What better way to end the Gilroy Garlic Festival weekend than with an outdoor concert attended by many Garlic Festival volunteers? After the closing of the festival on Sunday, many supporters of the arts joined together to hear Denis Liddy from County Clare, Ireland, as he entertained guests with his traditional fiddle music and storytelling wit.
The garden party on Princevalle was held by a local patron of the arts who opened up her home for the occasion.
It was attended by such notable locals as Gilroy’s first female mayor Roberta Hughan, Theater Angels Art League president Bruce Morasca, Gilroy’s prolific grant writer Sherri Stuart, local musicians Mitch Avery and Allen Douglas, Hollister musician Vern Epperly, teacher Barbara Gailey, City Councilman Peter Arellano, and President of the Celtic Society of the Monterey Bay Bob Breheny, just to name a few.
The party was in celebration of Theater Angels Art League’s end of the fundraising season, one of which they can be very proud. President Morasca announced that the efforts of the Theater Angels brought in $39,000 this past fiscal year, with an anticipated additional $4,000 expected to come in from the Garlic Festival.
Theater Angels contributed $5,500 towards the Downtown Fifth Street Live music series currently taking place on Friday evenings. Theater Angels also made a gift this year to the Arts Center endowment fund of $10,000.
Guitarist Lila Feingold accompanied Liddy as they played in front of a large stone fireplace. As the sun fell low in the sky, crickets added their sounds to the music, rubbing their wings to the lively tempo of reels and jigs.
There is nothing quite so delicious as listening to ancient Celtic music under the stars as the scents of burning wood, BBQ, and rose incense mix in the air.
Liddy described the way many Irish tunes were passed along from generation to generation by tinkers who traveled from door to door fixing pots and pans, but who also happened to have the ability to teach a few fiddle lessons.
Liddy told the tale of the haunting air he played called “Wild Geese,” which was written after many Irish were lost in the Battle of Kinsale. It was the beginning of a very dark time when the Irish lost all hope of getting the British to leave. The Irish began leaving Ireland by the shiploads; they are the “wild geese” flying away in the song.
In 1792 a festival was held in Belfast inviting all of the best harpers in Ireland to compete for prizes, but only 10 could be found. They were in their 90’s and going blind, truly a dying breed.
They came and played “Wild Geese’ on old wire harps, and a musician there wrote down the song, thus saving the tune from being lost forever.
It is due to the appreciation in America of Irish music that has led to a resurgence of the music in Ireland itself. Whereas once upon a time, Liddy was so ashamed of his fiddlin’ that he left home walking with a funny limp due to his fiddle being strapped to his leg under his clothing in order to hide it, he can now walk proudly down the street with fiddle in hand.
