Liam Weldon

Liam Weldon in front of Tailor's Hall, Dublin

Thanks to Tommy Morris for the Photo



My old (and very tedious) Latin teacher used to repeat at length his mantra “by indirections are directions found out.” Well he may have a point for I stumbled onto a site and an article about Liam Weldon because somebody in Chicago asked me a question about “Fields of Athenry” written by Pete St John. They both featured in traditional music sessions at Tailors Hall and elsewhere in Dublin which I and a group of friends used to attend. Whilst I had heard that Liam had passed on I was saddened to see he had died so many years ago in 1995 but still reading about him brought back many happy memories in the late 70’s and early 80’s of a wonderful coming together of visitors and natives and some magical music sessions animated by Liam who was something of the Godfather of traditional music in Dublin City.



Whilst I've been in the UK over 20 years I knew Liam and Nellie his wife (who was invariably and affectionately referred to as Nellie Wellie) well but lost touch when I moved over. I have many happy memories of the sessions in Tailor's Hall and afterwards in the Brazen Head when An Taisce took over the Hall. Liam's key phrase was "There is a great difference between a folk singer and somebody who just sings folk songs."







The sessions at Tailor's Hall were almost like a musical university with Liam's gentle but firm MC'ing and the many visitors from abroad who would turn up based on word of mouth info with musical instruments in hand to join in a real rather than a staged music session. But my favourite times were the laid back Sunday morning sessions and Liam's (in) famous pot of "pigs’ bits" on the fire! We were often suspicious of the contents but Liam would swear to us that this pig really did have two tails! Often as well Pete St John or one of the Furey's would drop in. There was hardly anybody in folk circles Liam didn't know or hadn't made a bodhrán for.







We campaigned together to keep Tailor's Hall open as a folk venue with the "Save Tailor's Hall" campaign based in my office and we enlisted John Buckley of Hickey Beauchamp, Solicitors (who very graciously took on the case Pro Bono) to stop the licence at Tailor's Hall being extinguished. Tailor's Hall is the only surviving medieval guildhall in Dublin and was once a place for the tailor's guild to meet. This early 18th-century building is architecturally and historically significant to medieval Dublin. Until recently it was obscured by a high wall, making it one of Dublin's lesser-known gems.





Gate to Tailor's Hall, Back Lane, Dublin



It turned out that we couldn't do anything to stop the licence being transferred as only the residents of the civil parish it was being transferred to (Baron John’s Disco Pub in Crumlin!) could object as the Victorians assumed closing a pub was a good thing which would remove a nuisance from the neighbourhood! The barrister on the other side was a John Cassidy who was unfailingly courteous and helpful to us and who the Judge turned to for advice on a number of occasions. The Judge was helpful but he then explained that he was not displaying bias but that John Cassidy was THE authority on the licensing acts and even he as a judge couldn’t find any logic in them – they had never been updated in Ireland since Victorian times. John later became a judge himself and I was very saddened to hear he died in a car crash. His daughter Constance is with her husband the owner of Lissadell House in Sligo.





Tailor's Hall



After Tailor’s Hall the sessions decamped to the Brazen Head where the owner Mary Cooney, assisted by her barman Dessie, was fighting a losing battle in trying to keep it going in the middle of a Dublin Corporation created wasteland after another notorious “road widening” scheme knocked down the buildings in Bridge Street around it and destroyed the alley way entrance which protected it from the outside world and gave it its special atmosphere. When I see the tourist goldmine the Brazen Head has become today I feel sorry for Mary who sold the place very cheaply. Established in 1198 is at just over 800 years old the oldest pub in Ireland. It is mentioned in Leon Uris’s “Trinity”, Napper Tandy and the United Irishmen met there and Winston Churchill stayed there when he was young.















The Brazen Head, Dublin



Liam and Nellie were special people and, along with many others, I never remember being made anything other than welcome in their presence and being put at ease. I had heard about his passing and while it was good to find the details it was sad to read but there are many happy memories of somebody who loved people and their music.



Born in Dublin, Ireland, Liam, like many people in inner city Dublin at that time, was moved out of the developing city to Ballyfermot, a suburb of large scale public housing on the outskirts of the city more commonly known to Dubliners as "Ballyfarout". Liam had a lifelong interest in the songs of the Irish Travellers and his own songs reflected a strong awareness of poverty, disadvantage and exploitation. His personal ballad style had features of other genres, but the precision of intent in his abrasive lyrics was unmistakable.



