A FAINT VOICE EBBS AND FLOWS on the other end of the telephone line. A line that ends somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey far from the toxic wastelands of Interstate 95 and “Chemical Alley” and the strange, ever-diminishing swathes of reedy marshlands around Newark and its ever-expanding airport. A line that stretches way over three thousand miles to this little battered phone box outside Eileen Kelly’s post office in Allihies from a quaint colonial cottage on the eastern fringe of the USA set among huge shade trees by a skittering stream.
“So, I’m flying into Shannon next Friday—with Rob and Celia. That’s still okay—right?”
“That’s just wonderful,” I gushed. “You’ll have a great time. I’ve told a few of the pubs around here about your splendid reputation in the States as an Irish folksinger and recording artist supremo and they say come on in and give them a seisuin anytime. Tourist season is pretty well gone—although there weren’t too many of them this year anyway—and they say they’re ready now for a bit of true Irish craic.”
There was a chuckle at the other end. I knew that chuckle well. It always preceded Danny Quinn’s latest jokes, which he scattered randomly throughout all his conversations. In fact, most of our chats seemed to be mere interludes between his jokes, which he invariably laughs at long before he gets to the punch lines. “Did y’hear the one about…”
“What?”
“The one about…What the heck’s wrong with your line…?”
“Oh, nothing much, except it’s pouring outside and I can hardly hear a word from your end…”
“Okay—I’ll save it…It’s too good to lose in the middle of a Beara cloudburst…”
“What?”
A frustrated pause at the other end and then, “When are you gonna get a decent world cell phone or something so we can kvetch like normal people…”
“What?” The last was lost in the thundery roar directly over the phone box.
“Forget it. See you Friday. And tell Anne…”
The rain was now deafening as it crashed in columns on the leaky cast-iron shell of the phone box.
“Yes, okay, I will. Have a great flight…” I had no idea what I was supposed to tell Anne, but I knew that one more “What?” would eradicate the limits of our mutual patience.
“What?” That was him, not me. Followed by more of his gurgling chuckles.
“Get lost, Danny…”
SO THERE I WAS, rudely dismissing my friend, the mighty Danny Quinn, one of America’s finest Irish folksingers, creator of a dozen or more popular albums, composer of countless fine songs, compatriot of Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers and, when he was into one of his joke-laden, giggle-laced monologues, one of the funniest of all our friends. And—finally—after much pestering, we had lured him from his rigorous schedule of concert, club, and pub dates in the USA to spend a few days with us at our Beara cottage along with Robby and Celia, longtime buddies from our lakeside neighborhood in the Hudson Valley.
“Anything you need me to do…or bring?” Danny had asked in a previous phone chat on a bright sunny day when conversation from the phone box had been a little more coherent.
Back in the USA Danny would occasionally stay with us at our home when on one of his laboriously long East Coast folksinging tours. And it had now become a most enticing ritual for him to bring a bagful of British goodies—Stilton and (real) cheddar cheese, chocolate biscuits, treacle, British bangers and bacon, and his latest finds in fine red wines.
“Well—you might as well bring a few of your CDs, because as soon as they hear your voice, you’ll be a local star…Oh—and one more request—actually it’s a condition of our hosting you at the cottage and catering to your every gastronomic and other whims…”
“This is sounding good…especially that thing you said about ‘other whims.’ I’ve always got a few of those floating about, y’know.”
“Yeah—and it’s just a simple request…”
“Okay—I’m waiting…But I’m getting just a wee bit nervous.”
“Well, I’ve told you what a fabulous place this Beara is—the scenery, the people, the history, the traditions, and a sense of touching something authentically Gaelic-Celtic…very Irish.”
“Yeah, yeah—I know all that. Why do you think I’m coming?”
“Well—to spend time with us primarily, I assume.”
“All right—that too…I suppose, if you say so. And what is it you want from me?”
“A song.”
“A song?”
“Actually not ‘a’ song, but ‘The Song’…the ‘Song of Beara’. No one’s written one as far as I know. There are plenty of Celtic long poems and all that, but not a really good folk song that captures the unique character of this place.”
A long pause at the other end.
“Danny…?”
“Yeah. I’m thinking…You kinda hit a bit of a soft spot there, matey. I hate to remind you, but I haven’t written a decent song…come to think of it, I haven’t even written a lousy song…in over two years. Plus…”
“Listen—you remember that Baudelaire quote, something about poets and artists being riders on the storm, exiles here on earth, trying to fly, dragging their giant’s wings?”
