Brídín Bhéasaigh (Tom Pháidín Tom)

Notes

By Míċeál Ó Loċlainn

Compare and contrast

This is one of the series of entries in the Cartlanna which highlight Joe Éinniú’s singing in local, national and international contexts.

The recording held by the Cartlanna of Joe singing Brídín Bhéasaí contains only two verses. It was recorded by James Chowdery at the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, United States of America, at some time between 1979 and 1981. At the start of the recording, Joe says that I didn’t sing this song for forty years I suppose and implies that he had a lot of it forgotten.

In this entry, we hear a more complete version of the song, sung by Tom Pháidín Tom Ó Coistealbha (1894–1979*) from Baile ’n tSagairt near An Spidéal, some 40 miles east of Joe’s native district and about 15 miles west of Galway City. The recording was taken from Tom’s 1977 album, Tom Pháidín Tom, recorded, edited and produced by Séamus Mac Mathúna and released by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.

Tom Pháidín Tom was released on 33⅓ RPM vinyl and has had, to date, no re-release on CD or on any other format. Interested readers may be able to track down secondhand copies of the thirty-three however.

For readers unfamiliar with Irish, ‘Pháidín’ is pronounced, roughly, ‘faa-deen’; to rhyme with the ‘southern-centric’ Received Pronunciation of ‘far dean’. ‘Baile ’n tSagairt’ is pronounced similar to ‘bile-n-toggirt’. For those familiar with linguistic transcription: /fɑː d′iːn′/ and /bail′ ^ən tɑgɪrt′/.

*The parish records at Cill Éinde give his precise date of birth as 25th March 1894 and his date of death as 29th November 1979. Glacann muid buíochas leis an Athair Séan Mac Aoidh as ucht an eolas seo a dheimhniú dhúinn.

Sleeve notes

The sleeve notes for the album were written by Mac Mathúna, John Lewis and Máire Áine (Ní Dhonnchadha, of Deora Aille fame), and are found on both the outer cover and an accompanying eight-page European Fanfold (8½″ × 12″) booklet.

Tom Pháidín Tom: recorded live

The tracks on this album aren’t studio recordings. The sleeve notes state that all recording was done at ordinary music sessions, in Conamara and Dublin, where Tom would be at his ease and where those present would be invested in and receptive to the material:

…ag seisiúin nuair a bheadh cóluadar feiliúnach againn agus Tom féin ar a sháimhín sógha. Na taifeadáin [seo], deineadh iad ag seisiúin éagsúla i gConamara agus i mBlá Cliath idir Márta 1973 agus Eanair 1976.

Interestingly, the songs were recorded over a period of very nearly three years — March 1973 to January 1976 — but unfortunately there’s no listing of when and where each recording took place.

Digital restoration

This song was digitised directly from a cleaned, good-condition copy of the vinyl album. It was then digitally restored by Fionn Ó Sealbhaigh at Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge to exise clicks, crackles and surface noise. The restoration process was in most respects the same as that carried out on a 1932 Linguaphone Conversational Irish box set of 78 RPM shellac records for the Coisín Shiúlach project, which celebrates the sean-nós singer Sorcha Ní Ghuairim; a contemporary of Joe Éinniú’s.

Tabhair mo ghrá go Conamara

Commercially released recordings of Tom Pháidín Tom are scarce. He wasn’t a professional recording or performing artist but a singer in the native tradition of his community; so other than his own Tom Pháidín Tom, we were aware only of three guest appearences on other artists’ albums.

• On A Story I’m Just About to Tell (Topic TSCD658), Volume 8 of The Voice of The People. Tom, credited as ‘Tom Costello’, provides track 10: A Grand Conversation On Napoleon. This album was released in 2000 so Tom’s contribution was obviously archive material. We don’t however know when or where it was recorded, or by whom. Note that A Grand Conversation On Napoleon also features as track 3 of Tom Pháidín Tom.
• On The Mist Covered Mountain (Gael Linn CEF 087), Dé Danann’s third studio album. Tom provides guest vocals on track 5, The Banks of the Nile, and track 8, Henry Joy Mc Cracken. The Mist Covered Mountain was released in 1980, the year after he died. While these vocals may also have been archival, it’s actually possible they were recorded specifically for the album. It was in the mid-1970s during regular Sunday morning sessions in Tigh Hughes, a pub in the heart of An Spidéal village and much favoured by traditional singers and musicians*, that Dé Danann came together. Tom was very much a part of that musical scene and was friendly with the band. Research is ongoing…

*Also by lovers of civilised conversation, due to the complete absence of muzak and a television switched on only for the news or the occasional match!

