Inishowen links to Feis Dhoire Cholmcille highlighted in new book

A book looking at 100 years of Feis Dhoire Cholmcille is due to go on sale this month.

As the institution’s centenary celebrations draw to a close – ‘Feis Dhoire Cholmcille, Celebrating a Century of Culture’ will be available for all feis enthusiasts and local history buffs to snap up at launch events and book stores.

Written and edited by former journalist Eamon Sweeney and with lengthy contributions from former Inish Times journalist Catherine McGinty, the book has taken over a year to produce. And, although the work is in excess of 300 pages long Eamon Sweeney says that it represents a ‘mere sample’ of those who have in anyway contributed to the feis since 1922.

He said: “The feis committee felt it was important to document in print the cultural contribution of the institution has made to the city and its hinterlands in the last century. And while the book is over 100,000 words long and it is a thorough examination, it represents a snapshot of the feis as it would have taken a work of several volumes to capture a wider view of it.”

Inishowen’s young musicians, dancers, singers and Gaelic speakers have travelled to Derry since 1922 to showcase their talent on the stages of Feis Dhoire many of whom made their mark in the world of the arts.

In the late 1970’s, Carita Kerr who hails from Buncrana made a unique clean sweep of all the major singing awards at Derry Feis.

In her interview for the book, Carita said: “I didn’t follow the usual pattern of a feis person. All the people competing against me had started when they were four or five, so they had been part of this amazing event for 20 or 30 years, and I arrived up from Buncrana - a total blow-in.

“So, after a couple of years, when I’d arrive at the bottom of the Guildhall stairs, there was a gang of them standing at the top saying ‘Carita, for God’s sake will you go home and give the rest of us a chance’. The camaraderie was amazing. They just expected that 'well, we’ll not be number one because your woman is on again'. It was so funny but they were great friends. It was just an amazing place.”

Although better known now for her acclaimed school of music Ray McGinley (née McGinley) also hails from Buncrana and fondly recalled her time as a competitor at Derry Feis: “I was very lucky to have had a teacher called Miss Chapman who was a schoolteacher in Buncrana, where I come from.

"She came from a famous musical family and anything she put her hands to was a winner. She wasn’t actually a music teacher. One year she’d decide to put in a choir, and it would win; if she decided to enter someone playing a guitar they would win. So, I had her to help me.”

Ray also competed as a dancer and added: “Brendan de Glinn was my dancing teacher, and I loved Brendan. When he stopped teaching in Buncrana, I danced with Dinny McLaughlin. Dinny was fantastic. I stayed at dancing until I was quite old and no one else at my age was still doing it. Dancing has always been there in my life; I took up line dancing about twenty years ago and did that for many years too.”

During his professional life, Urris native Jim Sharkey was Ireland’s first ambassador to Russia. In those days a prerequisite of a career in the civil service demanded a knowledge of the Irish language.

Jim said: “My late elder brother learned Irish from our maternal grandmother in Urris, but sadly she died in 1949 and, the way it was when a Gaeltacht declined, the next generation had very little Irish, so although there were a lot of Irish words in my mother's vocabulary and the syntax of a lot of her language in English had a Gaelic pitch, we didn't learn Irish from her.

“In my fifth year at the Christian Brothers we studied Irish history, and there was a medal for Irish history in the feis. All the fifth classes of different schools that studied Irish history were brought along for an oral test. We were interviewed in groups of three or four. Hugh McAteer (Sr), Eddie McAteer's brother, was the examiner. So I got a gold medal for Irish history in 1956.

“There was a little write-up in the Irish press about the competition. There were three gold medals issued that year to the top people, we were so close together. One was a girl from the Nazareth House, the other one was Hugh McAteer, Eddie's son, and I was the third. You were chuffed that you got a mention in a newspaper in those days. I am proud of that still in my life”.

There is also a commemorative aspect to the book in remembering some of the well-known figures heavily associated with the feis over the decades. Included is the recently deceased and highly respected Inishowen native Gaelic language teacher and newspaper columnist Liam McLaughlin who gave an interview before his passing in January.

Eamon Sweeney added: “A lot of the interviews are with famous names such as Dana, Bronagh Gallagher, Roma Downey, Margaret Keys, Mairead Carlin and Jonny Logan whose famous father Charlie Sherrard came from William Street and who had a hugely successful singing career himself under the stage name Patrick O’Hagan.

“But the book is also intended to applaud all those who ever took part in the feis, even if was just once, and did not go onto to pursue careers in the arts. These are the people to whom the feis truly owes its greatest debt of gratitude.

"These are the ‘unsung heroes’ of the institution because they embody the true ethos of the feis – that it is the taking part that really counts. And it is also about how the feis continues to instil confidence into young people so they can carry themselves well in whatever walk of life they chose to follow later on.

“Ultimately, the book is the story of how Feis Dhoire Cholmcille was and is of the triumph of cultural pursuits in often extremely tragic circumstances created by external events. And, while it is always good to look back and take comfort in nostalgia the work also takes a look forward to the future and the hopes for the feis as it sets out on its second century in existence.”

News of the launch of ‘Feis Dhoire Cholmcille, Celebrating a Century of Culture’ will appear on the Derry Feis Facebook page in the coming days.