Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich / Brendan Begley is about to start a tour of smaller venues, mostly along the west coast, to promote his new CD, Fé Scáth / In the Shadow. Recently returned from a tour in the USA with Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, not long finished a Music Network tour with Tommy Peoples and Laoise Kelly, and off to Aberdeen this week for Button Boxes and Moothies (a free reed convention at the University of Aberdeen), he’s been busy.

Fé Scáth is very different from his 2010 recording, A Moment of Madness, with Ó Raghallaigh. It is quiet and gentle, made up of five songs, seven slow airs, a set of waltzes and a set of jigs. ‘Mostly you get a CD with a token slow air on it,’ he told The Journal of Music; ‘I decided to do one with a token set of jigs on it.’ And even the token set of jigs ‘wouldn’t be my normal attack’, he adds. His son Cormac joked that the CD should come with a health warning. ‘But it’s a slow CD, full stop,’ he says, ‘it’s not trying to be anything else.’

‘Traditional music, like any music, incorporates every emotion that you can think of, and it doesn’t always have to wild or mad. I approach the tempo of each tune with whatever emotion that I might have at the time.’

On the origins of the material for the CD, Ó Beaglaoich explains: ‘Where I come from I heard a lot of songs. If you didn’t learn the words, you’d definitely have the air. I was always messing with airs on the accordion, and I always loved playing them.’

Ó Beaglaoich didn’t develop his singing early on in his music career, and had serious throat problems when he was teaching in the 1990s. ‘But once I’d left the teaching the throat got better and when Beginish was formed they didn’t have a singer, so I started singing. The first CD I ever made had four slow airs on it, but I stopped playing slow airs because there was no room for them.’

‘It was on my mind for a long time to do something like this. Sometimes I’d play a slow air at a concert and people would say how lovely it was. And they wouldn’t have heard it before. And I knew I had plenty more of them. So I just decided to do a CD of only slow airs and songs.’

‘I went up to the Tyrone Gutherie Centre on a bursary from Kerry County Council for a week in January and brought my laptop and mics and spent the whole week inside there just recording. Afterwards, I spoke to Garry O’Briain and found him great to deal with. So we went into Garry’s studio in New Quay [County Clare] and I was so focused from the week I’d spent in the Tyrone Gutherie we got it all done very smoothly.’

As is his usual practice, he recorded an excess of material, which he knew would enable him to be picky about the final selection. ‘Anything that I have any doubts about, no matter what it is, I don’t put it on. There were two songs, Cailín Deas Crúite na mBó and Druimfhionn Donn Dílis, that I would have really liked to put on, but that I just didn’t get right on the day. I think you really have to be merciless in what you put out. I remember John McGahern saying that when you’re editing your own work you have to cut out the pieces you like the most. And it’s often true for music too.’

Ó Beaglaoich is joined on this tour by his son, Bréanainn, and is planning to play a lot more with his family. They have recently set up a website, thebegleys.ie, to promote their music.

The Fé Scáth tour is as follows:

Tuesday, 15 November
Dublin: ‘Siamsaiocht@6’ Temple Bar Hotel, Fleet Street (Westmoreland Suite), 6pm–8pm. Prebooking necessary. Contact 087-2547574 / niamh [at] gael-linn.ie
Wednesday, 16 November
County Mayo: Matt Molloys. Doors open 8pm. Contact Bernie Coneely 086-1798750/094-954477 / info [at] mattmolloy.com
Thursday, 17 November
Limerick: An Chistin Sr Thomáis, Luinmeach. Conradh Na Gaeilge, 8.30pm. Contact Mícheal Ó Murchú 061-417895.
Friday, 18 November
County Kerry: Carnegie Arts Centre, Kenmare, Co Kerry; 8pm. Contact Clare 087-4118967/064-6648701 / management [at] carnegieartskenmare.ie
Saturday, 19 November
County Galway: Connolly’s. Kinvara. 9.30/10pm. Contact Olga 087-9937187
Tueday, 22 November
Limerick: University of Limerick, Lunchtime Concert 1.15pm—1.40pm
Wednesday, 23 November
County Clare: Sean Malone’s, Milltown Malbay, Co.Clare. 9pm. Contact 087-6881650, fwhyte [at] hiqa.ie
Thursday, 24 November
Galway: Crane, Galway. 9pm. Contact 087-2245637
Friday, 25 November
Co Kerry: Samhain Teach Amergan. 8pm. Contact Fiona 087-2931463
Saturday, 26 November
Co Clare: Samhain Peppers, Feakle, Co. Clare; 9.30pm. Contact Garry Pepper 087-9678020 / garytpepper [at] eircom.net
Sunday, 27 November
County Cork: The Grain Store, Ballymaloe House, Shannagarry, Co Cork. 8pm. Contact Rebecca Cronin 083-3631468, www.thegrainstoreatballymaloe.com

www.brendanbegley.com