LIAM WELDON - James Connolly







Six years working in England from the age of sixteen tempered his social awareness, but yet his lyrics often have deep lyric sensitivity. He sang first at the Central Bar in Aungier St., Dublin, and with his wife Nellie ran gigs and clubs through the 1970s. In Dublin, he organised the Pavees Club in Slatterys on Capel Street and sessions in the Tailor's Hall and the Brazen Head. In the early seventies, Liam sang and played bodhrán in the group "1691". Named after the year of the signing of the Treaty of Limerick, other members of the group included Tommy Peoples, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Peter Browne, and Matt Molloy, who later went on to form The Bothy Band.









Liam was well known for his songs "Dark Horse on the Wind" and "The Blue Tar Road". "Blue Tar Road" is a criticism of Dublin Corporation in the eviction of Traveller families at Cherry Orchard, County Dublin. "Dark Horse on the Wind" is a lament for the lost dreams of the 1916 Volunteers and a criticism of the conflict then (1960s/1970s) raging in Ireland.





Liam (3rd from left) on Ballyfermot Community TV during the Ballyfermot Arts Festival in the early 70's



In this article from 1999 from the Sunday Tribune Fintan Valley reflects knowledgably on his contribution to the urban folk tradition of Dublin after the unveiling of a plaque to Liam at Ballyfermot Library.



“But last month's launch of a CD collection of the songs of singer/songwriter the late Liam Weldon - 'Dark Horse on the Wind' - at the Cobblestone bar at Smithfield draws attention to the singer in city. This was verified on Wednesday last with the unveiling of a plaque to his memory at Ballyfermot library. Born in Dublin in 1933, Weldon was passionate about song words and singing. He learned from the Travelling people and from the remnant of the broadsheet ballad singers and his own songs reflected a strong awareness of poverty, disadvantage and exploitation. Uncompromising, these challenged the middle-class complacency of the Irish Free State; dangerously he trod ground shared with critics of an Irish national identity which he believed in. His personal ballad style had features of other genres, but the precision of intent in his abrasive lyrics was unmistakable and did not endear him easily to the keepers of the intensive care unit that incubated the Celtic Tiger. He sang first at the Central Bar in Aungier St., Dublin, and with wife Nellie ran gigs and clubs through the 1970s.



His Blue Tar Road, is an indicts us for our indigenous racism implicit in the eviction of Traveller families by Dublin Corporation at Cherry Orchard; Dark Horse on the Wind, from 1966, criticised the 1916 commemorations in the face of what he saw as the failures represented by emigration and poverty:



In the ashes of our broken dreams / We've lost sight of our goal / Oh rise, rise, rise, dark horse on the wind.



Dublin singer Frank Harte regards Liam Weldon as someone who gave Dublin people an awareness of the culture of the city they occupied, and for Christy Moore he was "one of the great singers". Liam Weldon had other standards too - about performance, and in Harte's memory "he never tolerated anything but silence for a song." A collector too, he is noted by Tom Munnelly of the UCD Dept. of Folklore as "the only urban-based singer with a genuine interest in the lives and song of the Travellers". Liam Weldon had his brushes with the possibility of stage success too, playing in the pre-Bothy Band group '1691' with Tony MacMahon, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Peter Browne and Donal Lunny; his songs are sung by such as Mick Flynn, Kevin Mitchell and Tim Lyons. Perhaps his power as a singer is summed up best by close friend Colm Keating who recalls the intense silence which he generated at the Ballyfermot Phoenix Folk Club while singing Patrick Galvin's James Connolly: "the dishwasher filling up sounded like a waterfall".



Fintan Valley, Sunday Tribune. 1999



Liam was multi-talented as a songwriter, musician, folklorist, collector of songs, raconteur and also had a great knowledge and interest in the Travelling Community and Dublin working Class History. He was one of the movers to have a plaque erected at St. Catherine’s Church neat to tailors Hall in Thomas Street. This was the scene of the execution of the leader of the 1803 rising Robert Emmet. But Liam and the Dublin Historical Society raised funds to commemorate the 18 ordinary Dublin working men who were also executed there and I was privileged to be at the unveiling. The men commemorated on the plaque are;













Robert Emmet monument at St. Catherines









Carpenters

Edward Kearney, John Killeen, Thomas Keenan, John Hayes, Michael Kelly, Henry Howley and John McIntosh;

Tailors

Owen Kirwan and John Begg;

Factory workers

Thomas Donnelly and Nicholas Tyrrell;

Slater

Maxwell Roach;

Coal Factor

Denis Lambert Redmond;

Shoemaker

John McCann;

Farm labourer

Felix Rourke;

