Song from Kildare included in new 32-county project
In the Crankie Island Project, Irish singer Cathy Jordan has made it her mission to preserve songs from every county on the island
Ireland’s music and storytelling is cherished and celebrated worldwide. Traditional songs have captured the heartbreak, treachery, eviction, rebellion, emigration, murder, loss, longing, as well as drinking, revelry and hilarity and spaces of the otherworld deeply connected to identity, place and history in Ireland. Many of these songs have never been recorded and survive as they are passed from generation to generation. In the Crankie Island Project, Irish singer Cathy Jordan has made it her mission to preserve songs from every county on the island.
The song Cathy has choose to represent Kildare is The Curragh Wrens - click here for track . A song inspired by the plight of single women during the famine who lived in small hollowed out ‘nests’ or ditches in the Curragh Co Kildare, the song has its roots in a community of women known as The Wrens of the Curragh in nineteenth-century.
They lived outside society on the fields of Kildare, many of whom were sex workers at the Curragh Camps, Records date back to the 1840s of women living on the Curragh nearby the army camp.
Many of the women were orphans because of the famine resulting in them using prostitution to provide for themselves. The song features Cathy - Vocal, uke, bodhran, Claudia - Vocal, fiddle, Irene Buckley - Vocal electronics, Grainne Bath Enright has done the crankie illustrations for the video video here
Renowned for her stirring performances and expressive voice, Cathy is lead singer and percussion player with traditional powerhouse Dervish. Her deep understanding and love of traditional Irish songs and singing has inspired her over the years to collect hundreds of songs which may have been otherwise forgotten.
“Our songs are a part of our folklore; they ignite our memory and give us a sense of place. They are messages from our ancestors that evoke powerful imagery of landscape, mythology and connect us with the strife and struggles of generations who have walked our common paths.” Cathy.
During Lockdown, Cathy began researching and recording songs from her native Roscommon. Wanting to use the Crankie box to illustrate the songs, she collaborated with artist Peter Crann.
The Crankie box is a quirky story-telling device dating back to the 19th and early 20th centuries where an original illustrated scroll is wound onto two spools in a specially made box with a viewing screen. While the song is playing, the long scroll is hand-cranked and stretched across the viewing platform, providing an evolving visual depiction of the song. Crankie boxes can range from match box size to full stage dimensions and can be up to 12 meters in length.
Inspired by the mix of visual and audio narratives, and with support from the Arts Council, Cathy began archiving songs from the four provinces and selected 32, one for every county on the island, that best represented traditional song types and would also lend themselves to illustration. The majority of the songs chosen are from the traditional canon. Song list county by county : HERE
Then came the mammoth task of arranging, recording mixing and mastering, a process which involved collaborations with over 50 musicians in 8 studios around Ireland. Duets include Cathy with Lisa O’Neill on the Cavan song ‘The Rocks Of Bawn’, Donal Clancy on the Monaghan song ‘The Patriot Game’ and Andrew Hendy (The Mary Wallopers) on the Armagh song ‘Tanderagee’.
“I travelled to Benny McCarthy’s studio in Waterford and hired musicians in the area and recorded songs from Waterford, Kilkenny, Offaly and Carlow. In Sligo, we recorded songs for the counties Meath, Sligo, West Meath, Louth and Longford. Antrim was the recording base for Wicklow, Down, Armagh, Wexford and Antrim, in Galway I recorded Galway and Mayo songs and so on. It was a wonderfully enjoyable process, and I was honoured to work with such amazing musicians, singers and engineers.”
For each recording, an accompanying video was created using the Crankie box. The illustrations for the Crankie Island Songs have been beautifully drawn by a collective of Irish artists chosen from across the country who were tasked with making their own crankie box with a visual story for the song. Each unique Crankie box with its own style, interpretation and texture was recorded on video and is part of the Crankie Island performances.
Four years on, the Crankie Island Project – this amazing and unique audio-visual collection - is ready for the nation to cherish and share with the world. The 32 songs will be available to purchase as a download or stream and the accompanying illustrations (for each track) will be available free from crankieisland.com and YouTube.
The Crankie Island Song Project nationwide tour kicks off in Ireland in October featuring:
Cathy Jordan - Vocals, Bodhran, Guitar, Accordion
Claudia Schwab - Vocals, Violin
Anna Hueston - Vocals, Cello, Mandoline, Banjo
Seamie O’Dowd, Vocals, Guitar, Bouzouki
Rick Epping - Vocals, Harmonica, Concertina
Peter Crann - Crankie operator, providing the incredible backdrop of the moving visuals accompanying each track.
All musician, track and recording details on the Crankie Island website : Crankieisland.com