Hazelnut Tea
Songs of the Gael & Gall
Thirteen songs for the thirteen moons, for the nine hazel trees heavy with fruit, draping o'er Connla's Well, wherein water splashes wildly to the tune of the Milky Way dressed as one rainbow salmon at play.
Traditional Irish and Scottish songs, most in the English language, yet a few in the Gaeilge, andh a couple of originals written by Diarmuid Kilmartin. Put on your listening ears. Sit back with a cup'a. Close your eyes and imagine you are in a warm, dry pub on the wild, windy, wet, west coast of Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Clare, or Kerry...
Your feet are propped up by the fire, eyes closed, listening as the reels and slipjigs dance across the rolling green hills of your mind, and lifting the hearts of the other unnamed souls who have come here seeking succor. While through the music the sídhe roll ecstatically from soul to soul, a silent crofter from out past the hills and ringfort, by way of the old oak wood in the glen, has slipped through a side door into the dark pub. He need not be seen. He is a drop of Erin's dreaming. He lingers speculatively under a homespun tweed cloak in the thick shadows behind a smoke-blackened beam - holding up not only the low roof, but the dreams of Kathleen ní Houlihan and the freedom of the Children of Erin.
The lads have set down their pipes, squeeze box, guitar, and fiddle to hunt for a pint. And In the quiet vacuum that follows the passing of their reel, the crofter opens his bronzed voice in a haunting sean nós - the songs of Ireland's beautiful, sorrowful, free, and proud memory.
For this is how these songs are shared, heard and learned...as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be...
Recorded in Whitney Moore-Roda's closet in Asheville, North Carolina in a dark winter of the year 2014 just after Midwinter.