As the Irish
– and Irish at heart – gear up for St. Patrick’s Day, a little
piece of Ireland will be right around the corner: the Celtic folk
and world music duo Four Shillings Short.
As the Irish – and Irish at heart – gear up for St. Patrick’s Day, a little piece of Ireland will be right around the corner: the Celtic folk and world music duo Four Shillings Short. Despite its international audience, the duo – Aodh Og (pronounced Ayog) O’Tuama of Cork, Ireland, and Christy Martin, a native Californian – have chosen to spend the Irish holiday in Gilroy.
“When we play St. Patrick’s Day, we like to find a place like Ireland. We’re kind of picky about where we play,” Martin said. “There are an awful lot of Irish pubs, but we want one with a really nice atmosphere and the right feel. The Claddagh is a place we’ve played before and we really enjoyed it, so we’re happy to be back.”
Four Shillings Short blends traditional Celtic music and instruments with American folk music and East Indian influences. The band uses a full spectrum of instruments, including hammered dulcimer, tinwhistle, mandolins, sitar, woodwinds, percussions and, of course, vocals.
“The sound is very acoustic, and we use instruments people don’t commonly see,” said O’Tuama, the band’s founder. “We have a lot of songs from Ireland and dance tunes from Scotland, England and America, and they’re influenced by instrumentation from India, from the Renaissance and various parts of the world. It’s a good time.”
After studying Medieval and Renaissance music in college, O’Tuama received a fellowship to study at Stanford University in 1984. Martin began playing the sitar when she was 16 before taking up folk music in the ’80s.
The couple met at a Four Shillings Short performance when O’Tuama was playing with a man from Phoenix, in 1995. He and Martin had their first date a week after meeting and were married a year later.
“When I started the band, we had already made some eclectic choices in our music,” O’Tuama said. “But after I met Christy, and what she added to the music, we have expanded the breadth of what I had been doing. Before, I had been more focused on Renaissance and medieval music, but she helped start expanding my repertoire and it’s continued to do so since.”
Four Shillings Short has played across the United States and Ireland over the course of a 10-year-long tour.
“We’re kind of traveling gypsy musicians. We stopped paying rent in 1998,” Martin said. “We love touring and we love being on the road, and to do what we’re doing it would be impractical to have a home anywhere. So, we had a big garage sale, sold everything but the essentials and that allows us to do about 200 shows a year in 45 states and Ireland.”
After their stop in Gilroy, Martin and O’Tuama will continue on to play in the St. Patrick’s Day Festival in Dublin, Calif., before making a few more stops in California. The duo will then tour in New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon and Washington.
Gilroy is familiar territory to the pair.
“They’ve played here for the last seven years or so, whenever they’ve been in this part of the country,” said Lesley Benson, owner of The Claddagh. “I think they’ve only missed a couple of (St. Patrick’s Days). We’re always happy to have them. They’re very good.”
See Four Shillings Short
When: 5-9pm, March 17
Where: The Claddagh Irish Pub & Restaurant, 1300 First St., Gilroy
Info: (408) 848-5050
To learn more about Four Shillings Short, including tour dates, concert reviews and biographies, go to www.fourshillingsshort.com.
