting trip on 1 August 1945: ‘Although I can say that I have finished working with him, I could never pay him a visit that he would not have thought of something new for me to write.’

Darach Ó Clochartaigh  

(Dudley Cloherty) lived in Portach Mhaínse, Carna, where he was born and grew up. His father was a boatwright. His brother Learaí opened a shop in Carna. He died in the 1950s. Ennis wrote that the best thing about Darach, and the pleasure he got from the music, was the way he lilted the tunes for himself and the old lady, his wife, in the kitchen when only the pair of them were present. One evening when Ennis visited, they were doing precisely that and they were laughing with one another. His wife said that he tries to entice her with tunes and dancing, just as he used to do before they married long ago. Ennis said he never met such an amusing man as he for good fun and sport as Irish people had long ago (See NFC 1280: 412–3).

Ennis visited Darach on 10 July 1945 and his diary entry for that day translates:

‘I went to Maínis in the afternoon to Darach Ó Clochartaigh, the old man who gave me the tunes in 1943, to visit him and to take his picture. I found him and his wife as full of fun and happy as ever (they have no children). Darach was afraid that I was going to put his picture in tomorrow’s newspaper and I had a job to entice him to allow me to take his picture at all. But when I explained to him that I would like to have his picture, he was very happy and his wife stood with him and I took them so that the house and everything around it were in the picture as best I could manage it.

I spent a long while talking with him and his wife, because I have always liked both of them very much. His wife told me that he still lilts the tunes constantly in the house to entice her, even now when they are both elderly. Aren’t they lucky to have such spirit!’