Baker

James Byrne



For the background see; The Years of the French



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/years-of-french.html



It was a privilege too knowing Liam for as somebody who could not hold a tune to save my life watching Liam in action was a real education. He had great presence and a unique style and I include some of his lyrics and songs below. He was never driven by self interest and was unselfish in the way he shared and facilitated others. He was ahead of his time in campaigning against racist attitudes to the Travelling Community. He was great friends with the Furey family who were from the Travelling Community and encouraged them to learn instruments and play and thought them. In the 70’s they were one of the biggest Irish folk acts. He was the progenitor of the Bothy Band and his sessions over the years acted as an incubator and testing ground for many Irish musicians and singers. He was a talented instrument maker and his bodhráns were sought after by musicians but with all his other interests production was never regular. After the Brazen Head closed for renovation he decamped to Mother Redcaps across the road from Tailor’s Hall but his health was poor (Liam had what he called his “dicky ticker” for years) so he rarely performed. In hindsight An Taisce (The National Trust for Ireland) taking over Tailor’s Hall was probably best for this venerable old building.







For all that I’ll treasure the special memory of those gentle Sunday mornings in the basement under the hall with the dull light coming in through the lunette windows being refracted in the fragrant smoke from the peat fire where Liam would be stirring his pot of “bits” and all the while enticing musicians and singers who had come to this unique place to perform and entertain. A special place, a special atmosphere and in our friend Liam Weldon a special person who was a life enhancer and whose memory endures.



Liam Weldon (15 October 1933 - 28 November 1995)



In compiling this piece I was delighted to find D Fallon’s excellent Blog on Liam on the Come Here to Me Blogsite which is a superb site full of Dublinese and this Wikipedia article on Liam. They inspired me to write this reminiscence of Liam and I’ve used material and quoted from both of them. “Come Here to me” is an excellent site and you can find it on my Blogroll.



http://comeheretome.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/liam-weldon-as-dublin-as-the-easter-rising-as-irish-as-the-limerick-soviet-that-got-clobbered/



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Weldon



DARK HORSE ON THE WIND (Liam Weldon)



1

Oh those who died for liberty, have heard the eagle scream.

All the ones who died for liberty, have died but for a dream.

Oh rise, rise, rise, Dark Horse on the wind,

For in no nation on the earth, more broken dreams you'll find.

2

The flames leaped high, reached to the sky, till they seared a nation's soul.

In the ashes of our broken dreams, we've lost sight of our goal.

Oh rise, rise, rise, Dark Horse on the wind,

And help our hearts seek Róisín*, our soul again to find.

3

Now charlatans wear dead mens' shoes, aye and rattle dead mens' bones.

E'er the dust has settled on their tombs, they've sold the very stones.

Oh rise, rise, rise, Dark Horse on the wind,

For in no nation on the earth, more Pharisees you'll find.

4

In grief and hate our motherland her dragon's teeth has sown.

Now the warriors spring from the earth, to maim and kill their own.

Oh rise, rise, rise, Dark Horse on the wind,

For the one-eyed Balor* still reigns king, in our nation of the blind.



*Balor was the one-eyed evil god of Irish mythology.



*Black Róisín, a code name used by the Irish when referring to Ireland during the invasion, when natives were forbidden to practise their Catholic religion, speak their own language, or speak of an "Ireland". Hence writings were disguised as love songs, and poet's names usually concealed.









MY LOVE IS A WELL (Liam Weldon)



1

My love is a well, a deep dropping-well,

As deep as the bottomless sea.

Immersed am I, in the well of my love,

Immersed in ecstasy,

Immersed in ecstasy.

2

My love is an eagle and fierce is her cry,

As she calls me to mate, with her for to fly,

To the land of the mountains, the mist and the sky,

Where our young eagles scream at the dawning,

Our young eagles scream at the dawning.

3

My love is a fraughan, royal purple and black,

A fraughan that dwells by the rude mountain track.

And we'll sink deep our roots, in the mountain's broad back,

And our seed will spread over the mountain,

Our seed will spread over the mountain.

4

My love is a flower, so shy to behold,

A primrose emerging from winter's cold,

A song of the dream-time that's new and yet old,

And I love my bright love till the dawning,

I will love my bright love till the dawning.



Discography



Sixteen Ninety-One: Irish Folk Songs, 1973 (Arfolk, France)

Dark Horse On The Wind, 1976 (Mulligan, Ireland)(also on CD)

Liam Weldon with Pol Huellou, 1989 (cassette only, Goasco)

and...

Séan Howley, Liam Weldon, Brian O’Donohue - Elixir (on Goasco, no further information available)



LIAM WELDON - Smuggling the Tin

The Years of the French.

