Return of Geantraí a welcome Christmas present for trad music fans
Pauline Scanlon and Ciarán Ó Gealbháin on Geantraí na Nollag on TG4, Christmas Day.
A generation of Irish traditional musicians has grown up watching Geantraí, yet for those young people, the TG4 series may represent not so much a contemporary pub seisiún as an archive of vintage recordings.
Though the flagship music programme has rarely been off television screens since it was first broadcast in 1996, the year of the station’s inception as TnaG, its popularity has been sustained by fans re-watching favourite recordings, some featuring musicians and singers who have since passed away.
A decade since the last episodes were made, the generation of young musicians who have been drawing from the well of tunes aired on Geantraí are about to get their turn in the spotlight alongside some of those they previously watched on the series.
A Christmas Day Geantraí na Nollag special, which acts as a prelude to a new series beginning next spring, features the likes of 2021 TG4 young musician of the year Sorcha Costello, along with reunited Cork group North Cregg, and accordion and keyboard player Conor Connolly, who performs with Dé Dannan co-founder Frankie Gavin, recently recovered from oesophageal cancer.
“Frankie is such a hero to so many of us and one of the great exponents in the history of Irish traditional music,” says UCC lecturer, musician, and sean-nós singer Ciarán Ó Gealbháin, who co-presents the Christmas special with West Kerry singer Pauline Scanlon.
“He was quite poorly for part of the year and we’re so delighted he’s recovered,” he says. “It’s a celebration in terms of having put his illness behind him.”
Former Danú member Ó Gealbháin, whose doctoral thesis involved research into the song tradition of his native Déise area of Co Waterford, renews his musical acquaintance with Garry Ó Briain on mandocello for religious song ‘Fáilte an Linbh Íosa’, verses of which Ó Gealbháin discovered in 1927 collection Londubh an Chairn.
The role of Geantraí in celebrating anew the traditional music and song of the past and providing future archive material is close to the heart of Ó Gealbháin as academic, musician, and singer.
The earlier programmes, recorded from 1996 to 2012, are “remarkable documents of Irish traditional music”, he says, and in presenting the new series he plays a part in the continuum.
“I’m very much aware of the fact that these programmes will be there after us as a record of music in the present. People will inevitably pass away and I think it’s such an important and wonderful thing that we’re able to capture people on film for posterity,” he says.
“It’s also really important that we get to meet lots of the young musicians that are up and coming and we get them on the screen because a whole generation have grown up watching Geantraí and re-runs of Geantraí and now it’s their turn to come to the fore.”
The new series sees Ó Gealbháin seeking out music venues “a little bit off the beaten track”, from Donegal and Sligo via Jim O’ The Mills in Co Tipperary, down to Monk’s Lane in Timoleague, West Cork.
“The feeling I’m getting travelling round the country is that people are just so delighted that the series is back, then having all these young musicians in who are absolutely aware of Geantraí and its history and all of the unbelievable musicians that were recorded down through the years for this series, and they’re delighted now to have their own place in the story of Geantraí.”
Ó Gealbháin takes his own trip down memory lane with a new episode filmed in Mooney’s pub in Na Déise, “a place we used always gather as musicians growing up”.
“I remember doing a Geantraí down there with Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich at the helm as presenter, a wonderful night with Danú. To be back presenting a programme from there was quite a moment,” he says.
The Déise connection continues with fiddle player and UCC graduate Pax Ó Faoláin as assistant producer, while director Paschal Cassidy was a key member of the previous production team under Cork’s Tony and Joe McCarthy of ForeFront Productions.
Advances in hand-held film and audio technology mean “the audience is being brought right into the session”, says Ó Gealbháin. “What’s key is that it’s being recorded in a setting that musicians are entirely familiar with: The pub. Geantraí tries to capture the session and with the new technology the audio-visuals are just incredible.
“It’s wonderful for musicians to be coming out again and playing in the places and traditional settings they love. This new series is a celebration of opening up again after the pandemic and everyone able to come together and share this wonderful music in public.”
- Geantraí na Nollag, TG4, Christmas Day, 8.35pm
