Striking up the band to the sound of silence
Pat Kenny — not the TV personality, but an affable Garda based in the main depot on Dublin’s northside, is the man in question. Four years ago Kenny led his colleagues in the Garda Band out onto the grass in Croke Park, took out his baton, and counted them into the first bars of God Save The Queen.
“On the day everybody, including ourselves, was anticipating what was going to happen when we struck up God Save The Queen,” says Kenny. “We were very conscious of that.
“But it got the utmost respect, as anthems do in Croke Park or the Aviva. On that day, as everybody heard, God Save The Queen got as much respect as any anthem ever heard.”
Looking back, it’s difficult to see what the fuss was about. Most of the attendance were either English rugby supporters, who were hardly going to boo their own anthem, or Irish rugby supporters, who’d never jeered God Save The Queen in Lansdowne Road and were unlikely to start because they were on Dublin’s northside.
Was it ever likely, really, that the disaffected would pay in to make noise as GSTQ rang out?
Still, it was a fraught few minutes. If you seem to recall the tension being stretched for an exquisite extra minute or so, your memory serves you well.
“The President comes down to greet the teams, as everybody knows,” says Kenny, “But we have to wait until she gets back to her seat before commencing the anthems, and in fairness, it’s a long way back for her to get to her seat.
“But you’re right . . . there were murmurings going around the stadium while we waited for her to go back to her seat, and we were waiting for the announcer to come over the PA to tell everybody the anthems were about to be played.
“As soon as that was said, it was pure silence. You could feel it. The atmosphere was fantastic.”
Kenny says he and his colleagues — and those in the Army Band, who also played on that occasion — focused on the job at hand. The nuts and bolts of the music.
“We were sure we weren’t going to play any bum notes. We’d rehearsed it plenty of times and we’d have had a run-through in the bandroom beforehand on the day.
“From a conductor’s point of view my only worry was that it would be given the respect it deserved, which it was.
“The usual preparation, which we did on that occasion, would involve getting together with the Army Band for a rehearsal and sound check maybe two hours before the kick-off – inside in the stadium.”
Hang on a second. Does that mean that the English national anthem echoed around the Upper Cusack and Hill 16 long before anyone was in the stadium at all? “Afraid so,” says Kenny. “In reality God Save The Queen would have been played there first a couple of hours beforehand at the sound check.”
For all their focus Kenny says they were well aware of the wider significance.
“The media build-up was big,” he recalls, “But from a music point of view all anthems are sacrosanct to the countries involved. In musical terms there are anthems which are nice to play, and the English anthem is one. It’s not that it’s challenging musically — it’s quite an easy song to play — but it’s just one that sounds particularly good with a 60-piece band.”
His own friends and acquaintances knew he was the man who’d be conducting on the day and were sensitive to that.
“I think people were cognisant that it was coming up, and anyone who knew me would have known the position I’d be in, conducting the anthem, and they were sensitive to that.
“One thing that a lot of people did comment on afterwards was how good the sound was. There was a fantastic wall of sound from the musicians and the sound people did a great job on the day.”
Kenny himself follows all sports, having played GAA in school: “I never played rugby but I’d be interested. Golf is my main game now.”
Before we finish talking he mentions casually that from the age of 12, he’d marched around the old field in Dublin 3 with the Artane Boys Band at All-Ireland finals and such, belting out Amhrán na bhFiann.
As he says himself, he knew all about Croke Park.
With that in mind, who better to conduct God Save The Queen in Jones Road?
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie ; Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
