Traditional group The Weaving told David Hennessy about their debut album which has just been released.
The Weaving, the traditional group made up of Méabh Begley, Cáit Ní Riain and Owen Spafford, have just released its their debut album Dlúth & Inneach (Warp & Weft) and launch it with some Irish shows this week.
Drawing its members from Kerry (Begley), Tipperary (Ni Riain) and Yorkshire (Spafford), The Weaving draws on the traditions of all three regions.
Méabh Begley is a singer, songwriter and musician whose musical expression and stylings are deeply rooted within the Irish music, language and song tradition of her homeplace of Corca Dhuibhne, the Gaeltacht of West Kerry, Ireland.
A native Irish speaker, Méabh was born into the renowned musical family of the Begleys and her father was the late, great Kerry musician Séamus Begley.
Owen Spafford is a fiddle player and composer from Leeds.
He is also an All-Britain Fiddle Champion in the Fleadh Cheoil na Breataine, BBC Young Composer Competition nominee and has studied with Sam Amidon and John Dipper.
In 2022 Owen released a debut album with guitarist Louis Campbell that Martin Hayes described as “a beautiful, moody and tasteful recording that defies classification. The arrangements and playing are truly subtle and the sounds are pristine.”
Cáit Ní Riain is a traditional singer, multi instrumentalist, and folklorist from Upperchurch in Co. Tipperary.
She grew up in the world renowned music pub, Jim of the Mills, where she was deeply influenced by the constant stream of musicians and singers that came from near and far, gaining a deep appreciation for her own culture and its place and relevance in the world.
Her sister, playwright Áine Ryan, has been featured in The Irish World and Cáit has composed music for award- winning pieces like Paddy Goes to Petra and Kitty in the Lane.
Méabh Begley, Cáit Ní Riain and Owen Spafford took time to chat to The Irish World about their debut album.
How does it feel to have the album out? Have you been building to this for quite a while?
Méabh: “Yeah, we’ve been playing together since 2022 and I think we wanted to just put what we love to play on the album and have them finally out so that we can move on.
“It’s nice to have that snapshot in time.”
Is it the closing of a chapter and onto the next one?
Cáit: “Yeah, that’s how I feel.
“We just love playing together.
“It’s not all geared towards this album or anything.
“It’s just a representation of us playing live.
“I think in traditional music, our hearts are in the live performance together.
“And yet we’re very proud of it (the album) and we love it at the same time.
“It’s not like it has all been building up to when we release the album.
“It’s just like we love playing together and there’s a record of us.
“It’s like a photograph in time.”
Obviously you all come from different regions of Ireland and England, how did you all come together?
Méabh: “Owen and I met in 2022.
“We got to know each other very quickly and just became instant friends.
“There was an instant bond there and the music was definitely integral to that.
“I think we all met each other in different ways but actually we all met on the same peninsula.
“We all met on the Dingle Peninsula separately but then eventually we all started to play music together.”
Cáit: “I think we all met each other separately and had big sparks not alone musically but personally as well and I think that is central to our music, the depth of our relationships.
“Owen invited the two of us to come over to England to do just a few gigs.
“We didn’t even have a band name or anything.
“We didn’t even know we were a band.
“It was just kind of like, ‘We’ll play some tunes’.”
Owen: “We got together and did some gigs in the north of England.
“It just went really well and we felt like we connected in a way that’s quite rare for musicians that haven’t actually played much together and then decided to do more gigs, so it kind of happened very organically.”
So although you had met in Dingle, the band started in the Leeds area, is that right? Wasn’t it around there you came up with the name?
Owen: “Yeah, we were in a train station in Huddersfield after a gig and we were just trying to think of what the name could be, the combination of English and Irish traditional music and the strength of being together in that and somehow The Weaving came about.
“It’s interesting that we were also in a landscape in the north of England that was completely made by weaving mills and textile mills but that wasn’t a conscious thought, we just happened to be there.”
