01:25 – What an Irish music session means to Joan
02:22 – First sessions in Garvey’s in Inagh and learning tunes by osmosis
04:55 – Why the intergenerational nature of Irish music matters
05:51 – Nobody knows it all
06:13 – Old tunes, repertoire and why quantity is not everything
07:24 – Advice for joining a session when you know nobody
08:25 – The natural high when a session really works
11:15 – People first, music second
12:27 – Music as a constant through grief, loss and life
14:18 – Friendships across the world and a connection with Cape Breton
17:13 – What happens when musicians truly gel
18:21 – Processing grief through music
20:05 – Writing tunes for Joan’s father and sister
24:48 – Why Joan likes playing tunes more than twice
26:21 – What blocks the flow of a good session
29:44 – Welcoming people without asking them to prove their worth
30:33 – Joan’s ideal session size and why sessions should inspire you
31:58 – Festival sessions, hospitality and keeping music human
35:18 – Ten ingredients of a successful session
38:12 – Old pubs, open fires, singers, dancers and good listeners
Conversational Transcript
*[This is an AI edited conversational transcript, lightly shaped for readability while keeping the spirit of the original conversation. Full transcript generated by Tara is available by clicking on the 3 dots in the bottom left corner on the player above.]
What does an Irish traditional music session mean?
Tara:
Joan Hanrahan, thank you so much for agreeing to chat to me today.
We are in Miltown.
Tell me, what does an Irish music session mean to you?
Joan:
For me, the session is all about the session really.
That is where it started.
Once you had enough tunes, the ultimate thing was to go out and play and go to sessions.
I remember my first experience of a session. Tom Rynne, God rest him, Padraig’s father, was living in Lissycasey.
Every Saturday night when I was about fifteen, he used to collect myself and Lorraine, my sister.
We were not allowed out. I was the eldest, God help us.
Tara:
I am the eldest too.
Joan:
We could write the book!
Tom used to collect us and bring us to Garvey’s in Inagh, where Tom Rynne, Joe Rynne, Michael Kelliher and different musicians would be playing on a Saturday night.
There was a little stage.
I remember the first time I went, I had hundreds of tunes, but when I got to the session I had about six selections.
I had been learning fiddle tunes, but I did not have what you would call the normal session repertoire.
But I did not feel uncomfortable.
That was very important.
Learning tunes by osmosis
Joan:
After about six months of going to the same session, I had learned so many tunes.
You pick them up almost by osmosis.
Once you hear them often enough, they sink into you.
You play bits and pieces of them.
Tom and Joe Rynne and maybe Michael Kelliher would have been on the little stage, and we were sitting down below.
That is where I met other young musicians.
I was in the Inagh Céilí Band and Joe had us playing there.
Michael Queally used to come. Pat Queally on flute, my sister Lorraine on flute and Raymond Foodie on drums.
So it became a bit of craic.
You were meeting young people who played music, but the osmosis was happening too.
You were learning the repertoire of those musicians.
That was a huge step towards going out and playing sessions yourself.
Teenagers and older musicians together
Joan:
Later I played in PJ Kelly’s pub in Ennis.
I would have started playing there in my teens, with Lorraine and Nuala Hehir on accordion.
One of the things I loved was that older musicians would call in.
Joe Ryan would come in if there was a Clare hurling match on.
He always brought the fiddle.
He was lovely to meet and play with. Easy company, very humble and lovely to be around.
There were older characters too, like Mikey Fitzpatrick.
We were teenagers and we had great craic with them.
Tara:
That is what is so unusual about it.
It is completely intergenerational.
Joan:
Totally.
And that is one of the beauties of traditional Irish music.
You are never too old.
It does not matter what age you are.
Joan:
I was teaching with Anne Rynne today at the Willie Clancy Summer School.
A couple of students said they felt lost because we were going too fast.
I said, relax.
You are picking it up. By the end of the week you will be fine.
Nobody knows it all.
Nobody knows all the tunes.
As we sit here, tunes are being written.
I do not know half of them. Anne does not know them either and yet we both know loads.
That is beautiful because we are all actually in the same boat.
Nobody knows it all.
Tara:
Somebody said something to me years ago when I felt almost guilty about being an eternal student.
They said, “Tara, is it not better to be an eternal student than an eternal know-it-all?”
It changed how I thought about it.
Joan:
Absolutely.
That is what young musicians need to realise.
Even though we know a lot, we do not know half of it.
That is the beauty of it.
There is always more to learn.
Repertoire is not about quantity
Joan:
For me personally, it is not about knowing loads of different tunes.
I prefer the older repertoire.
I love the old tunes.
Some new tunes appeal to me too, but it is not about quantity.
It is about having tunes that I love and love playing.
Then having people I love playing with, who have the same approach or a compatible pace.
Pace is very important in sessions.
How fast or slowly people play has to be compatible for the music to blend and be enjoyable.
Joining a session when you know nobody
Tara:
What advice would you give someone coming into Irish music who wanted to sit into a session for the first time and knew nobody?
Would you advise them to get to know people first?
Joan:
I think one of the best ways of getting to know people is actually playing music with them.
