Sean nos
Monday 23rd June, 2008
Each year with our pilgrimages to Connemara we create community. During our time together in May and in October, we share the incredible experience of a diverse group of people living together, sharing personal experiences and adventure. After our Feminine Warrior group recently left us in May I took time to reflect on all the highlights and challenges of our time together. It was an extraordinary time. From varied backgrounds and life experience, these 10 beautiful women of all different ages each left a deep and marvelous impression on me. I am indebted to them all for their willingness to be spontaneous, to flow with the moment and to be open to the imagination.
Something that has been a cornerstone of my work for many years is the importance, the power, of community. This was driven home to me in April when Wim and I attended a lecture by the activist, Vandana Shiva ( to read about her please check out the journal entry ). Vandana’s lecture was about globalisation and the enclosure of the commons. The commons are the things on Earth that belong to all life as our birthright - the air we breath, the water we drink, the land we live on and grow food on. Enclosure of land began long ago. In Ireland it began with invasions by the English when the monarchy paid their generals with huge parcels of land that belonged to the Irish Chieftains and their clans. The Irish were pushed off the land that was fertile and useful - land that could be used by the English for growing crops for export and for the textile industry. The Highland clearances of the 18th century were also to enclose the commons. The English invasion of Australia in the late 18th century saw the beginning of enclosures there. According to Vandana it is the loss of community that has allowed privatisation to take place and community has been lost in globalisation.
Reclaiming our communities is the power that will reclaim our commons. We must revise our ideas about community rights and property. Community, she says, has a fluctuation but constancy of identity.
We all benefit from community, from a sense of culture and place. This is something I have learnt from my many visits to Connemara in west Ireland. Here there is still a strong culture. There are many festivals and events that celebrate the local traditions and there is a sense of continuity as well as people who can tell you stories about the land that have been passed down to them through the generations.
Community embraces you in times of trouble, in times of sorrow and times of joy. It provides safe boundaries where mistakes can be made and holds the space for rites of passages, celebrating with you the thresholds you must cross. In community our children don’t grow up feeling alone or overwhelmed by the world out there. In community there are elders who know the old stories and pass them down. There are children to receive those stories and to keep the old ways alive. Happiness is shared and life is not lived unnoticed.
Relationships are all around us. In western cultures we’ve got to change our view of these things.
One of the things that really struck me in May was the beauty of the community we created and the opportunities that were available for us to experience traditions here in Connemara. Aside from the intense beauty and wildness of the area, there is a strong sense of community and continuity that stretches back to the beginning of humanity in this land.
The Sean Nós tradition is an important part of this continuity and demonstrates the power and beauty of support and self expression by the community.
Bealtaine
During May and early June there are many summer festivals in Connemara that celebrate the month of Bealtaine - the opening of the light half of the year - and welcome in the midsummer flow. Imagine our delight to discover the Fleadh Ceol ( pr Fla Keol ) was on in Letterfrack. A music festival that took in all three pubs on the crossroads, it also included lots of set dancing and set dancing competitions. There was an entire weekend of dancing, singing and music. The excitement was high when we stopped in at Veldons pub after an incredible outing to see Anne Chambers speak about Granuaile O’Malley in Westport. The day seemed young as the nights are so short at this time of year. The pubs were thronging with local people and visitors alike. In the musicians corners the players had gathered and were playing the old tunes. We sat and watched and I was thrilled that the group were experiencing an authentic musical gathering. 
Then, even better, one of the elder musicians shushed everyone. “Quiet, quiet, it’s a song.” All within hearing distance quickly quietened and those who didn’t were shooed into submission. We were about to experience the ancient Sean Nós singing ( pr Shan nos ). And in true traditional style it was performed unaccompanied except for the audience spontaneously empathising now and again with interjections such as, “God Love You,” or “Dia go deo leat!” ( God be with you always ). This happens at any point in the performance - particularly moments of emotional intensity - when a member of the community expresses their appreciation and sympathy with the singer. Here we see the close connection between the tradition and the community is still intact, the performance is almost always solo but an appreciative audience contributes with words of encouragement to the singer. The intensity of this interaction between performer and listener demonstrates the way in which the sean nós tradition is at once highly social and deeply personal. Since sean nós is a solo form, many singers place a great deal of emphasis upon individual expression. Each singer brings to the tradition his own sensibilities and experiences, and at once creates and derives something unique from it. Singing in this tradition is a highly personal response to life.