Méabh: “Did that come into it at all? Did you say that? Did you mention our surroundings or something?”
Cáit: “I don’t think so.
“I honestly think the name came even before we were thinking about weaving English and Irish music.
“And then obviously now we talk a lot in our concerts of the fact that what we’re doing between the English traditions and the Irish traditions is really healing.
“Because the two cultures can be perceived as one having oppressed the other which is true if you’re talking about it from a governmental point of view but on the level of the folk people and the folk musics, which is the music that grows from the people’s relationship with the land and the seasons and the rhythms and the landscapes and being in community together and rites of passage and all of these things that all indigenous cultures have, at that level we hold a lot of similarities and a lot of complementary difference but it’s all about spirit and heart and community and love and expressing our emotions.
“It’s been lovely to bridge the two traditions and say, ‘Wow, look at how much we have in common at the level of our heart?’ Instead of getting in our head and like, ‘You did this to us and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah’ because that’s only the elite at the top that have colonised, it’s not the ordinary folk at all.
“I think that’s important and I think the name The Weaving reflects that idea of what we’re doing to make a beautiful tapestry of love.”
You all come from different but rich musical traditions..
Cáit: “I think we’re all connected to the very deep root.
“I think all of us have that love of the roots of the music outside even individual players.
“We have such a love and a passion for traditional music.”
Méabh: “I feel, as part of The Weaving, that I’m allowed to be this passionate about the music and I don’t have to hold back playing in the style that I play.
“I can unapologetically play polkas which not everyone likes in the traditional music world but thank God that the other two happen to love them.
“I feel like I can be myself in this trio and I’m very thankful for that and there’s something special that connects as well.”
Owen: “I feel the same about being able to be comfortable as a person and as a musician around the two of you because then I can fully express who I am musically as well.
“I think sometimes within Irish traditional music, especially as an English person, although I grew up with it, and was given a lot of the music by Des Hurley, who’s very much part of the tradition, there’s still a part of me that will always, I think, feel a bit like an imposter.
“But within this group I feel like I’m able to be both someone that grew up with and loves Irish traditional music but someone who also has a passion for Northern English traditional music and actually finding those tunes that exist in the English tradition and the Irish tradition and playing them in a way that is unfettered almost by how it’s expected to sound and more how we want it to sound. It is a really freeing thing.”
Méabh: “It’s never been a conscious decision of how we want to sound either, we just started playing together and then it happened to sound good.”
Cáit: “None of us is holding back.
“We just all go for it in our own unique styles.”
Méabh: “Yeah, I think what really helps that is the friendships as well.
“I feel like I can really be myself with these two and the friendships are deep and authentic and I think that translates into the music as well.
“That freedom and that freedom of expression definitely translates into the music, that we can be honest with each other and honest even about the things that we might not like as much but we’re respectful enough to tell the truth no matter what the truth is and that the recipient of that truth is open enough to take it as well and that goes into the music too.
“It’s really interesting actually.
“I’m growing a lot as a person in these personal relationships and these musical relationships.
“It’s a beautiful thing to experience and to notice.”
If the live shows are what it’s all about for you, what have been highlights for you in that way?
Méabh: “Yeah, the first one we did was, well, the first one we did in Ireland was at the Feile na Bealtaine festival in Dingle.
“That was really special.”
Cáit: “Yeah, that was so special.
“That stands out for me as well as one of the highlights.”
Méabh: “I think everyone in the room was feeling the emotions and people were in tears at the end.
“I think that was a good thing.”
Owen: “There was so much support coming from the audience.
“I think we were all a bit nervous as to what it would be like playing this in front of a home crowd in Kerry but actually it was so enthusiastic and warm.”
Owen: “It was also, there was something about, was it the first of May? The start of just had a lot going on and all the flowers were coming out and felt like the start of something really exciting.”
Cáit: “We had so much support from the audience.
“We were all in it together.
