loss of a mentor

I opened the letterbox today and found a letter from Ireland adressed to me and my wife, although minus our surname. I wondered who it might be from, knowing we have a few Polish friends in Ireland, but puzzled they didn't know our name.

Turning the letter over I noticed the name P.Lewis. It was at that moment my blood ran cold. This was obviously someone from the family of my dear friend and mentor, Breda Lewis. If someone other than Breda was writing then it could only be bad news. As it turned out, Breda's daughter, Patsy, had written to tell me of her mother's passing on March 16th. She'd been unable to contact me beforehand as nobody knew where my address was...

The memories started creeping...

I first met Breda in 1987, when I dropped everything and ran away to Ireland (actually, I was running away to join the Foreign Legion but wanted to visit Ireland first... it was years before I ever got to France, and never joined the Legion afterall). I ended up in Galway, living and working (and signing on) at a B&B on Prospect Hill. One night I found myself in The Crane and sang a song at a session. The song was "The Cotswolds" (by Shag Connors) but I'd changed the words to "The Hometown" (anytime it said "The Cotswolds", I sang "The Hometown"). Breda was leading the session and started asking me about the song and from where I was. The evening ended with me helping her to the taxi station and she asking me to help her home (the Guinness flowed freely that night, as many others). I found myself being taxied further and further into the countryside, west of Galway, until we arrived at Furbo and Breda's legendary lair, Stripe Cottage. I seem to recall more Guinness and homemade wine flowing before I crashed in the spare room.

The next day I was woken by a hammering on the door and someone shouting, "Police! Open up!" I jumped and began trying to tidy the place up, not sure why on earth the cops would be banging on the door. Eventually I opened it to find some local vagabond asking for Mrs Lewis, laughing at his own joke and asking if I liked the horse he'd found in (and ridden from) Spiddal.
He came into the kitchen to make himself at home and I went to tell Breda that someone was there to see her... Breda arrived in the kitchen like a Valkyrie and threw the guy out. I thought I'd follow for letting him in but Breda just said, "Ah, don't mind him!" and proceeded to make breakfast.

Over the next few months I spent a lot of time hitch-hiking to and from Furbo, visiting sessions and practising my bodhran (newly bought in Galway... practised alone in my room). Occasionally I'd sing Breda some songs and she asked me if I'd learn a song called The Auld Caubeen, which her father had used to sing. One day, Liam (Breda's son) knocked on the door and told me that he was busy and that Breda had asked if I could help her as one of the two session leaders in The Crane that night. Oh My God! My first ever paid gig... in The Crane. I was terrified.

More gigs followed, my bodhran playing improved and, with Breda's encouragement and guidance, my song repetoire grew. Evenings, afternoons and mornings were spent writing poetry, practising music, telling stories and drinking. Breda's homemade wine was the stuff of legends... It wasn't all booze, it was Breda who introduced me to Lemon Balm tea... and usually, within 30 minutes, I'd be racing for the toilet. The adventures were wild and stuff of crazy nights of story telling. The flat tyre on the Rolls Royce, my 'reputation' as a poteen smuggler, the night I camped in Breda's seafront garden when a hurricane hit Galway...

One event which often springs to mind was during a gig Breda and I played at Ti Cuchlan (sp?) pub, past Spiddall. Breda had commented to me, "Yeh know? When yeh're singing out in Connemara, yeh get the 'nyah-nyahs'" I didn't know what she was on about. She said, "Ye go all like a seanois singer, giving it 'nyah-nyah'". It was a compliment apparently. Later that night I gave a rendition of 'She Moved Through the Fair'. The room was silent, the atmosphere was electric and I had the whole pub in the palm of my hand... not a squeak from anyone... then I heard it... I heard me give out some 'nyah-nyah'. The solemnity hit me and I started giggling and finally burst into laughter. Breda was furious, 'Yeh feckin' English bastard! Yeh ruined it... yeh ruined the moment!' and all but did a Pete Townsend on my head with the banjo.

Giggles were a problem. At one point I found it impossible to sing to breda's accompaniment, for why I don't know. Perhaps I was too self-conscious. When we tried to do slow airs I just started giggling. Breda later commented how hurtful it was but I honestly couldn't help it. It'll be one of my regrets that we didn't mange to do it now I've a bit more maturity.

If I'm totally honest, I did occasionally take advantage of Breda's generosity but she rarely commented on it. Once, when I wrote, apologising for landing on her at a difficult time and not giving her the space she needed, she wrote back, explaining that she understood such things and that it was simply a matter of bad judgement and timing... the door was still open to me. Such was Breda.

It's hard to say how Breda influenced my music and my attitude and behaviour towards traditional music. However, it was immense. Her love of the music, her openness and joy of life touched me, as I know it did many others. Other writers have commented on Breda's passing the tradition onto new generations of musicians. Somewhere along the line, I'm glad and proud to say I am one of those she passed something onto. Somewhere along the line, I referred to her as "The Mother of Music" and she actually used the title once or twice when pulling me up over something, "As your Mother of Music I'm telling you this!"

One of the last times I saw her (if not the last) was when I took some of my friends, some young Scottish musicians, to visit her. I had to go down country to a wedding in Cork but the others stayed at Breda's, helping out in the garden. The gang consisted of a young guitarist (Andy), a cello player (Alistair) and the fiddle player (Kat, Alistair's younger sister). Breda took to the gang immediately, and they to her. She and Kat particulalry bonded. Breda had not been playing for a while but the company of young musicians, hungry to learn, brought the mandolin from its case. There was a spider making it's web in the instrument, "Ah, that's be a great name for a tune, or a band... wouldn't it?

I returned from the wedding to find that the little group of musicians (me included) were now a band, called "Spider in the Mandolin". Breda got us our first gig in a local pub that same week.

As I read the letter from Patsy, I did something I didn't even do when I heard of my father's death... I cried, holding the letter.

I went out for a run, down past the lake close to me home. Coming out of the woods, I stopped on the shore and thought of Stripe cottage on the seafront. I decided to sing a song for breda at the lake edge. What to sing, easy choice, "The Auld Caubeen". I managed most of it but got stuck on the second verse. Still I finished it. Then I felt that "She Moved Through the Fair" would be fitting. As I finished the first verse a swan came swimming into view from behind some trees and came over towards me. I remembered that the Claddagh swans in Galway were once said to be the spirits of the Viking princes returned. Of course, this happens just as I come to the line about '... like a swan in the evening, moving over the lake.' The coincidence began to get to me and then I heard it again... the nyah-nyahs! I began to giggle, the swan swam nearer and looked at me with frightful diapproval, I managed to stifle a laugh, even though the moment had brought, not a sadness, but a memory and a feeling of the joy and gaeity I often associated with Breda.

I finished the song and the swan stayed, waiting for more, it seemed (or waiting for me to throw some bread, of which I had none). I decided it might be an idea to sing the song Breda first heard me sing; "The Cotswolds". As I got to the second verse the swan began to swim away. It was moving back in the direction it came...

I reached the final section,

"So we'll bid you farewell, son,
Don't forget that we love you,
Drop a line when you've landed,
Or whenever you're feeling blue,
Just remember the old house stands,
Through the chill and the rain,
But you'll never come home to,
The Hometown again"

On my second refrain of the last line, the swan disappeared.

Goodbye Breda, We'll miss you forever.