♪♪ You're very welcome to Tradfest.

The Fingal Sessions, we're coming to you from the Ardgillan Castle and Demesne here on the north side of Dublin, beautiful Fingal Coast.

And we have an incredible array of artists for us tonight.

We have singer-songwriter Wallis Bird, ... and traditional concertina player Brenda Castles, and we have wonderful singer-songwriter Evie with us as well.

Wallis, will you take it away?

I will.

Will you take it away with me?

Go on.

I'll take it away with you.

All right.

Good.

( acoustic guitar playing ) ♪ 2001, when I was 18 years old, still in my uniform, ♪ ♪ educated, uninformed.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ War raged out in front of me, showing me racism and lies, ♪ ♪ and I began to see the world through different eyes.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Then I moved to London, by the age of Cameron.

♪ ♪ I was stood at Brixton station, holding my phone ♪ ♪ against cops' faces, who stop and search a black child ♪ ♪ Just for running for the bus.

♪ ♪ And it was then I knew we had no one to trust.

♪ ♪ Yeah, I want to know ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ what's wrong with changing?

♪ ♪ Yeah, I want to know, what's not changing?

♪ ♪ Yeah, I want to know ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What's not changing?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Let's move forward a little bit, a lid-el-ee-iddle ♪ ♪ forward to 2015 ♪ ♪ The island of Ireland is making a real big scene ♪ ♪ Gay marriage will digest, Panti Bliss is the Queen ♪ ♪ And there's nothing stopping there ♪ ♪ They broke the church from the state to repeal the 8th ♪ ♪ And now it's moving in a positive way ♪ ♪ And you love to see it, and I want to know!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What's wrong with changing?

♪ ♪ What█s not changing?

♪ ♪ Yeah, I want to know, woah ♪ ♪ What█s not changing?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Yeah, I want to know, ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ what's wrong with changing?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Yeah, I want to know, woah!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What's not changing?

♪ ♪ There's nothing I'm changing.

♪ ♪ There's nothing I'm changing.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ There's nothing I'm changing.

♪ ♪ Because everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ry♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Everything's changing.

♪ ♪ Yes!

♪ All right.

>> Whoo!

( laughter ) That was amazing.

Crack.

Hit a crack.

It's great.

Wallis, it's great to see you.

You too.

As always.

As always.

"What's Wrong with Changing?"

Nothing wrong with changing, is there?

No, and there's nothing not changing.

There's a life story in that, isn't there, that song?

There is, yeah.

It's about the last 20 years of my life.

So I turned 41 the other day, and it's about when I went to school as an 18 year old and like the wars began to come into my came into my education, I guess, as a person and moving on from there and what Ireland went through in the last 15 years.

You know, the gay marriage equality vote and the abortion referendum, repeal the eighth.

And just as an Irish person who has moved abroad, being, observing as a, I've decided to just mark time, stop trying to hide time or age or any of that stuff and, and be, do folk that way and, and write, write about things that are happening or have happened.

Berlin has been home for you.

Yeah.

Are you in Berlin itself now?

Because I've seen you renovate, you've done this incredible renovation job recently on a barn.

My heart is very much kind of transplanted to this farmyard that six artists, we have all together bought.

What we'd like to create is a community for locals and for our pals from all over the world to use the house as a retreat, as a creative area to come in and just rest or recuperate or invent.

You know what I mean?

So it's just, it's an easy-going place.

Germany has been incredible for you though.

I remember, I remember you and I ended up at a festival there a couple of years ago and I was just, it was amazing to watch you there and to watch the German audience who have completely taken you to their hearts and you've, you know, you've, you've built an extraordinary life for yourself there.

Yeah, I, I'm very lucky.

Um, I think they really, you can see that they enjoy folklore and, uh, something about Celtic mysticism rings something within them.

Um, but what I'm most happy about is that they're, they're such quiet kind of people, except I'm, I suppose, an extrovert and you'd never be able to tell.

Um, but they, they really get the colloquial jokes and they, they get the messin█ and they love it.

And, uh, they're nearly 20 years now.

Amazing.

Yeah, yeah.

Brilliant.

Brenda, it's great to see you.

>> Hello.

Great to see you.

The last time we ran into each other, which was indeed, I think, the first time we ran into each other, it was in the 11th Street Bar in New York City.

Yeah, far away.

Where you spent, you spent kind of half the year there?

Yeah, some of the year, over and back, depending on what's going on.

It's nice to be able to hop across and have a whole crowd of musician friends over there as well.

It's like a second home.

>> Well, there was an amazing atmosphere in that place that night.

>> Yeah.

>> It was lots of traditional music.

>> Yeah >> It's become kind of the new home.

>> You find really good sessions in New York, really and truly.

It's unbelievable.

They open the doors and if there's a session on, they'll give up the session themselves and say, "You do it instead."

It's unbelievable.

I've been really lucky with them over there.

Talk to me a little bit about the work you've been doing recently, about the Bumblebees.

>> The Bumblebees.

Yes.

