Port à Beul consists of collaged archival recordings of “lilting” or “Gob Music” layered with fragments storytelling the personal and historical.
When musical instruments were banned in Ireland under Penal law (1695) it become popular as a means to entertain, celebrate and perform embodying a refusal of the imperial.
This sculptural installation presents as an unhomely artefact of hope and haunting, using felt and found objects to form a choir of voices. Some of the recordings were originally collected by Alan Lomax, the American Ethnomusicologist when he came to Ireland to record and collect aural traditions in 1951.
Special thanks to the National Folklore Collection
Lilting and Singing Sample Credits
Opening Sample; Woman Lilting “doe-ing do do o diddle o” Keen. Collectors Alan Lomax /
S Ennis, Donegal, 1951.
0.43 Hugh Mallowney Lilts “Pigeon on the Gate”, Collector Séamus ó Cathán, Mayo, 1980.
0.55 Informer Néilidh Boyle, Woman sings in Irish, Collector A Lomax / S Ennis, Donegal, 1951.
1.22 Jim Hanlon and Jim Gannon Lilting The Skylark, Collector T Munnelly, Geishall, Offaly, 1971.
2.06 Elizabeth Cronin sings “Frost is all Over”, Collector A Lomax / S Ennis, Donegal, 1951
2.30 MáÓ Domhnaill lilts “Frost is All Over”, Oileáin Árann, (Aran Islands) Galway,
Collector Leo Corduff, 1957.
3.11 Treasa NÍ Mhiolláin lilts Miss McClouds Reel, Inish Mor Galway, Collector Bairbre N Fhloinn, 1997.
4.21 Néilidh Boyle sings “The Rocks of Bawn”, Collector S Ennis and A Lomax, Donegal, 1951.
4.44 Máire NÍ Bheirn lilts “Tune an Pobaire” The Piper in the Meadow, Collector R UÍ Ógáin, Benagh,
Other Samples:
Field recordings collected by Ann Conmy.
Special thanks to all collaboraters involved; including the women and men listed above,
Simon Matthews and the National Folklore collection.