Miss Mulqueen
teaches us music. We all bring our instruments and learn different types
of tunes. People who don't bring instruments got percussion. To make
music class more interesting local people were invited in to play for
us and talk to us about their music. Last year we had three guest musicians:-
'Meet
the Musician' is a project organised jointly by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí
Éireannn an Chláir and Clare Education
Centre. It involves schools inviting a local musician/singer into
class and listening to the artist perform and talk about his/her music.
The sessions are taped by Lara Browne who hails from Crusheen and is
now directing the project from her base in the Education Centre. There
is a written element to the project also and it is hoped to have everything
ready for display at the Fleadh Nua in Ennis in May '99.
In our
school the project was undertaken by Fourth Class and the visiting musician
was banjo-player and singer Enda Mulkere. We had a fantastic session
of music, song and chat with Enda. Enda is a member of a renowned musical
family. His father, Jack, was a music teacher and founder member of
the Aughrim Slopes Ceili Band, his mother Angela was an All-Ireland
champion ballad singer.
He brought
his scrap-book to the school and in that we found many interesting newspaper
cuttings and photographs including one of himself, Frankie Gavin and
Paul Brock meeting one of the famous Flanagan brothers from the US at
Shannon Airport. He also had a receipt from RTE for £9, plus £2 travelling
expenses, for an appearance on Bring Down The Lamp in the seventies!
