Music Session

Our last night in Ireland was spent in a pub (are you surprised?). The Cobblestone pub in Dublin is THE place for musicians. The session was led by renowned uilleann piper Neillidh (Neely) Mulligan with his brother Tom (owner of the pub) on flute. When we got there at 5:30 there were about 5 musicians including a harpist; by the time we left a few hours later, most of those had gone and had been replaced by many others who came, played for an hour or so, then left. There were flutes, pipes, fiddles, harp, concertina, mandolin, guitar. Apparently that would continue until the pub shut down at midnight. 

I enjoyed watching the harp player - she is a real pro. Many of the musicians who came are well known in the area.

This is kind of the definition of a traditional Irish music session. People just started in on tunes and everyone joined in. The occasional song (unaccompanied) was thrown in and the whole pub packed with people came to a hush to listen. I had my tin whistle and was able to join in on the few tunes I knew. 

It was so incredible to see these musicians, young and old, come together and create such joy. We’ve listened to a lot of music in the past 12 days but a lot of it is ‘staged’ for the pub patrons or is a performance. They were all very good but this was not a performance. Just folks getting together to make music for fun. Fortunately the pub was just a few minutes from our hotel so we were able to walk home before dark. And apparently this happens every night of the week. It was a wonderful end to our travels.

We were fortunate to have great weather for our whole trip. Although I came prepared for any type of weather in Ireland I never used my raincoat and the wipers were on in the car for about 10 mins. They’re talking of water restrictions. Unheard of in Ireland.