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Ninety mph winds on the coast last night. Snow on the hills this morning. The season has changed. November 1^st is the beginning of winter in the Irish calendar. Sounds about right.

Knocknagree is one of these dance communities that didn’t have to wait for the set dance revival to kick it back to life. There’s been a Sunday night dance at Dan O’Connell’s pub for 30 years on now. And these dancers have been with their same partners for the duration. Which means if it wasn’t for a visiting group of Brits, I wouldn’t have had a chance. But there were enough of us strangers (who knew what to do) to form a set.

Oh, my love for the Clare sets may have a rival now. The Sliabh Luchra Set, the Jig Set (I never learned the precise name, that’s just what they call it), these now are sets with attitude. Not tidy, precise, low to the ground sets like the Caledonian or the Clare Lancers, these Kerry sets run like the wind outside. They’re rowdy and wild. That’s pretty much the repertoire at this pub, those two sets. They aren’t even announced. Any one who doesn’t know them isn’t supposed to be here.

I’m now at a music festival in Castleisland. Twelve pubs on the main street, and they all have sessions in them. One has a ten year old girl in the mix, who performs several quite good solos on concertina. Another pub has a huge group going: 5 fiddles, 3 banjos, 2 boxes (accordians), a bouzooki, a whistle, and a man playing two empty bottles. I call Robin on the mobile. "Wow," she says. "It sounds like you’re inside a hurdy-gurdy."A toddler runs from musician to musician, staring raptly for a moment, then back to his mum. "He already knows how to turn on the stereo, so he can dance to it," she tells me. A couple stands up, and by themselves do a figure of the Sliabh Luchra—house around, forward and back, house again. The rain is still lashing the streets, and the pubs are dark, steamy and melodious.

30 October 2000

Castleisland, Co. Kerry