Celebration of life, indoors or out, to be cherished

OUTDOOR music is something we cannot always enjoy in Ireland.

The great seisiúns tend to be celebrated around glowing fires in pubs which, although no longer hazy with fag smoke, are as redolent as ever with atmosphere and shadows and the mystique of old entertainment enjoyed by people who did not have pianos, but played fiddles and tin whistles, pipes and bodhráns from botháns in the Blaskets, across the length of Ireland to Tory Island in the far north.

Here, in the mildness of the Canary Islands, music is more often played outdoors. In Valle Gran Rey, in La Gomera, on an afternoon of bright sunlight, the music suddenly started and swirled up and down the valley; the fiesta had begun.