“Oh how very literary of you. Is that meant to make me feel better?”
“No—but this place will. Believe me. Beara will set all your muses in motion.”
“Are they the female kind—all sort of wrapped up in slinky, diaphanous, silky things?”
“Absolutely!”
“And young, and nubile, and pretty and…very…inspiring?”
“Oh, boy—you’ll be inspired like you’ve never been inspired before.”
“In that case, like good old Oscar Wilde, I’d admit that ‘I can resist everything except temptation’ and…I’d like one to be named…Daphne.”
“No problem. I’ll have a Daphne ready and waiting.”
“…and maybe another…called Felicity.”
“Okay—Felicity and Daphne it will be, Oh Honored Guest and Great Composer.”
“Ah! Now I know you’re lyin’…”
“No, no, not really. Merely a wee fleck of ‘expedient exaggeration’!”
“Well in that case, I may have a few other conditions of my own, David…like seeing you pick up your own guitar again for once.”
“Not a chance on that one, Danny. Sorry. My fingers are as twisted as a turf carrier’s back.’”
“Oh, how very…colorfully ethnic…”
“So, we’re set then? You get your seductive mélange of muses and we get ‘The Song of Beara.’”
“I’m only coming for a week or so, y’know…and I haven’t even seen the place yet.”
“How do you think I felt when I arrived to write this book?”
“Yeah—but you’ve been there months now!”
“So I’ll distill all my impressions for you, give you a fabulous drive around, pour pints of the strong black stuff down your throat at all the locals, introduce you to some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet this side of heaven…and then give you a pen and a notepad and wait for the splendid result that I know will flow quickly and mellifluously!”
“I’ve always loved that word—mellifluous.”
“So—deal?”
“Okay. Deal. But I should tell you. I’ve got my fingers crossed at this end, so it doesn’t really count.”
“No problem. If we don’t get our song, you’ll have no fingers left anyway—and no nubile muses either!”
“Oh, very nice. Thank you so much for that.”
“Looking forward to seeing you, Danny.”
“Likewise.”
AND LO!—IT CAME to pass as it was written, or at least verbally agreed. “The Song of Beara” emerged from our friend’s previously composition-blocked brain and spirit. And it came in a remarkable tsunami of inspired creativity on his fourth day on Beara, no less, after we’d all returned from a roiling ride around the peninsula that had impressed our guests with its raw power and bold immensity.
“Fantastic!” gushed Rob, who for the whole of our six-hour odyssey had never once mentioned his Corvettes and antique Cadillacs and Chevys back home and had sat apparently mesmerized by the power and beauty of the cliffs, coves, and soaring Caha peaks serenely bathed in sunlight from a sky dimpled with soft lilac clouds.
“It’s even better than I expected—far, far better.” Celia, Rob’s wife of thirty-five years and always a trustworthy enthusiast of any place we lure her to, grinned. (She had joined us on both of our prior book projects for Seasons in Basilicata and Seasons on Harris in Scotland.)
Danny, now curled up like a little cuddly leprechaun on the back-seat, had not tried to tell us a single one of his endless repertoire of jokes but rather had sat silent, smiling and stroking his beard for much of the journey, seemingly moved to muteness by the majesty of this place.
And then when we returned to our cottage overlooking the ocean and the distant Skellig islands, Danny vanished. Which was particularly odd, as cocktails were being served on the patio and cocktail time was one of his favorite interludes of the day.
“Where’s he gone?” asked Anne as she poured the drinks.
“No idea,” Celia half whispered. “But let’s leave him. You never know…”
“Never know what?” asked Rob, impatient with mysteries and the like.
“Well—you know…the song,” said Celia softly.
“Ah, yes,” was the unanimous response. “The Song.”
So, wherever he was, we didn’t disturb him and were well into the cheeses and crackers and wines and even beginning to salivate at the aromas of dinner drifting out from the kitchen window when who should suddenly appear strolling across the gorse-flecked field in front of us but the man himself, grinning and waving a large notepad above his tousle-haired head.
“Could this be the great Moses bringing us his life-transforming commandments?” shouted Rob.
“No—this is the mighty Quinn bearing the very modest first draft of his Beara song…”
A hearty round of applause and cracker and cheese sprays as we shouted out our congratulations.
“You’ve done it…already?” asked Anne, eyes bright.
