Irish Music Company to Celebrate Irish Roots

(Newswire.net — March 5, 2015) Franklin, Tennessee — The Irish Gift, Inc (TIG) is an online education company that offers classes in the East Galway Irish Music Tradition. The broader scope of the company is to preserve all Irish traditions that are in danger of dying out, art forms such as sean nós singing and dancing, knitting techniques (Inis Meain knitwear) and much more. 

 The vision is to offer education on all of these distinctive Irish customs so that they will never be forgotten or cast away, that they will continue to be a living part of our world. An even deeper aspiration is to teach about a way of life when these traditions were the cornerstone of the Irish ethnology and culture not so many years ago. 

 “These are such meaningful traditions, imbued with momentous intuition and ethics. They are emblems of a value-system handed down to us from our forefathers that taught us gratitude for the simple things in life. And we oftentimes forget or ignore this wisdom. And truth be told, we’d be better off if we remembered it as there is insight and balance in it” says Éilís Crean, founder of The Irish Gift, Inc and teacher of The East Galway Irish Music Tradition.

What exactly you may ask, is The East Galway Irish Music Tradition? It is a measured, quiet and soulful style that compels the listener with its intricate ornamentation and creative and unpredictable variations. When compared to the fast and sometimes frenetic beat of some of the more contemporary settings of traditional Irish music that we see today, one might believe that this style runs the risk of being tedious and unexciting. 

Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. This style brings with it authority and command. At first glance it might appear soft and fragile. Yet, according to Crean, EGIMT is the torch-bearer of those who have gone before us. 

And Éilís Crean has seen this reality first-hand. Growing up in Ireland, Crean spent many hours with her father and her teacher Eddie Kelly as both men recounted stories and tales from times gone by. Stories of hardship, adversity and mischance. And through it all, there was the music. It was what sustained families and friends; it gave them the courage and strength to persevere. And not just to survive, to thrive; to be able to eventually share their life-story with their children with a wistful smile of gratitude and acceptance; a contented fidelity to the life that they had lived. 

“I loved hearing those stories and each one had a profound impact on me when I was growing up” Crean says. “Those music lessons with Eddie Kelly and listening to he and daddy talking for hours about life when they were growing up; they definitely shaped me in how I see life and how I want to live my life” 

Crean goes on to say that she feels that this moral code is carefully intertwined in the phrasing and rhythm of the East Galway music and this is why it has so much power over the listener and indeed the player. And over her.

As a fiddle-player growing up in Co. Roscommon, Ireland, Éilís was taught by the highly esteemed and legendary Eddie Kelly, who played a large part in her upbringing, providing her with hours of instruction through the artful arrangement of his notes during weekly lessons.  Kelly became most famous for a haunting reel that he composed known as The Lonesome Fiddler. It has been recorded by numerous musicians including Liz Carroll, Kevin and Seamus Glackin on their Northern Lights album and separately by Paddy Glackin and Jolyon Jackson.  Eddie’s original recording of this tune and other recordings are available on website. It’s the only source of his music.

For more information on The Irish Gift, Inc please email eilis@theirishgift.com.