| Andi and Anne's Gaelic College Adventures |
| What a sad day! Friday 08/15/02 Last day of porridge and Andi and I took full advantage by having 2 bowls each. We will really miss this place. You have no idea. Michelle’s class was a ball, as usual. We practiced triplets and tonal changes and she talked about Lucy MacNeil, Sean McCann (I think because I was wearing a GBS shirt) and Colm Murphy, her favorite. Ian gave us a piece which required a note in the second position! I can almost get it! Boy! 4th finger note yesterday and 5th finger today? Wait ! I don’t have enough fingers to do that! LOL! Gotta remember second position – that is exciting – never thought I’d be doing THAT this time around! I was late coming from Ian’s class because I wanted to tape him playing the “5th finger” tune. When I got to the Piper’s shed, Alisdair was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t play my “MOO” music for him! Ahh well, he was probably happier that way. LOL! I spent the hour packing up my room instead. That was a needed thing. Lunch was absolutely delicious! We found out that Cape Bretoners can certainly make great spaghetti and garlic bread! Last noon ceilidh was indoors because of the heat again. The bodhran classes met before the ceilidh for a photo in front of the College sign. Yes – we are crazy. Wendy played 5 tunes for us to record to work on while we were home. She is a doll! She had to leave early because of her going to Maine to play Saturday. I’m sure she’ll do well. We grabbed a couple of her CDs and bid her good luck. She encouraged us to keep in touch by leaving her messages on her website. No problem. Carl led us through Morag for one last time thank God and Leaving Lismore and John Allan’s Jig. We got a couple of Carl’s CDs too. After Carl’s class we rushed to put all the stuff back in the car – we now had more stuff because of souvenir buying, but we managed okay. We drove Kay to Port Hawksbury. That had been arranged earlier in the week before we decided we’d sleep Cape Breton this evening instead of Halifax. After we dropped her off, we went right back towards the College to go to Christmas Island. There is a ceilidh there with Kyle and Sheumas MacNeil playing tonight. We just found out about it so decided to go. Christmas Island is NOT an island, but a town on an island. You have to take two bridges and a ferry to get there. We had dinner at an Inn overlooking Bras D’Or Lake. Sigh. Such scenery. |
 |
| Bodhran classes gather for a photo opportunity |
| ME |
| The festival where they were playing Feis An Eilean pronounced faysh ahn elean, (an Island Festival, dedicated to the preservation of Gaelic Culture. We came to the Fire Hall and saw a sign that advertised only “Ceilidh tonight. Sheumas and Kyle” That was it! Everyone knows who Sheumas and Kyle are, apparently, so nothing more is needed for advertising! When we got in, a cheap admission for the entertainment, only $6, we saw some others from the Gaelic College there. Heather greeted us warmly. A gentleman and his daughter-in-law sang in Gaelic first, a young step dancer who was accompanied by Kyle MacNeil, Monica MacNeil – Sheumas’ wife – who played jigs and reels on the soprano sax. I have never heard Celtic music played on sax before and it was worth hearing. She joked about we were surprised to learn that the sax was a traditional Celtic instrument and wondered aloud, tongue-in-cheek, why they didn’t put any breath marks in the music! LOL! The older man and his daughter-in-law sang again joined by another older man. The daughter-in-law played flute. Bruce MacPhee, formerly of Slainte Mhath, played next. What a treat! I had never heard him play but his reputation preceded him and the people did not steer me wrong. He was a panic because he’d start to announce what tunes he’d be playing and he didn’t remember the names of the tunes, only that they were jigs or reels or strathspeys or marches. . SO his entire set was, ”I am going to play a jig (reel, strathspey) called…um…I don’t know the name of the tune.” This would haunt him later. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| After Bruce, the lady who was the emcee, sang in Gaelic with Sheumas accompanying her. In fact, poor Sheumas hardly got a break all night, being asked to accompany one person or another. He got about a 10 minute break all evening. |
 |
| Sheumas accompanying his lovely wife, Monica |
| Sheumas accompanying the forgetful Bruce MacPhee - "What is the name of the tune are we doing?" |
| Sheumas accompanying the fiddle guy |
| Sheumas is accompanying the emcee |
| Sheumas accompanying his brother, Kyle |
| Sheumas accompanying Kyle & Bruce |
| Kyle accompanying 12 year old stepdancer |
| old Gaelic songs |
 |
 |
| More adventures |
| Home |