“Ah well—when the muses move one…”
“So that’s where you’ve been—dallying with the little darlings deep down in the dell.” That was me, bemused by the delightful image of Danny being seduced by the sirens of song into writing his first composition in over two years.
“Oh yes—those delicious damsels dangled words before me like fairy charms, they did.” Danny laughed. “Just let me get the guitar and we’ll see how this thing really sounds.”
It sounded great! Simple four-chord verse lines with a couple of seductive grace notes in the chorus to give it a uniquely evocative—almost plaintive—melody. We were all silent and entranced. After the first rendition, Danny made a few alterations, changed a couple of chord sequences, and then sang it once again—clearer and far more resolutely this time. And we just sat, with collective tingles scampering up and down our spines and, at one point, even traces of tears on a couple of faces as we realized just how effectively this master musician had encapsulated all the amazing characteristics of this magical corner of southwest Ireland. There were smiles galore in the humming stillness. The final shards of amber sunlight spotlighted Danny’s face as he smiled back—a very happy songwriter and singer.
Over the ensuing days, the stanzas were expanded and adjusted as Danny met more of our friends and gained even greater insights into Beara itself. But the basic energy and vision of the original composition, with all its “work in progress” flavor, remained intact. The final version, which has now been sung and celebrated in countless venues across Ireland and the USA, goes as follows:
“Song of Beara”
The fishing boats of Beara glide back to Castletown
The folks down at MacCarthy’s have just bought another round
Some old ways that are changing, some things remain the same
In this place of ancient wonder, touched by sun and wind and rain
Chorus
You can hear the cattle lowing, you can feel the breezes blow
And the wild ocean crashes on the rocky beach below
Where the green and lovely Beara reaches out into the foam
It’s a place you may have never been, but it always feels like home
The mystic Hag of long ago kept watch o’er land and sea
She knew all ancient languages, of wind, of bird, of tree
When strangers came with different thoughts they tried to change her own
And then her Celtic heart and soul found refuge in a stone
Chorus
In the desperate days of famine, when hunger ruled the land
Life hung in the balance, starvation was at hand
Some were cleared or emigrated, some died along the way
If you stand upon that Hungry Hill you can feel their pain today
Chorus
Slieve Miskish and the Caha Mountains, so craggy and so high
The magpie and the seagull share that ever-changing sky
Ring forts and stone circles can still be plainly seen
It’s a terrible beauty—so wild, so lush, so green
Chorus
The word must have spread about Danny’s song. How that happened, I have no idea, except that numerous times during our stay here, we sensed a kind of Beara bush telegraph in operation, whereby information mystically spreads around the peninsula. Actual fresh news seemed to be rare. Whatever snippets and crumbs were picked up on the grapevine and shared with friends already seemed to have been assimilated into the collective psyche of the populace. Of course, we knew there was magic here. The whole place seemed to float on a cushion of curious coincidences, telepathic exchanges, clairvoyant perceptions, and healing-restorative processes that no one fully understood but most accepted as part of the benign bonus of being a Beara resident.
Despite his brief stay, Danny’s “Song of Beara” gained an enthusiastic following. Word had spread, even as far as Glengarriff. Despite the town’s panoply of unique delights—including those world-renowned Italian-styled Garinish Gardens, created in the early twentieth century on an island in Bantry Bay barely a hundred yards out from the main street; the exotic Bamboo Park featuring an Edenic profusion of subtropical species; and a wonderworld of lush little enclaves in the old Glengarriff Valley (now a gorgeous National Park) reaching back into the mountains—we rarely spent much time here. In hindsight it was possibly our loss, but the little town seemed just a touch too complacent and touristically situated on the main Cork-to-Killarney highway. Maybe if our intended interviews with such renowned but elusive residents as Maureen O’Hara, Julia Roberts, and (a little farther south near Skibbereen) Jeremy Irons in his “pink castle” had materialized, we might have become more enamored of the place.
Certainly we were enamoured, though, when one evening Danny was invited to give an impromptu miniconcert here in the Hawthorn Bar to rousing applause (and free librations too). Then we all strolled across the road, entered the Blue Loo Bar, and found a traditional reel-and-jig seisuin in progress. And with a full retinue of participants too, featuring four fine fiddlers, three tin whistle exponents, two melodeon squeeze-box maestros, a uilleann pipes player (contributing intermittently from what appeared to be his permanent perch at the bar), and a bodhrán goatskin drum maestro thwacking away so rapidly with his little stick that his fingers were a wild blur.