In late 2019 however, Veteran Records released Tabhair mo ghrá go Conamara (Veteran VT162CD), a CD of sean-nós singing from the West-Galway Gaeltacht and a perfect example of native singing traditions finding and cross-fertilising each other, nationally and internationally.

All the songs on this album were recorded ‘on location’ in Galway in the early 1970s by English folk singer Terry Yarnell. Yarnell, a born and bred Eastender, began his musical career in the 1950s playing skiffle but later moved into folk and subsequently became a member of Ewan Mc Coll and Peggy Seeger’s Critics Group. This is significant because, as discussed elsewhere in the Cartlanna one of the regulars at Mc Coll and Seeger’s Singers’ Club was none other than Joe Éinniú. Another was Headford flute player Gabe O’Sullivan, with whom Joe became friendly and indeed went on to make the album Joe & the Gabe with some ten years later.

The Galway recordings came about as a result of discussions within the Critics Group and in 1970 Yarnell (accompanied by his wife Mary, who was from Cork City) and the Gabe were dispatched to do the field work. Of interest to readers of the Cartlanna, on this trip they made recordings of Joe’s neighbour and contemporary, Johnny Joe Pheaitsín (Seán ’ac Dhonncha) and of Tom Pháidín Tom’s first cousin Kate Sheáin Tom (Cáit Uí Chonláin; unfortunately mis-spelt ‘Uí Chonluain’ and ‘Ní Chonluain’ on Tabhair mo ghrá go Conamara).

Further excursions were made to Galway, albeit without the Gabe, and in 1972 Terry and Mary Yarnell made recordings of Joe’s second-cousin Colm Ó Caoidheáin. Colm was from Glinsce, a couple of miles north-east of An Aird Thoir where Joe was born. Joe held Colm in high regard — and with justification. He furnished Séamus Ennis and other collectors for the Irish Folklore Commission with well in excess of 200 songs, in Irish and English, along with a great deal of folklore. It was on this same trip that the Yarnells met and made recordings of Tom Pháidín Tom.

One happy consequence of these recording expeditions is that half a century on, the full list of Tom and Kate’s tracks on Tabhair mo ghrá go Conamara is as follows:

Tom Pháidín Tom

Track 5: Mary Le More (The Maniac).

Track 13: Hynes and Bold Dermody.

Track 16: Brídín Bhéasaigh (Brídeen Vesey).

Track 20: Máire Ní Eidhin* (Mary Hynes of Ballylee).

Track 21: Máire Ní Eidhin — sung in English.

Kate Sheáin Tom

Track 6: Saighdiúirín Singil (The Private Soldier).

Track 14: Coinleach Glas an Fhómhair (The Green Stubble of Autumn).

* Alternative title for Baile Uí Laí.

The Doegen Records Web Project has a recording of Kate Sheáin Tom singing Caisleán Uí Néill, and also some basic biographical information about her.

Terry Yarnell’s field recordings are an invaluable cultural resource and lovers of the tradition are in his debt. They are held by the British Library Sound Archive and many of them are freely-available on-line.

Readers wishing to find out more are directed to the Tabhair mo ghrá go Conamara CD itself and to the excellent booklet, researched and written by Éamonn Ó Bróithe and John Howson, that accompanies it.

Thanks and credits

Glacann muid buíochas le Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, agus le Siobhán Ní Chonaráin go háirid, as cead an taifeadadh seo, clúdach an albaim ⁊ na nótaí clúdaigh a chur ar fáil sna Cartlanna.