>> The Plight of the Bumblebee.

Yeah, I'm playing tomorrow.

It's a film that I've made about the bee in Irish folklore, in Brehon law, religion and all of that.

The bee has been really important in Ireland through the millennia.

It was so important in Brehon law that there was a whole list of laws about bees and how things were to be resolved if things went wrong.

The "Bechbreha," the bee laws.

And you know, if your bee trespassed onto a neighbour's pasture, how would you know?

You know, but they did, they had laws for that.

So that's in the film.

And I suppose there's a lot of saints as well associated with bees in Ireland.

Saint Gobnait and Saint Modomnoc who I'd never heard of.

And he was attributed with bringing the bees to Ireland from Wales.

So a lot of things came to Ireland from Wales, it would appear.

>> Yes.

And then there's other things that are, I mean, I just started, it was a little idea because of the concertina being hexagonal and there's drones on it and it was a whimsical idea and then it just, it kind of ballooned.

I learned so much.

The queens make piping sounds when they're trying to break out of, when they're hatching.

And these piping sounds get the workers to come and help them break out of the cocoon that they're in.

And then they change to a tooting sound so that when they're out, so that the workers won't break the other queens out.

Because if they all come out at once, they fight to the death.

So it's cutthroat nature, I suppose.

And have you been writing tunes to this?

Yeah, I composed some.

Traditionally, they sound traditional, but they're beat inspired and they're new compositions for the film.

And they're played live alongside the film, like a live soundtrack.

So it's kind of a little bit of a different experience.

Well, will you give us a tune?

Well, I'll play one, a hornpipe called The Piping Queen, after those.

It sounds like it's a different kind of piping than we're used to, but I thought it kind of had a nice crossover, so... A hornpipe called "The Piping Queen."

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ music ends ] Yeah!

Amazing.

Beautiful.

[applause] Thanks so much, Brenda.

My goodness, concertina playing, I mean, it's a form of sorcery.

[laughter] It really is unbelievable.

I'm curious just to ask you about composing, you know, when you're composing a tune like that one, for example.

I had a little bit of, kind of, I knew about Ed Reavy, the composer and fiddle player that was from Cavan and lived all his life in Philadelphia.

And I remember my friend, Mick Maloney, that passed away last year or the year before now.

And he always said that, and you can hear it in his music, that he traversed the bottom notes all the way to the top notes.

And so, kind of, that inspired me a little bit as well, that to kind of utilize the whole scales of the instruments that we have.

And there's a lot of octaves on a concertina, so there's plenty you can do with it.

It's fascinating.

What a beautiful machine.

They just kind of came to me in a way.

Yeah, it's good to try.

Everybody should try it.

I never thought I'd be able to do it.

[ laughter ] Yeah!

That's great.

Amazing.

Lovely to hear it.

Thanks so much.

You're very welcome.

Evie, it's lovely to meet you.

>> Hello.

Where are you at in your musical journey?

Very early on, I'd say.

Yeah?

I've played music forever, but kind of did all the grades and the classical stuff, hated all that.

So a few failed grades and then I was like, no thanks.

Well, here's your brother on that one.

I did preliminary and primary on the piano and then I discovered the tin whistle and the guitar.

Bye bye piano.

Well, I'm not entirely ungrateful because I was then able to teach myself the guitar.

So that's what I did.

And I was very much writing my own music.

From a young age, some of them go back to about 12 and they are, they are dire, but they're there somewhere in a voice note on my phone... ... years ago.

But I just, I just kept doing, I always found myself.

That's what I did when I came home.

I picked up the guitar, on the weekends, just that's all I did.

And then as with everything these days, COVID happened.

And I was in my first year of college and just decided to learn how to put them down.

Learned the software, tried to do it myself.

It meant I could do a little bit more with them.

And yeah, I just decided to have a go and I inserted myself into the Dublin music scene.

And they haven't kicked me out yet.

So I'm here.

I'm here to stay.

And you have a song you're going to sing for us.

Yes.

It's called "Mighty Boy."

Mighty Boy.

Mighty Boy.

>> Beautiful.

Thanks.

( acoustic guitar playing ) ♪ From the streets to the mills to the bricks, is the charm ♪ ♪ in the tonic or the kick?

♪ ♪ That's the price that you pay for your hips when ♪ ♪ the heart starts to tick.

♪ ♪ When the heart starts to tick.

♪ ( acoustic guitar playing ) ♪ Oh Mighty Boy, don't pick what you can't afford.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Either way, think I'm sold on a battered ashtray.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Is that what you want me to say?

♪ ♪ I won't melt with the snow the next day.

♪ ( acoustic guitar playing ) ♪ From the shores to the hills to the tolls, I'll get the ♪ ♪ first, you the second, and the third.

♪ ♪ Maybe chat in the back in the cold.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Maybe I like the cold.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Maybe I like the cold.

♪ ( acoustic guitar playing ) ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh Mighty Boy, don't pick what you can't afford.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Either way, I think I'm sold on a battered ashtray.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Is that what you want me to say?

