'I still get such a buzz': Bill Whelan remembers Riverdance glory days two decades on

'In Limerick for weeks after, every time the Angelus came on in my local pub, the bodhrán player stuck on the Riverdance tape and played it to cheers again'

Sat, 24 Sep, 2022 - 02:01

Kate Demolder

When Riverdance was first performed live in Dublin’s The Point Theatre as the interval act of Eurovision 1994, Bill Whelan, the not-yet Grammy award-winning composer, was terrified.

“When you’re the composer, it’s petrifying. Because you’re looking at every single aspect of it, everything thing that happened during rehearsal and it’s live in front of you and millions of others around the world. There was no margin for error.

"If anyone slipped or fell, if anyone didn’t play the right piece, whatever it was, we were done. So, until the performance was over, my experience was one of just absolute terror.

"We were just hoping we could get to the end! And then, of course, turning around and seeing every member of the audience on their feet, waving Norwegian flags and British flags — none of us expected that reaction.”

It’s been 27 years since that day, and the show’s withstanding memory still brings Whelan and his counterparts to smile.

“In Limerick for weeks after, every time the Angelus came on in my local pub,” he shares, laughing, “the pub bodhrán player stuck on the Riverdance tape and played it to cheers again. Those were the heady days, but I still get such a buzz from it. It’s incredible.”

I speak to Whelan today alongside fellow award-winning musicians fiddler Zoe Conway and her guitarist husband, John McIntyre, ahead of a one-off concert at Ballymaloe’s Grainstore, a rare live performance.

The trio log into Zoom, sharing laughs and jokes about their family links and fond memories (Bill produced Zoe’s first album back in 2002, and they have worked closely ever since, with Bill inviting Zoe and John to perform on the Riverdance 25th anniversary album).

Right to left, Bill Whelan, Zoe Conway and guitarist husband John McIntyre

Conway, a star within Irish traditional circles and also boasting international acclaim, rose to prominence as a teenager in Louth, choosing music outright from the age of “about 13”.

“It was always music for me,” she smiles. “My father often pushed me to try other, less precarious routes of employment, as any parent would. But in my early teens, he said to me that he was not going to push me to practice or play anymore, he was going to step back and that this had to be my decision. So I pondered it over two days and decided I would be so miserable without playing. Even those two days were tough.

"It had a huge effect on me and it was always the only thing I was going to do. I even remember hurting my shoulder once when I was 15 and had to stop playing for three months in order to let it repair fully.

"Those three months nearly broke my heart.”

A professional musician from the time she left school (Conway took Transition Year out to form a band and play internationally), Conway made her name in the contrasting worlds of traditional and classical violin, oftentimes to the dismay of her teachers, practicing both disciplines in secret.

“Tell her how your classical teacher finally found out you were playing traditional Zoe,” McIntyre nudges.

“I won the All Ireland, and it was in the paper,” she modestly laughs.

McIntyre too boasts several musical disciplines, taking up guitar at the age of eight only to form “a number of bands” in his teens, one of which was indie group, The Revs, a Donegal rock outfit that toured extensively across Ireland (Oxegen, Slane) as well as the US, Australia and Europe.

“People think I brought John into trad music,” Conway smiles, “but he spent all of his summers in Donegal where his dad is from. So he was well used to a session.”

The trio chose Ballymaloe as the venue for a rare public performance due to their intertwined connections with the House, the Grainstore and the Cookery School. Bill’s children are graduates of the school (“my two girls cook a brilliant Christmas dinner”) and Zoe and John have performed in the Grainstore over the last 15 years at both public and private events.

Each of the three performers’ repertoires boasts absurdly impressive reviews and concerts; together, Zoë and John have been described by the BBC as “simply one of the best folk duos on the planet”, with performances spanning from audiences with Irish Presidents Mary McAleese and Michael D. Higgins to soundtracks like Float Like A Butterfly (Samson Films 2018) and Artemis Fowl (Disney 2020).

Whelan has worked with Irish traditional music and musicians since 1980 when he was the pianist for Planxty, later producing and arranging pieces for, among others, U2, Van Morrison and Kate Bush. He has also worked extensively in theatre; his adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore had successful runs at London’s Old Vic, Melbourne and Sydney and received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination.

In 1989, he was appointed composer to the WB Yeats International Theatre Festival at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, writing original music for 15 Yeats’ plays, while also composing scores for films including Lamb, starring Liam Neeson, and Dancing at Lughnasa, starring Meryl Streep. His memoir, The Road to Riverdance, is also set for release in late October.

“I had to do something during Covid,” he laughs now. “My wife, Denise, had been kind of pressing me for a while to write something, more to have something to hand down to my kids or grandkids.

"So I began work on the copy during the lockdown. It took me about six months to write and I went right back to my very early days, in fact, beyond that, to my parents’ time, right up to the opening night of Riverdance in London in 1995. It stops there.

"There might be a second installment if I get another bit of time off. It’s actually coming out the day after The Grainstore gig, so it’s a very exciting time.”

Riverdance cast members Amy Mae Dolan and Fergus Fitzpatrick

The three speak passionately about breaking the iron-clad rigidity within musical disciplines and blurring lines between traditions.

“I remember as a teenager, being told not to follow in the footsteps of Johnny Doherty and Willie Clancy who pushed the boundaries of traditional music, and in order to be a good player you must stick to the music we already had and not go further,” Conway says.

“I remember thinking, you know, at some stage the tunes we’re playing now were brand new, why can’t we do that again?”

“Completely,” Whelan agrees. “I always found Japanese musicians were so fascinated by that, as their music and dances are so classical and captured in glass plates, just to be pulled out on national holidays. One time I was interviewed by a Japanese journalist who asked me ‘what influence did I think the album, O’Riada Sa Gaiety, had on the development of traditional Irish music’, and I remember being blown away.

"The hunger and curiosity to see how other groups formed their music and dance has always been there, I see it today with the Riverdance dancers when they meet with the Russian and Spanish and American dancers, but for some reason, it’s often gatekept and ironclad.

"The appetite is there for it, and oftentimes the desire to be faithful to the tradition yet not be afraid to move it forward ––much like Zoe’s work ––keeps the tradition alive.

We always saw traditional Irish dancing as hands-by-the-side rigidness, but the new iterations are far more free-flowing, and the cultural interaction is leading people to love it that much more.

At 72, Whelan is still composing, scoping out new musical talent (“just last night I saw the most amazing violinist perform, she was nine”) and is as drawn to the discipline of Riverdance as ever.

The dancers are athletes, he insists. “I remember back in the day they’d be eating burgers during their lunch breaks, not anymore.”

He also can’t let me go without detailing his favourite anecdote about the dancers’ strength.

“Years ago, I was with Irish international rugby player Keith Wood, and I asked him did he want to come in and see backstage. He said, of course.

"It was only when he came in, saw the dancers warming up, and noticed that one of the male dancers was doing a very impressive set of push-ups, with another dancer sitting on his back, that he said “forget it,” and walked back to his seat.

"I think it’s all down to seeing how others perform and compete and are involved. We need, I think philosophically, to be interacting with other’s worlds — and that’s what makes things even better than before.”