Episode 3 Píobairí Ard Mhacha - The Armagh Pipers

THEY PLAY LIVELY MUSIC

CHEERING

That's Niall Vallely, yeah.

Oh, yes, well, that's a great name!

LAUGHTER

And I have a beautiful picture of a piper, one of the other Vallelys.

Yeah, there's quite a number of painters as well...

-There are, absolutely.

-..as well as fiddlers and stuff.

Listen, thank you so much for that.

Thank you very much for having us.

It's great, a great celebration.

APPLAUSE

The idea of the garden party gives us an opportunity

to say thank you to all of those who are working in communities,

in voluntary groups, in fact delivering what is citizenship

in a real republic and equally,

and it's something we must begin to realise,

that creativity and celebration...

You have been listening to music

and you have been listening to people who sing

and to people who make music, the wonderful Armagh Pipers Club.

Ta failte romhat, you are so, so, so welcome.

APPLAUSE

SHE PLAYS A TUNE

APPLAUSE

Shall we try the two jigs? Start with them?

SHE BEGINS TO PLAY

Great stuff, I can't fault that. Brilliant.

Fantastic! You're getting the hang of it already!

Here we are, in Big Banana Studios on the shores of Lough Neagh,

recording the Cuig album

and, yeah, Cuig are five amazing musicians

and who all are members of the Pipers Club as well

and, just when I was kind of leaving,

from being a sort of full-time Armagh Pipers Club

sort of teacher or member or mentor or whatever it might be,

just when I started to go to uni,

these guys were kind of starting to come through the club

and I was really aware of their presence.

It was great to see them kind of growing

and taking their music really seriously, but enjoying it,

you know, enjoying it so much.

We've been very lucky, actually. We've been abroad a few times now.

We were in Milan, Amsterdam and then we were lucky enough

to go for a three-week tour there, to Germany.

They are so up for it over there, 400 people every night,

it was just incredible, like, and we are so young

and very, very lucky to be doing this.

I'd say 60% of the tunes that we're playing,

-we got from the Pipers Club.

-Yeah.

And the bands that would have inspired us

all went through the Pipers Club,

like Buille and Flook and so they really did...

..inspire us as a band.

Cool, lads, just give it one more shot,

just dropping in at the same place.

Nice one.

It was really great to get in the studio with them

and just try and guide them and give them a hand

and get the most out of their studio experience.

It's nice to see things kind of go full circle again.

The album itself has such a great mix of tunes

from Ireland and Scotland and old tunes and new tunes

and it is, in a way, it is representative of all the factors

that the Pipers Club has been willing to bring into Irish music.

# Take me to church

# I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies

# I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knives... #

My experience touring with Hozier was really incredible.

The opportunity came out of nowhere and I just ran with it

and, even now, looking back at it,

it's kind of difficult to grasp the enormity of what we undertook.

We played the main stage at Glastonbury, we played Bonnaroo,

for me a highlight was Newport Folk Festival two years in a row.

We performed on some of the biggest TV programmes in the world,

on David Letterman, Ellen DeGeneres, Graham Norton

and we played on Saturday Night Live.

You know, it was really incredible.

Someone did a survey last year and said that

we were the hardest-working band of 2015

and the amount of ground we had covered,

we'd made it two-thirds of the way to the moon, so we really...

we really put in the leg work!

The Armagh Pipers Club is more than just a school of music,

it's definitely a force to be reckoned with

and I think part of the reason that the club is so successful

is that, you know, there is respect for the tradition at its core,

but there's also a freedom there,

where you can interpret the tradition however you see fit

and I think that is part of the reason why

so many incredible musicians have come out of the club.

From a very young age,

you are encouraged to play in groups and to naturally fit into groups

and playing by ear, and you just have to find your way.

When I got the call from Hozier to go on the road,

one of the first things that they asked was, you know,

"Can you play by ear or do you need us to send you sheet music,"

and the sigh of relief when I said,

"No, I can figure it out as I go along."

You know, it's just really valuable to be able to just slot in.

Brian and Eithne have just really created something really special

and the legacy of that club is going to be incredible.

TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH

CHEERING

The people we have playing represent every decade

and the first group that's coming out now,

we're just calling it the '70s set.

Now, they are not all '70s vintage, but most of them are '60s or '70s,

but it's a set of tunes that we discovered in an old programme

that we had played in 1974 at some concert, you know,

so we decided that we would play tunes that we'd played in the 1970s,

so it's the 1970s set.

It is a big get-together

and it's amazing that they all were enthusiastic, you know,

because they are all playing voluntarily, you know.

I suppose I started the ball rolling,

but I certainly didn't teach all of them.

I taught a lot, certainly, over the years,

but basically, the early pupils became the next wave of teachers

and then there was the next wave of teachers,

so it's constantly renewing itself in the club, you know.

And, like, I'm delighted to still be around

and taking an odd beginners' class.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The kind of spirit of the Pipers Club will always be the same,

it will never falter or change.

I just think it needs to keep going.

I mean, my parents have done an amazing job

and they should be very proud of it

and hopefully it keeps going as long as it can.

I had a limited agenda, which gradually developed

and was honed by trial and error, mistakes,

but it has taken all of those 50 years

to really achieve what we have now.