We take a look back at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, through the recollections of those who competed.
Some placed; some didn’t. In the end, though, everyone has warm memories of their time in Wexford – the jitters and the exultation of competition, the fun of busking in the streets, and the joy of playing in local sessions.
Here are some of those memories, in words and pictures. And if you have any stories or photos you would like to share, please email them to me at irishphilly@gmail.com
Jeff Meade
Public Relations Officer
Lauren Tuffy, First Place, English Singing, 12-15
Lauren Tuffy has been singing since she was 2. At 4, she began taking lessons in Irish singing from All-Ireland champion Dawn Dougherty of Westchester, N.Y., and a Comhaltas Mid-Atlantic board member.
Now, Lauren, 15 and competing in the Mid-Atlantic fleadh and the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann for several years, can add an all-Ireland crown to her long singing career. She placed first in English Singing, 12-15, at the All-Irelands in Wexford this past August. She placed third last year in Irish singing, so it’s not her first honor.
“You need to have four songs prepared before you go into the competition,” Lauren explains. “There are two slow traditional songs and then two fast songs. The judge will pick which slow song they want you to sing out of the two. You’re allowed to pick your fast songs.”
The slow song the judge picked was "The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow,” with a lot of ornamentation and a large vocal range. Lauren says that tune showed off her vocal ability and gave the judge a sense of how well she can control her voice. Songs like that, she says, can be difficult.
For her fast tune, Lauren selected “Eileen O’Neill.”
“It’s a Kerry song,” she says. “It’s a lively song and it follows the story of a young man who, whenever he walks home from work every day, encounters this young maiden called Eileen O’Neill, and he decides he wants to marry her.”
This being an Irish song, the course of true love never does run smooth.
“The young man goes to Eileen’s father to ask for her hand, and of course, since he’s poor, the father says, ‘you need to pay me if you want to marry my daughter.’”
Long story short, Eileen and her young man steal off and sail to New York together, where they marry and raise a family. Happy ending.
“It’s a storytelling song,” Lauren says, lively and enjoyable, very easy to listen to.”
Given that Lauren has been taking singing lessons, she knows hundreds of them. “Dawn always has us learn them by heart, so if someone walked up to me and said, sing me a song, then I would know it.”
Lauren was up against about 15 competitors, most from Ireland, all very talented. They sing every day with their families, but Lauren does, too. However, the fact that they have the “real Irish experience,” she adds, the competition is stiff.
Over the years, she has made friends in Ireland, and this year was no exception.
“I participated in the Scoil Éigse program,” she recalls. “I took the English singing classes there. I met a couple of girls in my class. One in particular I’m really good friends with. new would go to lunch every day together and we still connect over social media, and she follows me on Instagram and Tik Tok. So, we still keep in touch. It’s good that I get to communicate with other girls my age over there.”
Lauren, from Yonkers, N.Y., and in 10th grade at The Ursuline School in New Rochelle, is already setting her sights on returning to the Fleadh next year, when the event is in Belfast.
Her plans for the future? She wants to be a veterinarian.
“I know it’s kind of unexpected, given how much I perform music, but I also really love animals,” Lauren says. “We’re getting a dog next week, and I’m so excited. I can’t contain myself. I want to try and get into an Ivy League school, so I’m working toward that, but I also want to keep up my music. I want to continue in music for as long as I can.”
Mary-Grace Lee, Third Place, Miscellaneous Instrument (Hammered Dulcimer), Over 18
Pittsburgh Comhaltas member Mary-Grace Lee finds herself in a unique category. She never knows what other instruments she’ll be up against, but she was ready, if a bit nervous, when they called her name to play her hammered dulcimer at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Wexford.
The result was gratifying, to say the least. Happily – very happily – she placed third.
“It’s funny, I don’t think they had ever received such a delighted, excited person to win,” she says. “It’s such an odd competition. You’re going against saxophones, tenor guitars, bouzoukis – everything under the sun – and you really don’t know how it’s going to go. You really don’t know how they’re going to judge you. And then they called my name, and I shot up like a rocket.
"Everyone was laughing. I take that competition really seriously because it's the only one I can do at the Fleadh. I take it so seriously, but it was still a fun time.
"My goal was to put on the best performance I could do, and it worked out in the end, so I was thrilled. I’m still looking back at photos and my medal, and I think … did this actually happen? I’ll cherish it for the rest of my life.”
Wexford was Mary-Grace’s third Fleadh, though only her second one competing. She previously competed in the Fleadh when it was held in Drogheda in 2018.
In Drogheda, she didn’t place, but she still felt like she had done pretty well. Placing third this time, she says was thrilling in part because she was able to see how she had grown and matured as a performer and competitor.
“I’m glad I placed this year instead of back in 2018 just because I think I have a much more mature grasp of the music and what it’s about and how to play it and having proper phrasing. I remember being a little disappointed in 2018, but looking back, I still had so much to learn.”
Mary-Grace, a Catholic pre-school teaching assistant, performs in a Celtic band called Seasons with her five siblings, so she is an experienced performer, and she makes the rounds of local traditional Irish sessions.
She also teaches at dulcimer festivals and camps. So, in addition to competing, she looked forward to playing out in Wexford.
Like so many musicians, she spent time busking and playing in local sessions. She brought along a travel dulcimer, about the size of a laptop.
“So, I went out and played in the streets and it was fun just getting to see people’s expressions,” she recalls. “They’d ask, what is that instrument, what are you doing and what are you playing? It was fun to just represent my instrument and also Irish music and show what the instrument can do in the Irish musical tradition.”
As for the sessions, she says, they were memorable.
“The sessions were the best,” she says. “I think the fleadh is all about community and the tradition of Irish music and bringing people together. So, just going there and finding great sessions was amazing. I met some people over there, and just by chance we kept running into each other and finding the same sessions and connecting online.
" Just getting to hear what tunes they’re playing over there and meeting new friends and getting to play tunes was awesome.”