I heard a story from Donegal about the origins of a favourite sean nós song up there which really touched my heart and emphasised this to me. An Chéad Mhárt de Fhómhair ( The First Tuesday in Autumn ) is a lament spontaneously composed by a man when he learnt of the death by drowning of one of his sons The man was found on the beach crying and lamenting and singing for his son. The song is a profoundly emotional response to a personal tragedy and demonstrates what I have heard many times about the power of singing by the old Irish - it is the way that things are most powerfully expressed and relief is felt or joy or whatever the experience is. The power of sean nós is also such that the song lives on as part of the local tradition. Singing transcends individual experiences and feelings from the personal to the universal. Singing this song establishes a bond with others through shared human experience and it provided a profound means of expression for the man, his family and the community.
The traditional singer and dancer put their own personality into the song or the steps and they add their own stamp to the tradition. Sean nós serves as a form of entertainment, as an emotional release, and as a means of communication, 
expressing life as it enriches it, creating connections with the community and with the world at large. It cannot be bounded by the concepts of time and space and nor can it be separated from life for it is the stuff of life itself. Aine Ní Ghallachóir, recalling her childhood when interviewed about her singing remarked, “Oh I sang everywhere - across the fields and jumping over the ditches - I sang everywhere, to myself.” ( Julie Henigan Sean nós, Donegal ). Sean nós embraces and encourages the individuals own style. Sean nós singing and dancing are a way of telling a story. It is conveying the feelings that are of utmost importance. I once heard Sinead O’Connor say that when you sing a sean nós song you become the ghost of the songwriter. The emotional sincerity and the singers ability to convey this to the audience is what is important. And, the song must also be allowed to speak for itself.
In the old days as the nights grew longer members of the community would gather at someone’s house for songs, stories, dancing and conversation - the crack. For that night the house would become the céilí house. Whatever your way of expression was you would share it - tell a story, sing a song, share a dance. Everyone had to do something. In the old days people would use any excuse for a good time and sean nós was integral to this good time.
There is no single definition of the term sean nós. Literally it means ‘old way.’ Sean nós singing has become identified with the specific performance style of singers in certain parts of the west - especially Connemara. It is an unaccompanied and complex way of singing, where intonation, ornamentation and tempo are important and highly original for each singer. The melodic line is generally highly ornamented and rhythmic freedom is essential. Joe Heaney, is one of the best known Connemara singers. Sean nós dancing is believed to have originated in Connemara. Ancient in origin it survived the strict regulation of Irish dance in the 1930s.
In participating as a member of the audience in sean nós singing where I find myself joining in the spontaneous outbursts of emotional support and in engaging, briefly, in sean nós dance lessons, I have come to realise how sean nós is the spiritual expression of the people of this land. Something so ancient that, I feel, it is a human expression of the heartbeat of the land. Wow. Here we touch something so authentic, something that has a continuity of 1,000s of years and not only experience it, even better, we can participate in it. That weekend at Letterfrack was a feast of music singing and dancing. The set dancing is also old, it seems that it developed out of sean nós dancing and when you watch it the couples do move their feet in many similar steps. Set Dancing usually starts late ( like most traditional entertainment ) and like céilí dancing can range in the number of participants from 2 hands to 4, 6, 8, 16, or more. Dancing has long been under attack from the church. In the 17th century it became obscene.
“dancing.. is a thing that leads to bad thoughts and evil actions….............. and with dancing thousands go to the black hell.”
