Music of the Lakes

Music of the LakesBy Seán Ó Luanaigh

When horse racing and lake hunts were first held in Killarney there was an air of festivity in the town as the Irish Sketchbook reported that “Carts, cars, jingles, barouches, horses and vehicles of all descriptions rattle presently through the streets: for the town is crowded with company for the races and other sports, and all the world is bent to see the stag-hunt on the lake”.

The distant sound of drums, horns and trumpets announced the stag and hounds were in the lake for the hunt and the flotilla of boats assembled at Innisfallen set off on a chase across the water at the signal. James Gandsey (1767-1857) earned the title ‘The Celebrated Killarney Minstral’ since he was the most accomplished uilleann piper of his era. He adopted ‘An Maidirín Rua’ as his signature tune and from the chants and flourishes he added during performances; his rendition became known as ‘The Killarney FoxHunt’. In 1834 Gandsey played the bugle for the arrival of two hundred tenants of Lord Kenmare to the harvest fête held in a large barn and played during the banquet with a band of pipers and fiddlers. His son John was a guide and bugle-man. He played for stag hunts and at the sweetspots coaxing echoes from the mountains for tourists’ entertainment. Alfred Lord Tennyson (18091892) held the position of Poet-Laureate for 42 years of the Victorian period. He visited Killarney in the years 1842 and 1848. After hearing the echoes of the bugle on his second visit he was inspired to write the song listed under various titles – ‘Splendor falls’ or ‘Blow, Bugle, Blow’, ‘He Hears the Bugle at Killarney’ and ‘The Bugle Song’. Tennyson included the song in the third edition of ‘The Princess’ and said “When I was there I heard a bugle beneath the Eagle's Nest and eight distinct echoes”. The poet Allingham claimed Tennyson heard nine echoes, saying "the last one seemed more like a chant of angels in the sky”. In 1912 Mary Gorges quoted from the Hall’s vivid description of the Killarney Echo at Eagle’s Nest. “The Bugler first played a single note; it was caught up and repeated loudly; softly, again loudly…When a few notes were blown, a multitude of voices replied, sometimes pausing, then mingling in a strain of sublime grandeur and delicate sweetness. Then firing of the cannon, when every mountain around… replied in voices of thunder, the sound being multiplied a thousand-fold.” The Halls were popular Irish writers and widely read throughout Britain and the English speaking world. Following repeated tours around Ireland they produced several updates of Ireland. The Killarney Echo was a celebrated phenomenon for generations. It could be encountered for listening pleasure in the landscape at sweet-spots such as the Devil’s Punchbowl, Eagle’s Nest and Ross Castle and while the tradition eventually died out at those locations it continued to feature at the Gap of Dunloe into the middle of the 20th century.

Buglers were a feature at the Gap of Dunloe until the middle of the 20th century. James Gandsey was better known as ‘The Celebrated Killarney Minstrel’.