It took a while to distinguish all the subtle variations in rhythm and notes between the tunes, but eventually we just kind of settled into the melodic mood of the place and stomped along with the rest of the enthusiastic hand-clapping audience.
“Oh yes—I know,” said Deirdre Donnchadhi, a celebrated whistle player in the group who chatted with me during a well-earned break in the craic. “The tunes can seem awful similar if you’re not used to the music. But once you’ve played them a while, they’re as different as chips and colcannon. And yes, I know, most are in the same key, which doesn’t help. I usually only need a D whistle, although once in a while they’ll switch keys and I’ll have to fake it a bit by half-covering the holes and sort of bending the notes. Sliding. Some of the real traditionalists don’t like that, but, as they say around here so often: ‘There’s no right way. Only a wrong way!’ Your ear will tell you if it’s just not working—especially with a hard-core group like this one of ours tonight.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You all seem to take it awfully seriously. There’s not much laughing or smiling while you’re playing.”
“Well, you’ve got to really focus when you’ve got three, sometimes four, people all playing the same tune on the same instruments. There’s got to be exact precision, otherwise it sounds like a circus of cats. My mother’s people were all great fiddle players from the Cork-Kerry border. My aunt Julia became quite famous and knew a lot of the older players, so we try and meet up like this—friends and family—every once in a while for a real good seisuin. We’re still celebrating a tradition that goes back so far, no one really knows when it all began.”
Danny eased himself onto the bench beside me. He nodded and smiled at Deirdre: “Yeah,” he said. “That’s part of the spirit here. Being part of an ancient Celtic and pre-Celtic culture that still resonates in modern-day Ireland. There’s real power in this music—in your music tonight, especially.”
Deirdre smiled and whispered a quiet “thank you” just as the lead fiddler laughingly reminded the audience crammed into the small taproom of the bar that “the more you drink, the better we sound—and guaranteed—the better you look!” She returned to the group, and off they went on another half hour of full-blast, foot-tapping, full-speed-ahead Irish folk music.
A few nights later, quiet thank-yous were replaced by tears and cheers as Danny became the star attraction at the end of one of Michael Murphy’s week-long Love, Loss and Forgiveness workshops held at Dzogchen Beara.
It began as a very spontaneous suggestion on the phone by Michael, who was looking for something to “end the session on a real upbeat note.”
“Michael—you’re in luck! Synchronicity raises its beguiling head once again,” I said. “It just so happens that we have one of America’s finest Irish folksingers staying at the cottage right now, and I’m pretty sure he’d be delighted to help out. Oh, and he’ll possibly feature a brand-new composition—his beautiful ‘Song of Beara.’ That do you?”
“Fantastic! Perfect! Listen—come early before the food. We have about an hour when all the individual participants are asked to summarize what this week has meant to them—sort of sharing their perceptions and breakthroughs.”
“Michael—thanks, but I honestly don’t think we’d feel comfortable…I mean, this is highly personal stuff for you all and I don’t think they’d be too happy with us outsiders being present…”
Michael invariably gets his way. Through wile, guile, bloodymindedness, and gritty determination—oh, and charm too I guess—he has a knack of persuading all concerned that his way is indeed the best for everyone. So there we were on the final workshop evening, Anne and I, Rob and Celia, and maestro Danny, all sitting in a circle of workshop participants in a room with huge windows overlooking a magnificent sunset. In the far distance dark and ominously broken cliffs were bathed in gold. Their grassy tops had sheens of platinum playing across the undulations, and the ocean was ribbed in gossamer filaments of lemons, scarlets, and purples. The slow, deep rhythms of the foaming surf were hypnotic, soothing, and smoothing, conjuring up primal images and urges—maybe even “altered state” recollections of our aquatic origins in the womb, when water flowed through us and we existed in another fishlike form.
Michael suggested that we all spend a few minutes in silence watching the slow-changing light and celebrating that beguiling curl of time from sunset to dusk to dark.
It is in moments like these that hearts can expand and welcome the new.
