Note: The writer of this piece, Debbie van Tuyll, is a local Irish musician. She and the other members of deCeadaoin run a monthly Irish session at Riverwatch Brewery where one of the owners, Brey Sloan, usually joins in on tin whistle or guitar. Van Tuyll has traveled frequently to Ireland because of family there and has played in sessions throughout the country. The session that keeps her coming back is the one at Jim of the Mill Pub in Co. Tipperary. Van Tuyll and an Augusta University colleague did a study of the pub as a case study in the role of traditional music in Irish culture.
Ireland has given us U2, the Cranberries, the Corrs, Flogging Mollie, Thin Lizzie, Van Morrison and Sinead O’Connor, but when anyone mentions “Irish music,” they’re almost universally understood to mean the jigs and reels that are the hallmark of traditional Irish music.
Contemporary trad musicians such as the High Kings or Celtic Women show up on PBS during fundraising drives and give polished professional performances complete with orchestras and backup singers. That, however, isn’t true traditional Irish music. It’s too . . . corporate, too Top 40s-ish.
Even the kings of traditional Irish music, the legendary Chieftains, have moved away from their roots toward the more popularized brand of trad music. For their 50th anniversary tour and recording, titled Voices of the Ages, the Chieftains teamed up with indie pop performers such as Imelda May, Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Civil Wars and even American astronaut Cady Coleman who played the flute and the Irish tin whistle — in space — on a piece titled, “The Chieftains in Orbit” for the 50th anniversary album — a piece better known as “Fanny Power,” composed in 1728 by Ireland’s most famous composer and blind harper, Turlough O’Carolan.
Those who want true traditional Irish music have to look beyond the big, splashy names and musicians with recording contracts. Instead, they need to look to the amateur musicians who play not because someone is paying them but because they love the music — and the comraderie — of the traditional Irish session.
The best place to find the truest traditional music is Ireland, of course. Sessions do occur in America. Georgia’s Irish musicians gather for sessions generally weekly or monthly in Augusta, Athens, Atlanta and Savannah, according the The Session, a website for Irish musicians across the globe.
Note that “Irish musician” isn’t a reference to what passport a musician holds but to someone who plays in the Irish traditional style. The designation not even really bound by instrumentation. While some instruments are more traditional than others — tin whistles, fiddles, harps, accordians, concertinas, bodhrans (the Irish drum) most typically — just about all comers have been absorbed into the tradition. Today, banjos, mandolins, guitars, — even bass guitars — and electric keyboards make appearances as well.
The Irish session most commonly occurs either in a pub or a home, and by far the best pub for the best session is Jim of the Mills Pub in Ballinaboy, a “suburb” of Upperchurch in Co. Tipperary. Sean Laffey of Irish Music Magazine, who runs his own session each Tuesday about 20 minutes away in Cashel, described the pub aptly. He referred to the pub and its weekly session as having a “homemade” feel.
Laffey wrote in the magazine that “Finding the pub is easy if you know where it is.” Otherwise, visitors will likely need a local to guide them there. Jimmy Ryan owns the pub that is open only one night a week — on Thursdays. Jim inherited the pub from his uncle, back in the 1980s, he said in an interview for an academic research project a few years ago.
Jim’s wife, Kaye, teases him about being a “townie” because he grew up in the nearby town of Thurles. She’s the Upperchurch native. The pub that is open only one night a week also has only one tap — it pours Guinness exclusively. Jim and Kaye’s oldest daughter, Róisín, often serves as bartender, as does their youngest, Erin.
Second oldest, Áine, an actress and playwright, is usually away at a drama festival or other gig. The two middle daughters, Greta and Cáit are usually in the old kitchen where musicians gather to play, sing and sometimes offer a recitation.
Music starts at 9 p.m., and it’s been known to go on until the next morning when Jimmy cooks breakfast for whomever lingers.
In 2015, the Irish Times declared Jim of the Mills to be the best pub not just in Ireland but in the world. Well, the Irish Times was right. The Ryans — the girls all use the Irish spelling of their last name, Ní Riain — are a warm and welcoming family.
Charles Smith, a musician who served in the Signal Corps band until it was dissolved few years ago, had the opportunity in 2019 to play at the Ryan’s session a couple of times. Smith, who performs traditional Irish and Scottish music locally, said of the session, “It’s an experience only available in Ireland, and of them all, Jim’s session is the best.”
Bob Harmon, a physician at the Augusta Veteran’s Hospital and a musician, also had the chance to visit Jim of the Mills at during the Christmas holidays in 2015. Harmon recalled his visit fondly.
“It was the best craic ever,” he said.
“Craic,” pronounced like the English “crack,” is the Irish word for fun.
With the help of Bridie Ryan (no relation), the 80-something fiddler who leads the weekly session, the craic is mighty at Jim of the Mill’s. The Ryans open the doors of their home each week — pre-pandemic, anyway — and welcome strangers from across the globe as if they’re old family friends. And once a visitor has been there often enough, one of the best greetings ever — it feels like a warm, tight hug from Grandma — is when Bridie asks, “How long are you home for?”
In that sort of accepting, warm environment, how well one sings or plays doesn’t matters. What matters is that the visitor showed up. He or she is as welcome as Greta or Cáit. Even children are welcome to debut as musicians at the session. It doesn’t matter visitors can keep up with the lightning speed at which the local musicians play — they’re encouraged to join in as they can.
The links below are to recordings the Ryan family have made around their Co. Tipperary farm. The tunes and songs are some of the most traditional of the traditional. They, more than any other examples of Irish music, exemplify why music is so associated with Irish culture, and why so many make musical pilgrimages to Ireland to seek it out.
Greta wrote in an email recently that her family is “missing all our regular customers here at the pub and the sessions a lot, but please God they will all come back soon.” She added that, “Spring is in the air and long evenings ahead, so lots of hope.”
Debbie Reddin van Tuyll is a correspondent for The Augusta Press. Reach her at debbie@theaugustapress.com.
Here are a few more videos of the Ryans and friends as they make music around their farm. All videos courtesy of the Ryan family of Jim of the Mill Pub.
And last, but not least, here’s a video of a dancer at the session.
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