Irish Trad. Music & Kodo Drummers
How the Belfast Irish and Japanese drummers played together.
When the Kodo drummers from Japan visited Belfast they were made welcome by the bodhrán drummers from the Irish traditional bands and they made great music together.
For many years the image of Belfast in Northern Ireland was of barbed wire and burnt out cars, images that had sidelined the city and its people. Some of the graffitti from those days is still there but with that quirky, Northern Irish sense of humour, a guided tour of Belfast's turbulent history is on offer from Citybus Tours.
But Terror Tourism it is not, and the Cead Mile Failte (the hundred, thousand welcomes) offered to the visitor is genuine. Tourists are made to feel welcome and safe in the Province, as were the Kodo Drummers from Japan when they paid a visit a few years ago.
If there's one thing Belfast people like better than the craic (the best translation I can give you is story-telling with jokes), it's craic with alcohol and a bit of music, so when the Kodo Drummers arrived it was party time.
'Great craic it was' said Eamon Maguire, Ireland's foremost maker of the bodhrán (the drum played in Irish traditional bands), wood-carver, musician, and native of Belfast, who exports his work to all corners of the globe - including Japan. Yes, there are Irish traditional bands in Japan, an especially good one in The Blue Anchor pub in Kyoto.
Pubs play a major part in Belfast's social life, so it was natural for him to take the Kodo Drummers to a great place on the banks of Lough Neagh for 'a jar'.
'Well,' he said, 'I went to their workshop when they toured here and they came to mine and we got on very well, so I took them to John McKenna's on the Lough shore for a wee session. The drummers had never heard the Uillean pipes played before and we got the McPeake Pipers there. I think they were very impressed.'
The cead mile failte was in full swing that night, for with typical Irish hospitality and knowing their Japanese guests liking for fish, the menu was composed of the freshest seafood Ireland could produce, lake fish, cockles and mussels, eels, and dhulas (an Irish seaweed). It's not on record what the Kodo Drummers thought of the spit-roasted goat that was prepared for the party, but it may have been this that encouraged them to join in the Irish set-dancing with such high spirits - a sort of Japanese Riverdance.
'Ach, it was just a typical night, a great céile,' said Eamon.
Eamon's group The Slieve Gullions, when not touring abroad, can be found in various venues in Belfast. Ask in Fiddler Magee's pub (just behind The Crown Liquor Saloon opposite The Opera House) and someone there is sure to know where he can be found.
See also: Belfast, Northern Ireland by Karen Lotter
Belfast: C.S. Lewis & Van Morrison by Mari Nicholson