“It was one of those ritualistic moments of like, ‘Wow, the power of music is just amazing’.
“That was definitely a standout for me.
“There’s been many standouts.
“I also love Fire in the Mountain.
“There’s a festival in Wales full of people who love the folk musics of Wales, Scotland, England and Ireland but predominantly the folk musics of that land.
“We had a late slot on one of the main stages and the crowd just went mad.
“It was my first time playing polkas to a full on dancing young crowd.
“I’m used to the clubs where people are going that mad and with that much spirit but it was to polkas and they were just going crazy.
“I was like, ‘F**k yeah, this is the music that we should be dancing to. This is the real stuff because it holds so much within this music: Memory and ecstasy and sorrow’.
“Just to see the young people of that land go crazy for the polkas, that’s a moment that will stay with me.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, this is where this music needs to be played. It’s not just for people sitting.
“And it wasn’t even step dances or set dances which I love, they were just freestyling it.
“I just loved it.
“That was definitely a highlight to see the ecstasy of them dancing to the music.
“It was amazing.”
Méabh: “And then they were so respectful of the songs.
“They’re so very quiet at times and the crowd were quiet for those songs and really attentive and open to being moved by these songs, and songs in Irish as well.
“I was so surprised.
“I was so surprised because there was a main act on a bigger stage at the same time and I was afraid that we wouldn’t get anyone to come to our gig and our gig was full and it was amazing.
“It was actually really a special, special moment.”
Would you describe the album as ancient tunes from the three different traditions and your own stuff inspired by that?
Owen: “Yeah so it’s a combination of traditional tunes from the north of England and Ireland and then there’s two self composed tunes that me and Méabh wrote together.
“And then there’s also a polka called For Mikey.
“Mikey Kenney is a great fiddle player from Liverpool who we’ve played a lot with over the years and has been a big inspiration to me anyway and gave us some of the tunes.”
Méabh: “He’s extremely generous with his music.
“He’s really generous with giving it and that’s rare actually that you find people who do so much work and then they’re willing to actually share it as well.”
Owen: “And he does a lot for the community in the Irish community in Liverpool.
“He teaches every week at the Irish Centre and organises a lot of Comhaltas stuff.”
Méabh: “It’s a mixture of really, really old and very new across the two traditions.
“It’s amazing.
“It’s actually surprising the way it’s working out.
“I never thought I’d be playing English folk music.”
Cáit: “I know, neither did I.”
Méabh: “And I never thought that but I didn’t actually consciously think about it either.
“But that barrier that we kind of have as Irish people, as in historically, there has been this barrier maybe that can be in the mind of, ‘Oh, why would you be playing the music of the oppressor?’
“But it’s like Cáit said, it’s not about the politics of it and it’s also not about erasing what happened, it’s about celebrating what we actually share and have in common and noticing and an exploration as well of what we actually have in common and celebrating that part of it because we don’t ignore the history either.
“We still sing our songs that mention the history and there’s no animosity, there’s just respect, respect for what we are today and what we have been.”
You said you want to move on but somehow I think you will continue also playing the tunes and songs from this album, right?
Cáit: “100%, I think in traditional music you play the same tunes your whole life and each time you play them, it’s like you discover new places in them and you come to them fresh.
“They stay.
“They’ve stood the test of time which is the greatest test of all.
“I think we’ll be playing these tunes well into more lifetimes.
“They will carry.
“They’re not going anywhere, you know?”
Dlúth & Inneach (Warp & Weft) by The Weaving is out now.
The Weaving play Jim of the Mills, Tipperary on Tuesday 31 March, The Cobblestone in Dublin on 1 April, Feile na Bealtaine on 4 May, Cnoc na Gaoithe, Tulla, Co. Clare on 28 June, Masters of Tradition, Bantry on 20 August, Ionad Culturtha, Baile Mhuirne on 11 December.
For more information, search The Weaving on Instagram.
