Liverpool Irish Festival: Nightvisiting

On Friday the 20th, I was at the Tung Auditorium representing the Liverpool Irish Festival for 'Nightvisiting' with Lisa Lambe and her amazing band of musicians, one of whom is from Liverpool.

There were songs of love, loss, Famine, and emigration. Lisa told us stories filled with compassion, and there was a sense it was an honoring of all that had gone before. In Lisa’s words, 'Bringing old stories to new spaces.'

Nightvisiting is an old Irish custom, whereby people gather round the hearth to tell stories and sing songs. Lisa had done a lot of research, particularly during lockdown at the Irish Folklore Museum, igniting the fires to start the season as the nights draw in. So many songs had been half-forgotten. Mythological stories and stories of the land were also imparted. The four-piece band also had a member from Liverpool (the guitarist) whose great-grandmother braved the Irish Sea to live in Liverpool.

It was a reminder that descendants are here, now. Many of the band members' friends and family were in the audience, adding to that 'gathering around the hearth' feel. Later, a song was sung that had also been sung at a family member's wedding, who was also in the audience.

She told us (with her big book in her hand) about Dublin man Tom Mulley and the 20,000 songs he collected. I’m glad he did, and people like him, who took the time to collect those memories. The beating hearts that sang those old songs and told stories in the new Tung Auditorium were there, seated amongst us on this night.

We heard songs of pipers summoned by fairies to play at fairy balls and given golden purses that never emptied. But they had to live for eternity under the sea, and more harrowing tales of Famine and burying all your children on the way to meeting your husband. The endless bodies going through one trap coffin because Ireland was overwhelmed by death. There weren't just three Famines in the 1800s. There were twenty-seven from 1700 until the 1840s, and it is indelibly marked on the land, needing to come out and be exorcised. Those people who endured such horrors need to be honored and remembered. And they were, on this very healing night.

There was light and shade, happy and sad, laments and jigs. Deep in the Irish psyche is feeling all the emotions, then letting them go. (In the Irish Language, you say 'anger is upon me.' You are not the feeling, and the music echoed this.) It was all beautifully curated. We weren’t in any emotion for too long, and there were regular links back to Liverpool and the connections to Liverpool woven into Lisa’s storytelling.

The final section was love songs. Songs included in the repertoire were 'Green Grow the Rushes,' 'The Galway Shawl,' 'Blackwater Side,' which sounded quite different, but I liked the interpretation, and the Irish favorite, 'The Parting Glass,' which had extra significance because of the stories just told, about loss, emigration, and Famine. She talked of the great silence. There was no singing or dancing in Ireland for a long time (to do so or to speak Irish was punishable by fines or prison). I shed some tears for my Great Auntie Grace in the early 1900s, aged 18, who drowned in a bog coming back from a secret dance. My grandad apparently watched her die, helpless to do anything and never spoke about it.

One of the most famous Irish Language love songs was included in the repertoire. And that always gets me quite tearful, hearing the language so long unspoken.

One or two songs were from the great Liverpool Irishman himself, John Lennon. As the chords began to play for 'REAL LOVE,' I welled up. It was John Lennon. The greatest Irish export.

'REAL LOVE' and 'GIVE PEACE A CHANCE' (it was acapella by Lisa, and she encouraged the audience to sing along) - I was in bits. Absolutely beautiful! Very fitting, considering what is going on in the world. And a nod to the fact that Liverpool is a very Irish city with Irish blood pumping through its creative veins.

Lisa and the band performed traditional Irish songs, some in the Irish Language. After the last one, 'REAL LOVE,' Lisa exclaimed, 'To John and Yoko.' Very fitting, seeing as we were in The Tung Auditorium (The Yoko Ono Lennon Centre).

I managed to speak to Lisa afterward, and I explained who I was and that the songs and stories about the Famine were particularly harrowing but needed to be told. And that our trail is doing important work.

I told her my name.

'Goodbye Mrs. McGrath,' she said.

'Well, you'll remember me,' I said. 'That’s a song' (famously covered by Bruce Springsteen). No one really ever dies if there are stories to tell. And the Irish are masters at that because they have had no choice.

The warm-up act, Una Quinn, was fabulous and understated. A two-piece of a guitarist and vocalist who had very heartfelt lyrics. Singing a modern version of 'Four Green Fields,' which was heart-wrenching (famine), and a song specifically written for the Festival. All songs were exquisite. There was a bit of a Joni Mitchell/Sinead O’Connor feel about the singer. I scrambled to write down the lyrics. They were so heartfelt. But I think you need to listen yourselves. A warm voice, full of experience.

Lisa Lambe can be found on Patreon (for their art and music).

Brendan: Songs of Dublin will be at the Tung Auditorium next as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival on the 28th of October and can be booked on the Irish Festival website."

Covered by: Clare McGrath