Storming of the Bastille

Bastille Day 14th July 2007, was the 218th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille Prison in France, an event profoundly ignored here entre les Rosbifs.

It is hard to recall the French Revolution without thinking of the response of the Chinese Premier Chou En Lai, who when asked what he thought was its impact answered "It is too early to tell!"

On July 14, 1789, the storming of the Bastille in Paris immediately took on a greater historical dimension; it was proof that power no longer resided in the King as God's representative, but in the people, in accordance with the theories developed by their philosophers of the eighteenth century. Within two days the Revolution could not be reversed. For all citizens of France, the storming of the Bastille came to symbolize liberty and democracy in the struggle against oppression.

People are often unaware of the unique Irish contribution to both sides of the events. The charge of the mob on the Bastille Prison was led by Robespierre’s Irish assistant and of the only seven prisoners they found inside one was an Irish lunatic who thought he was Julius Caesar!

This was to be only the beginning of the influence of French Republicanism on Ireland as Republicanism provided a model to Irish Nationalists opposed to English domination of Ireland. The republican revolutions in France and United States during the late 18th century greatly influenced radical Irish thinkers, who wanted democratic reforms, more independence from Britain and an end to discrimination, particularly against Catholics. The Irish leaders were mainly drawn from the professional educated middle classes and were inspired by the ideas of Tom Paine, Voltaire and Rousseau. What is not widely realised is that Irish Republicanism was founded by Ulster Protestants as the Penal Laws and The Act of Uniformity which decreed everybody had to belong to the Established Church of England also discriminated against the Presbyterians of Ulster. These (along with Quakers and Huguenots) were the Dissenters or non-conformists, labels which are in disuse today.

The original non-sectarian nature of Irish Republicanism, which was later debased by crypto fascists using the “Republican” label, can be seen from this extract from the Original Declaration of the United Irishmen.

“That no reform is practicable, efficacious, or just, which shall not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion. Satisfied, as we are, …………………………………And we do call on, and most earnestly exhort, our countrymen in general to follow our example, and to form similar societies in every quarter of the kingdom for the promotion of constitutional knowledge, the abolition of bigotry in religion and politics, and the equal distribution of the rights of men through all sects and denominations of Irishmen.”



The United Irishmen were the first group to advocate an independent Irish republic. With military aid from the republican government in France, they organised the failed Irish Rebellion of 1798. Whilst not sharing the virulent anti-clericalism of the French Revolutionaries there was a definite commitment to a secular Republic with a clear separation of Church and State. The United Irishmen looked to their fellow Republicans in France and the Directoire sent fraternal assistance on two occasions.

In 1796 French ships carrying 12,000 troops and the United Irish leader Wolfe Tone arrived unseen and unchallenged just outside Bantry Bay, a large naval base in Cork. This amazing success was outweighed by the fact that they could not land due to the unfavourable winds. After six days of waiting dangerous storms blew up and the attempt to land was abandoned. The fleet returned to France and Ireland had to wait a while longer for her revolution. There is endless and largely fruitless speculation ever since about how different the next 200 years might have been had Tone landed. This was the second time the French and Bantry Bay had met in Irish history for a French fleet had arrived there in 1689 to support James II against William of Orange in the campaign which resulted in James defeat at the Battle of the Boyne.


French Fleet Bantry Bay

In 1798, the Catholic peasants of Wexford, driven to desperation by savage landlordism, created a movement powerful enough to capture and hold Wexford town and many of its outlying areas. At one stage it seemed that the Wexford rebels would link up with their comrades from Carlow and Kilkenny and march on Dublin. In June mainly Protestant Ulster caught the revolutionary fever.

In August 1798, Nine years after the French Revolution, a fleet of ships carrying over 1.100 officers and men from revolutionary France and Irish patriots landed in County Mayo, in westernmost Ireland. They were supposed to be an advance guard, followed by other French ships with the leader of the rebellion, Wolfe Tone. Briefly they triumphed, raising hopes among the impoverished local peasantry and gathering a group of supporters. The hope and despair of the remarkable “Year of the French” is caught in the marvelous historical novel of the same name by Thomas Flanagan and by Thomas Pakenham in “The Year of Liberty.”


Battle of New Ross 1798

Following on the Irish Rebellion of 1798, a French invasion force landed near Killala in County Mayo on August 22, hoping to join forces with Irish rebels. After some initial successes, the French force of about 1000 men were confronted by overwhelmingly greater numbers of British troops at Ballinamuck and shortly surrendered. An Irish irregular force, including Irish deserters from the British army, continued to fight on and suffered heavy casualties. Whereas the French prisoners were treated honourably and repatriated, some 200 Irish including their General George Blake were hanged as traitors.