Music scholar P J Curtis quotes a parish priest from 1670, “dancing.. is a thing that leads to bad thoughts and evil actions. It is dancing that excites the desires of the body. In the dance are seen frenzy and woe, and with dancing thousands go to the black hell.” ( 1. Curtis 1994:71 ) During the 1930s when modern dances from overseas had also become popular, both church and state were actively against dancing. The state reacted to rumours that profits from private dances were funding the IRA and the Dance Hall Acts of 1935 were introduced. The bill states that no place shall be used for public dancing unless a public dancing licence is in granted. ( 2. Austin 1993:11 )These licenses were issued only to those whom a district judge considered to be of good character. Often licenses were refused to rural communities based on the difficulty of supervision. It was the passing of these acts that spelled the ending of céilí house and crossroads dancing.
Sean nós dancing grew from an indigenous form of percussive dance that developed alongside traditional music. It is an old style of solo step dancing and includes percussive steps, steps danced close to the floor and self expression, improvisation and an emphasis on the relationship between the steps and the music. Most sean nós dancers prefer to dance to one musician - melodeon or accordion are popular choices. ( Wikipedia - Sean nós )
The sean nós tradition goes far back in time, one of the earliest origin myths I have found places it somewhere in the bronze age and it goes something like this:
Fionn MacCumhail, leader of the famed band of poet hero warriors, the Fianna, discovered after a fierce battle that his harp had been smashed to pieces. He called Diarmaid to sing the part of the harp and to approximate the sound of the harp with his voice, while Fionn sang the victory song. So enchanted was Oisín by the resulting music that he flung down his spear and broadsword in a crosswise fashion on the earth and performed a spirited dance around them. Thus, legend has it, sean nós singing and dancing were both born in the same moment and were creative expressions of life experience. Sean nós is the oldest singing and dance tradition and the root from which all the others grow. Michael O’Sciotaire a leading sean nós dancer wrote in his book “ Sean Nós, the Way My Father Beat Me,” that sean nós is the single true tradition in Irish dancing, and that “it runs a single, coherent, little altered path from Oisín’s first flights to the dancing of today.” He says that other traditional Irish dancing such as the Kerry Irish and Gliogaire are only offshoots. Sean nós dancing is highly personal, just as is the singing. Though traditionally it is solo, these days there are couples and small groups who perform together. But, even when they have rehearsed the same steps, they are never danced the same as each other - each dancer performs their own unique interpretation. What I have observed is that they are in harmony - in rhythm - with each other.
Story telling
I have come to feel that there is also a sean nós story telling tradition - perhaps this is the real story of the seanachie. Seanachie is the one who knows the stories and tells the stories. Consider the spelling for a moment sean means old. Another cornerstone of my work is story telling. I can’t learn things off by heart word for word and what I learnt in Australia from old people there is that when a story is given to you, what you remember belongs to you. And it is the power, the emotion, with which you tell it that is important. Then you also make it your own, just like dancing the steps or singing your song. I also share stories from my own life and when I share them it is to tell a truth, to empathise or share with a situation that is happening, a transformational process that we are working with. It is definitely my artistic form of expression. In the old céilí house I would be sharing stories.
Our last night together with the Feminine warrior group, after our powerful ceremony on Omey, we came home late and ate and shared poems and myths and laughter. We did it in true sean nós style. As people shared their story and poems, they were told and read in the powerful way of expressing and conveying the emotional feeling. I will never forget Dorie’s tearful reading of Yeats’ “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” or Karlin’s haunting myth of childhood terror. Nor will I forget that amazing ritual and ceremony on Omey. Each and every one of us were brilliant and Dorie’s sean nós singing on the hill was beyond perfection.
Recently I found myself dreaming at night of sean nós dancing at the crossroads. That ancient expression of spiritual ecstasy. The crossroads mark natural places in the dreaming lines - where energy flows intersect. Where, the Irish native knows, it is thin. Dancing at these places draws the energy, dances the energy, expresses being at one with the rhythm, the pulse, of the land.