♪ ♪ I won't melt with the snow the next day.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh, mighty boy, don't pick what you can't afford.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Either way, think I'm sold on a powdered ashtray.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Is that what you want me to say?

♪ ♪ I won't melt with the snow the next day.

♪ ( acoustic guitar playing ) ♪ ♪ ( acoustic guitar playing ends ) Thank you.

>> Beautiful Wow, "I won't melt like the snow the next day."

What a great line that is.

Thank you.

Yeah, I wrote it at the time, I think about a year ago, and there just happened to be a little flurry of snow that day, so it worked nicely.

And was that the first image trigger for the song?

A little bit.

It had been quite a weird day It would have been still COVID times and I think I was in the bridge between school and college and we were kind of coming out of that and it was a tough day for us because we were attending an event and it brought back a lot of things and I went home and I should have been studying for other things but I just picked up the guitar and I just wrote it in about 10 minutes and they seemed to be the best songs that I write so I stuck with it.

It's magic when that happens.

Yeah, I think so.

>> And have you recorded this?

Is it going to be put out?

>> I have, it's coming out next month.

It's a bit bigger than that, a few fiddles and drones and piano and whatnot.

It's definitely my favourite, I think, that I've written.

I love playing it.

I like playing it like this.

It's nice to be able to go back to the room where I wrote it.

Just the guitar.

It was, wasn█t it?

>> I enjoyed it very much.

Yeah, hypnotic.

Hypnotic is the word.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming in and sharing that.

>> Thank you for having me Wallis, you remember being at the outset, playing your songs on the local scene and the beginnings of things.

What would you say to Evie?

I'd say do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.

Genuinely.

Listen to yourself.

Keep going.

That's all that matters, isn't it?

It's like I think that's really all that matters.

Everybody wants to be unique and you are it.

So enjoy it.

>> Thank you.

I have to do it now.

Yeah, yeah.

No pressure.

You said something that was really interesting there, which was like, "Oh, I thought I should have been doing, you know, I should have been doing my schoolwork" or whatever, you know, >> Yeah and then this happened, you know?

And that's what you were meant to be doing.

Yeah, I think it's very easy to get caught up in the sort of trajectory of life, what you're meant to do.

And I find it hard because I enjoy both, but when I come home, I want to do this.

I don't want to read my papers.

But I think, yeah, I have to have a go at it.

Yeah.

Wallis has told me that I have to have a go at it.

So I think I have to have a go at it.

That's it.

That's it, really?

Yeah.

You've laid down the law now.

I have to-- We've fixed the-- Fixed the word now.

I have to move to Berlin.

Yeah.

Yeah, you have to do that thing.

Move to Berlin.

Yeah, doors are open.

Yeah.

Super.

Thank you all so much.

You've been watching Tradfest The Fingal Sessions here from Ardgillan Castle in Demesne.

My thanks to Evie and to Wallis Bird and to Brenda Castles who've brought their beautiful music to us today.

My understanding is that, Wallis, you and Brenda have cooked up something for us to go out on.

Yeah.

Brenda wrote a lovely piece for this.

Normally it's acapella or "alicante" as I like to call it.

(laughing) And yeah, you crack in, you've reinvigorated the song for me.

So it's called "Home."

♪♪ ♪ Laugh and love and hopefully have a child ♪ ♪ Have our families surround us ♪ ♪ Friendships that never die ♪ ♪ Well we can try, we can try, we can try ♪ ♪ Oh we can try, we can try, we can try ♪ ♪ There are times in life so good that looked me in the eye ♪ ♪ But I was busy so it passed me by ♪ ♪ But today I got a ticket for a long journey ♪ ♪ Home to you and I ♪ ♪ Oh, home to you and I ♪ ♪ I'm not good for you right now ♪ ♪ I'm good for you forever ♪ ♪ There's so much to you makes me turn the page ♪ ♪ My blind dedication ♪ ♪ Is no surprise I was right ♪ ♪ That very first day ♪ ♪ When you rolled into the kitchen ♪ ♪ With a basket bearing chicken ♪ ♪ And a look of mischief pouring from your eyes ♪ ♪ And over drinks and songs and dad jokes ♪ ♪ I kept touching your hand for your attention ♪ ♪ And I kissed you in my mind ♪ ♪ The sun was rolling upwards ♪ ♪ And you were going home ♪ ♪ I had stayed drunk on you for such a long time ♪ ♪ So I moved to this country ♪ ♪ Where you reside ♪ ♪ So we can try, we can try, we can try ♪ ♪ Oh, we can try, we can try, we can try ♪ ♪ Dear Mother God in Heaven ♪ ♪ You're one hell of a woman ♪ ♪ I believe that it's for something 'til I die ♪ ♪ If you put two and two together ♪ ♪ And forget about the maths ♪ ♪ And give us three or four or five ♪ ♪ Well, we can try, we can try, we can try ♪ Wallis: Ain█t it a good thing.

( music ) ( music )