Memorial, Garden of Remembrance, BallinamuckThis stone stands in the Garden of Remembrance which was opened in 1998 on the site of the old court house to commemorate the Battle of Ballinamuck.

English rule in Ireland did indeed totter in 1798 — but it survived and the insurgency collapsed in the face of a brutal English counterattack. More than 30,000 Irish, overwhelmingly peasants, were slaughtered in the months of revolt. The immediate political legacy was one of repression, terror and communal division.

In the aftermath of the rebellion the British government decided to adopt a new and more drastic solution to the Irish question. They concluded that the self-government that had existed until this point had not only been ineffective but had contributed to the revolutionary mood. It would be replaced with an Act of Union which would ensure that Ireland would be governed from the Westminster parliament on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom. So in 1800, after an infamous campaign of bribery, corruption and intimidation the Act of Union was passed and my home town of Dublin lost it’s Parliament and a great deal of it’s wealth and influence.

This was however not the end to French support for Irish revolution. In 1802 France and Britain had made the uneasy peace of the treaty of Amiens. However, covertly driven by self-interest the French government promised a large military force to support a rising in Ireland. They also had made agreements with revolutionary movements in Scotland and England with the intention of encircling Britain.

In Ireland the United Irishmen gathered pledges from influential backers still opposed to the Act of Union to support a rising financially and morally. Thomas Addis Emmet returned to Ireland in the autumn of 1802 and during the winter of 1802 the first half of 1803 he organised and armed the United Irishmen. Although he was mainly confined to Dublin, he was in close contact with groups in Carlow, Wicklow and Wexford. Everything went as it should until 16 July 1803 when an explosion took place in a house on Patrick Street in Dublin. This house was in use as depot for arms and explosives and the explosion had not only blown up the house, but also the secrecy.

The discovery of the plans forced Thomas Emmet to fix an earlier date for the rising, and therefore a rising without French support. Because the signals from the rest of the country were positive he decided Saturday 23 July as the day of the rising. Despite the promises and intentions Thomas Emmet found out that only a fraction of the men expected had turned up. Groups outside Dublin failed to rise due to poor attendance. The rebellion was doomed before it started and with a signal rocket Thomas' brother Robert Emmet ended the organised rising at 9pm. The soldiers retreated to barracks where they remained until the danger had passed. Thomas Addis Emmet fled to France but his brother Robert was captured and sentenced to death after a trial where he made his famous speech from the dock which includes, amongst others, this ringing passage:


Robert Emmet

“I am charged with being an emissary of France An emissary of France? And for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country? And for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No, I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country--not in power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement!...”

Emmet's trial, at which a Castle spy represented him, is mainly remembered for this stirring speech and his stab at the 'hanging judge' that "Lord Norbury might easily drown in the blood of those he had sent to the gallows". Norbury sentenced him to a traitor's death. On 20 September 1803, Robert Emmet, was publicly hanged, drawn and Quartered outside St. Catherine’s Church in Thomas Street, Dublin. He was the last person to receive this barbaric sentence from a British court. Many years later I had the privilege of being at St. Catherine’s at the unveiling of a plaque to the 18 ordinary Dublin workingmen who were also executed in the same barbaric manner with Robert Emmet.


Execution of Robert Emmet

The truth is that Robert Emmet was an inept revolutionary but his idealism and courage cannot be doubted. His speech from the dock is still a clarion call of integrity, in the context in which it was delivered the courage required is beyond understanding. The image of this young member of the Protestant Ascendancy was further enhanced by two class mates from Trinity College who shared in the revulsion at his fate, Robert Curran whose sister Sarah he courted and Thomas Moore who composed several allegorical ballads in his memory including “The Minstrel Boy”.



When Thomas Emmet returned to France he found the revolution had taken another turn under Bonaparte and in 1815 another member of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, crushed its military power entirely at the Battle of Waterloo.

The Emmet rebellion brought to an end the 14 years of active French involvement in Irish Independence and my home town of Dublin went into a deep slumber in the 19th Century which made it a byword for poverty and paradoxically preserved much of its Georgian inheritance. A slumber which was to dramatically end with the cataclysmic awakening of the 1916 Rising.

The French Revolution may have happened 218 years ago but in Ireland it continues to influence and inform the body politic I can only echo the words of Chou En Lai when considering its impact and suggest "It is too early to tell!"