Then began the whole ritual of summations from each of the twenty or so participants. It was a remarkable portrait of varied human dimensions as a “talking stick” was passed around, enabling each person to speak without interruption. A kaleidoscopic array of emotions filled the room. There were tears, muted cheers for particularly courageous participants who had obviously waged wars with themselves and apparently won, followed by laughter, applause, hugs, kisses—the whole gamut. We learned later that two couples had met and fallen in love, one married couple had agreed (amicably) to separate, another couple decided not to get married “just yet,” and almost everyone celebrated a great cleansing of spirits, a release from “anorexia of the soul” and reaffirmations of self.
I watched Danny as the time drew near for him to provide Michael’s “real upbeat note.” For all his many years of experience as a folksinger par excellence in pubs, clubs, schools, and concert halls throughout the USA, Danny has always maintained a deep-seated modesty—almost a constant sense of surprise that audiences actually turn up in droves to hear and cheer him. So every event for him seems to be a new beginning coupled with a new determination both to please and move his listeners. And that evening he was entranced by the warmth and mutual love that rippled around the room. He knew this would be one of those special times when an empathetic, sensitive audience would listen to—and totally hear—every word of his songs.
And so it was. From that first E major thwack of a chord on his beloved Martin acoustic guitar he carried that small captivated audience through every nuance of Irish folk music—from bawdy ballards to tear-jerky melodies to songs of great battles (lost of course—the Irish always seem to prefer it that way), to one of the best a cappella versions of “Danny Boy” I’ve ever heard him sing. And finally to his brand-new “Song of Beara.” He’d only refined the verses a couple of days previously, but it already sounded like a permanent part of his repertoire.
The room exploded with applause. He had to play three encores before he could finally enjoy the buffet, and as we reluctantly left a couple of hours later, Danny laughed and spoke for all of us: “I’m so covered in love and good stuff, I’m not going to wash for a week!”
And as if to celebrate that “love-bath,” he decided a few months later to lead a magical mystery tour–type bus journey with sixty or so of his American fans, visiting key historical places through southwest Ireland, participating in nightly seisuins in pubs, and generally enjoying ten days of Irish-American craic, which led to the creation of two more Ireland-inspired songs.
In a recent chat, he hugged Anne and me, and said, “You know I want to thank you both again. Beara was my breakthrough. The echo of the whole experience is still here with me. And you two made that happen.”
It was either smile or weep, so I chose the former: “Oh no, no—it wasn’t us at all, Danny—it was those gorgeous nubile muses. We saw the smile on your face as you kept going off across the meadows to finesse your verses!”
Danny’s usually the one to make others blush with his raunchy jokes and whatnot, but we swear we both saw a rising pink flush on his face. And to think I never really believed much in the existence of those muses at all…
POSTSCRIPT
We certainly learned to believe in muses following a visit to our Allihies cottage by Theo Westenberger, a dear friend and celebrated award-winning New York photographer, who seemed to be able to conjure up her muses at will despite her ongoing battle with cancer. Whatever aspect of her photographic repertoire she focused on—travel, animals, ethnic peoples, celebrities of stage and screen, presidents, and top-league politicians—she always tackled her projects with unique vision, humor, love, and sincere empathetic interest. Her subjects came alive, brimming with life and energy. She was never patronizing or sycophantic. We loved to watch her work. She glowed with true human intensity and luminosity. She made people relax and give of themselves without artifice or angst. Tightly scheduled shoots with “sorry-gotta-go-now” celebrities turned into spontaneous fun fests. One of my favorite zany shots is of dainty, slim-limbed Theo sharing a foam-filled Jacuzzi tub with a grinning, muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger. (No, they were not naked—their swimsuits were hidden by the foam!) And we remember her last photo shots being made on Beara as she struggled with her illness to capture close-ups of dry stone walls, lichen patterns, cloudscapes, and abstracts of marsh plants reflected in still black peat water ponds.
Theo loved her projects for such magazines as Life, People, Time, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, and National Geographic Traveler, where we’d both been contributing editors, but alas, we’d never worked together on a joint project. We kept promising ourselves we’d find something to lure our poor overworked editor in chief into giving us a lucrative round-the-world odyssey feature! We also started work together on a little book linking Theo’s animal shots with humorous quotes from celebrated quippers. We had other ideas too…but they were not to be. A few brief months after her time with us on Beara, Theo passed away at her apartment in Manhattan’s TriBeCa. We were there with her, along with many of her friends. We miss her deeply. This book’s dedication to her is but a tiny token of our love and respect for this beautiful, multitalented human being. Thank you for your very special friendship, Theo—thanks for investing so much energy to join us on Beara—and thanks for all those great enduring memories…