Bog Week festival
Susan and I took ourselves to the sean nós dance lessons held during the Bog Week festival. What a revelation. I experienced the link, the continuity back to ancient dancing, to ancient instruments and beyond to creations heartbeat. The dance is the rhythm of the life force and as the dancer “takes off” the rhythm becomes wilder, the steps more intuitive and even the learned steps are expressed differently by each individual. In their own way each dancer is free to express their own heart dance.
Our teachers were the young Cunningham brother and sister of Letterfrack. Their family are renowned in the area for their dancing. They introduced themselves and danced for us. They were awesome. You could see that they have parents and grandparents who dance. That their first steps were learned as they learned to walk. The brother was there to teach experienced dancers new steps but, alas, we were all beginners, so he introduced the first basic steps.
And our lesson began. Shuffle shuffle stamp. Shuffle shuffle stamp. This is the basic step threaded through all the dances. So we began to practice shuffle shuffle stamp. After 10 minutes of shuffle shuffle stamp I felt as though my right leg was going to break. When do we alternate legs I wondered? Susan and her sister Sarah wondered the same, their right legs equally hurting. So, oblivious, I asked the teacher. He gave me a peculiar look and said, you alternate each time you stamp. You stamp the foot you begin the shuffle with and then start again on the opposite foot. Oh, hmmm. So we got on to the business of shuffling as though kicking stones along the ground, stamping and coordinating changing feet without loosing our rhythm.
The first test - and it was in the first steps! Learning to roll the body and move and coordinate in all different directions, feeling illogical and trying not to think about it all because if the mind gets involved you muck it up. The dance is a rhythmic expression, the feet become an instrument. Just as we were mastering the shuffle shuffle stamp came a very tricky part. Heel and toe and in between heel and toe the ‘and’ becomes a stamp with the opposite foot. He started us off and within minutes had us completely bamboozled and worse, announced, “now you are going to do it one at a time so I can come along and see how you are doing!” You have to imagine this; he is an extremely handsome young man who is a sensational dancer. Susan and I looked at each other in horror and collapsed in nervous laughter. Talk about performance anxiety! Then we looked at our feet. It gets worse. The feet that this handsome young man, in his perfect slim line leather dancing shoes, was soon going to be staring at as we performed our new steps. I was wearing the most daggy shoes I owned - the most comfortable for dancing - I thought - my Keens.
Within 5 minutes of sean nós dancing my feet felt like 2 plates of meat! Appendages on the end of my skinny legs. As for Susan, she was wearing her favourite, but ancient Ugg boots that a friend’s golden retriever had just chewed a hole in right at the big toe. So there were the two of us and of course we were the first two cabs off the rank. After that experience nothing will ever be confronting again. I must say that when those two beauties, the brother and sister, danced with us it became much easier to be intuitive and follow their lead. And in my minds eye I saw them the ages of my grandchildren, standing behind their grandparents and great grandparents and following their steps. And for a fleeting moment I caught the wave, I felt the feeling. The sense of the ancient past constantly being recreated in the now through the expression of the sean nós.
The rest of the session passed in somewhat of a blur, shuffles, tip and lift, though I kept wanting to lift and tip, slide, back, back, jump… until we had a whole sequence and then had to perform it one at a time - but by then I had surrendered to the entire process, trusted I could do it albeit clumsily and had also come to terms with the fact that I was wearing the worst possible footwear.
Filled with relief, we left Letterfrack, back to the safety of our Skye Road abode. But also full with an awe, a sense of connection. Of the brilliance of continuity. A power that can never be replaced by anything else.
1. Curtis, P J 1994 Notes From the Heart: A Celebration of Traditional Irish Music. Dublin. Poolbeg Enterprise Ltd. 2. Austin, Valerie, The Céilí and Public Dance Hall Act,1935 Eire - Ireland: A Journal of Irish Studies, The Irish American Cultural Institute, Fall.