OFTEN, it’s at the end or after an interview has drawn to a close that you get what you were looking for all along.
It doesn’t need to be said that Seamus Heaney was one of the finest poets Ireland or anywhere else has produced or that Liam O’Flynn is near the top in Ireland’s pantheon of uilleann pipers – but what was it that brought the two so close together?
What alchemy enabled them to weave their creative talents?
I got the answer when I asked Liam what he did when he wasn’t preoccupied with music.
"From day one I have had an interest and passion for things to do with the land but with horses in particular," he explains.
"I grew up on the other side of the road from a farm and I must have spent more time on the farm than I did in my own house, I’m sure.
"I can remember all the things that happened back then. I remember the farmer ploughing the field, the horses. I can remember the pump in the yard and the sound of the pump and when I read Seamus’s poems, it was like a revelation to me.
"Things that meant so much to me in my childhood, here they appeared in exquisite poetry, set down so beautifully and in such depth," said the piper.
On the other hand, what did Heaney the poet get from traditional music, I asked Liam.
"Well, he had a huge interest and respect for tradition," he replies.
"I remember when we did the first The Poet and The Piper show, we started off with Seamus’ poem The Given Note which is inspired by a tune Port na bPúcaí from the Blasket Islands.
"Seamus’s poem is very powerful evocation of the tune which is an essential part of the culture of the people of those remote Blaskets and it also evokes the spirit of those island people who also left behind a wonderful literary legacy.
"In a way, Seamus was saying that, despite their tough existence, nothing could destroy the spirit of the people who created this culture.
"So yes, Seamus had a powerful interest in the music."
Liam also recorded an album called The Given Note and in the sleeve notes, Heaney alluded again to the poem when describing O’Flynn.
"He strikes me as one of those fulfilled spirits who have 'gone alone into the island / and brought back the whole thing.'
I ask Liam if he recognises himself in the quote.
"Only Seamus Heaney could come up with words like that," he laughs. So I throw another Heaney quote at him.
"'There has always been a classical quality about Liam O’Flynn’s playing, a level confident strength: you feel that he is unshakeably part of a tradition. But there is something up and away about his style. a sheer delight in his oown personal impulse.'"
I mention Liam’s work with classical composer Shaun Davey but the piper reminds me that that is not what Heaney had in mind with the word "classical".
"He wasn’t referring to European classical art music but rather that there was a classic tradition within Irish music and that’s what I think he was referring to," explained Liam.
Music is in the O’Flynn DNA with his Kerry-born father being a "very decent ould fiddle player" and his mother coming from Miltown Malbay, best known for its connection to another piper, Willie Clancy.
"So from day one, I was listening to traditional music being played downstairs." Liam recalls.
"My father had a great friend who was an uilleann piper, Tom Armstrong, and that was my first encounter with the pipes which of course, I had heard on the radio, but this was the first time I had seen them played live and I was immediately taken by the nature of the sound."
Liam was also lucky in having the great Leo Rowsome as his first teacher to nurture the latent talent in Liam Óg and Liam was influenced by other pipers, Seamus Ennis and Wille Clancy of course but O’Flynn’s gentlemanly style is all his own.
He probably first came into pubic consciousness with the mould-breaking band Planxty back in the early 1970s.
Planxty was famously described as three hippies and a civil servant – with Liam being the latter – but it was they, more than anyone else, who propelled Irish music into a new modern age.
"I remember people asking what kind of instrument I was playing because the pipes were so little known even back in the early 1970s.
"However, when I look back, it strikes me as to how secure it felt to be part of a tradition especially when you played with people from other genres be it classical or rock or whatever, you realised that you were part of a very solid tradition in itself."
That has led Liam to play with people as diverse as Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, the Everly Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Mike Oldfield,and Sinéad O'Connor not to mention his work with Shaun Davey.
So can the pipes adapt to any musical situation?
"Well it depends on who the musician or the composer goes about trying to bring two musical traditions together and that is a very, very difficult thing to do.
"But when it does work, it creates something totally new and that is so, so important. Two people in particular come to mind when we talk about mixing different musical idioms.
"Shaun Davey has the most brilliant ideas. It was he who saw the uilleann pipes as representing the little leather-skin boat in The Brendan Voyage. The other is Mark Knopfler, a great writer of tunes and a man who also has great respect for the tradition."
The Given Note was read out at Heaney’s funeral in 2013 before O'Flynn played Port na bPúcaí. The pair were close in life and it was fitting they should share the final farewell.
:: As part of Field Day Weekend curated by Stephen Rea, Liam will be joined by Rod McVey for a performance at the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Bellaghy on Friday February 24 for a 45-minute show beginning at 9.45pm. Book online at Seamusheaneyhome.ticketsolve.com.
