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'Bodhrán playing was seasonal': The incredible history of the traditional Irish drum

There's an old joke that goes, 'What's the best way to play a bodhrán? With a penknife.' The slag is reputed to have come from the piper Séamus Ennis – infuriated by beginners buying a bodhrán at a fleadh cheoil stall and having the neck to muscle in on a trad session shortly afterwards – but is more likely to have originated from orchestral violinists' jokes about drums and timpani. It has, however, stuck in the consciousness around Ireland. 'The bodhrán wasn't part of Irish music history at all, apart from the Wren, until 1960 – when Seán Ó Riada popularised it on his weekly radio show Fleadh Cheoil an Radió. After that, we all heard it. It probably appealed to certain people,' says Fintan Vallely, author of Beating Time, a book on the bodhrán's history. 'Certain melody musicians then felt a bit threatened by it. We weren't used to percussion instruments. When we learnt music, we learnt how to play the melody. It's very difficult learning to play melodies – there are hundreds of different tunes to learn. 'There was a certain suspicion that all bodhrán players had to do was to tap their foot in time. They didn't have to learn tunes. But people wouldn't do it unless they had the urge to play percussion. The urge to do percussion is a very strong thing in all human society because most countries have some kind of drum," says the Armagh-born author and musician. 'Now modern bodhrán players – people like Colm Murphy from Cork – are very sophisticated. They follow the melodic contour of a tune. Musicians were suspicious, I suppose, of something they weren't used to, and maybe something they're competitive with. Generally, there's a bodhrán in most sessions now, but not always.' It may come as a surprise that the bodhrán was relatively invisible – except for pockets around Ireland, especially in Connacht and Munster – until the 1960s. It lacked the harp's prestige – the oldest Irish-identified instrument, which has been with us for a thousand years – or the fiddle, which dates to the 1600s; or the uilleann pipes, or classic 19th century instruments like the flute, accordion and concertina. Within a decade, however, it went from obscurity to widespread fame across the country, largely due to two factors – Ó Riada's championing of it; and the electrifying impact the bodhrán sections from John B Keane's play Sive had when it premiered in 1959, initially in Listowel, Co Kerry and in regional drama festivals, before concluding with a triumphant run at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. Charlie Byrne, bodhran maker, Co Tipperary, 1982. Picture: James Fraher Sive's characters, the Travellers, Pats Bocock and his bodhrán-wielding son Carthalawn, left audiences breathless with their 'cursing-songs' and bodhrán playing. It was the first time many people had seen or heard a bodhrán. They were infected by the beat of it. It made them want to dance. As Keane noted himself: "Everybody looks forward to the first mad belt of the bodhrán … suddenly you want to go wild. The pagan stuff breaks out in you.' 'Before 1959, when Keane introduced the bodhrán to the stage in Sive, it was only played on the Wren,' says Vallely. 'Anyone will tell you, even Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin writing about how old lads he talked to around the 1970s told him, 'You take out the bodhrán any day of the year other than the 26th of December and you're mad. It's like wearing shamrock on your lapel during the summer.' It was a total oddity. Bodhrán playing was seasonal, but obviously some people did stick with playing it.' Once the craze began to take hold in the 1960s, people turned to different methods to fashion home-made bodhráns. Vallely made his first one in 1966 – on the advice of his mother – from an old sand riddle lying around the house. In the countryside, old sieves used for cleaning soil off potatoes were repurposed; in Dublin, the folk singer Mary Jordan recalled using a page from old house deeds that were written on vellum. Pioneering Tipperary bodhrán maker Charlie Byrne (left) with player Donnchadh Gough of the band Danú in the early 2000s. Picture: Nutan In Vallely's book, he cites several regional court cases that involved rogues stealing and killing goats so their skin could be used for making bodhráns around the time of the Wren, the St Stephen's Day ritual. Especially popular in west Limerick and north Kerry, it involves bands of Wren Boys in costume going door to door, singing, dancing and playing music, requesting money 'to bury the wren' who, according to legend, betrayed St Stephen to Roman soldiers in early Christianity. 'It's surprising the bodhrán has become so popular about the country,' says Vallely. 'There's a tremendous reverence for it. If you look at your Irish passport, there's a pile of instruments towards the back of it – there's a harp, a fiddle, an accordion. There are dancing shoes, and there's a bodhrán. There are no uilleann pipes, which is astonishing. Every Irish president over the last 20-30 years has been photographed holding a bodhrán. Even dignitaries visiting Ireland are handed a bodhrán for a photo shoot. 'Half a dozen postage stamps have a bodhrán on them. The Europa stamp from 2014 – celebrating Europe – has just a bodhrán; another one has a harp. The bodhrán now competes with the harp as our national symbol, which is odd because in Irish music the harp symbolises melody. The bodhrán symbolises percussion and by far the most dominant element in Irish music is melody, not percussion. There you are – the bodhrán is fighting a corner, and obviously it's liked.' Fintan Vallely's Beating Time: The Story of the Irish Bodhrán is published by Cork University Press. See: Seán Ó Riada on the bodhrán Beating Time : The Story of the Irish Bodhran by Fintan Vallely The bodhrán is a drum measuring from 15 inches in diameter up to, say, two and a half feet in diameter. The drum head is generally of cured goat-skin, or dog skin, although sheepskin has been occasionally used. It probably goes back at least to the Bronze Age, and possibly earlier. Until fairly recently it was used in some of the more primitive parts of the country for its primary purpose, which was separating wheat from chaff. Because of this it became associated with the old pagan harvest festivals. It's also associated with that other pre-Christian festival of the winter equinox, which is now made to coincide with St Stephen's Day, when the Wren-boys, wearing straw costumes, parade playing flutes and bodhráns. The instrument is particularly suited to accompanying Irish music. The random frequencies of the skin are richer than those of even the orchestral bass drum, and thus tend to fill out and even provide the illusion of a harmonic bass for a band. It is sometimes beaten by the hand alone, but more usually a stick is used, and this is also used to beat the rim of the drum producing still another kind of sound. ll in all, the versatility of this instrument, the variety in timbre produced by playing on the rim or on the skin, by playing with a stick or with the hand, and the variety of pitch available, make it challengeable, particularly in a band, and particularly when it is supplemented by the bones. This piece reproduced in the Beating Time book was extracted from Seán Ó Riada's Our Musical Heritage radio essay series broadcast on Radio Éireann, July 7 – October 13, 1962.