But you need to ease yourself in gently.
Take stock of what is happening.
Gently join.
There is no better way to get to know somebody than sitting beside them in a session and having the chats.
Sometimes the chats are just madness and jokes and craic.
Other times they turn into serious counselling sessions where you are telling them your problems and they are telling you theirs.
That is how friendships, relationships and bonds are made and kept.
But I would say relax.
Do not push.
It is not about how many tunes you can or cannot play.
Relax into it and enjoy the moment.
The magic when everyone synchronises
Joan:
That moment is where the magic appears for me.
When everyone synchronises and you are all on the same level, there is a buzz.
Everyone is playing really well.
When it happens, it is magical.
It does not happen every single time you play.
But it can happen a lot.
I play with a musician who is also a brilliant hurler.
We were playing at a wedding in Galway and watching a hurling match in a pub beforehand.
It was an incredible match.
I asked him, “Which is the biggest high, hurling or playing music?”
I honestly thought he would say hurling.
He thought about it and said, definitely music.
I was shocked.
He said the highs happen more often with music.
In sport, it is incredibly hard to get everybody to that pinnacle at the same time.
But in music, that elation can happen much more often.
There is a natural high when everything in a session is working.
People first, music second
Tara:
That is probably why I am doing this podcast.
I would love more people to experience that high.
Maybe they can see it is within reach but anxiety gets in the way.
Joan:
Trust.
Trust the people.
My dad used to always say:
People first and the music second.
As I have got older, I appreciate more what he was saying.
It really is about people at the end of the day.
The music is the common thread that brings everyone together.
The shared interest. The shared passion.
It is almost like a drug.
Once you are a musician, you are a musician.
You cannot be without it.
Tara:
Somebody told me when I was about sixteen, “Are you sure you want to be really involved in this music? Because if you ever have a husband, he will always be second.”
I thought, not at all!
Joan:
My husband is listening!
But it is all-consuming.
Once you experience that feeling of elation, you want to experience it again.
As obsessions go, it is probably one of the safer ones.
Music as a constant through life
Joan:
I often think how lucky I am to have my music.
I do not know how I would have coped with different things in life if I had not had it.
When the chips are really down, grief, loss, frustration, upset, music has been one constant in my life.
Friends come and go.
Relationships change.
My parents and my sister have left this world.
But the one thing I can always depend on personally is my fiddle.
When we were in Ennis in the nineties, I did not need anyone to go out with.
Once you had your fiddle, you just walked out the door.
I never had to arrange to go out.
I never needed to know where my friends were going.
It was very liberating.
We did not realise it then because it was normal to us.
Freedom and being minded by the music community
Joan:
As I get older, I think more about freedom and especially about women and how women experience society.
I had such freedom through music.
And I was always with the nicest people.
I always felt safe.
I was minded.
Ciarán Browne would make sure I was put into a taxi if I was not being brought home.
The whole music community becomes an extension of your family.
I have met the most amazing people from all over the world.
It is not just about playing tunes.
You end up hearing somebody’s life story.
You respect them, admire them or become intrigued by them.
It is a gift really.
Bonds that survive decades
Joan:
You make friends all over the world through music.
But it is more than friendship sometimes.
It is a bond.
There is a depth of understanding.
I remember being in Cape Breton Island in 1993 and meeting a beautiful family there.
Years later, I was at home one Saturday when a number came up on my phone.
Normally I probably would not answer it.
But I did.
She said, “Hi Joan, this is Colleen.”
It was one of the people I had stayed with all those years before.
She was in Ennis.
We met and the following day she came to our house with her family.
I told her that when I was in Cape Breton I thought the whole experience had been magical.
As I got older, I had started wondering if maybe I had exaggerated it in my head because I had been young and impressionable.
She said, “No. It was the same for us.”
They had felt it too.
That was over twenty years later.
These bonds can be made simply by going somewhere and playing some music.
Is there something deeper happening?
Tara:
Maybe because we play music together, we are reaching something deeper.
Joan:
Maybe it is spiritual, or a higher frequency.
I do not know what the scientific explanation is.
But there is definitely something.
When you play with somebody and you gel, it just feels right.
People spend a lot of their lives looking for that feeling.
It is not even about feeling complete.
It is just an elation that you are in the right place at the right time.
You are entirely in that moment.
You can be ripping your high E string, going mad through a reel in A, but at the same time there is almost this cloud you are gliding on.
All is well with the world.
Or at least all is well with your world for that moment.
Putting grief into the music
Tara:
When I am suffering or grieving, I find I can put all of that into the music when I am playing in a session.
It almost oozes out of me.
The weight lifts.
It is like you are sharing something with the people you are playing with without ever having to tell them what has happened.
Joan:
For me, when I play, I feel I am working through things.
I do not know if it is subconscious.
Maybe it is the repetition.
Maybe there is something mantra-like about it.
I think about these things but I do not have the answers.
When I have lost people, I have often written pieces of music for them.
Not because I sat down and said I am going to compose something.
A melody just comes.
That fascinates me.
Was that tune always there?
Where did it come from?
Recording inspiration before it disappears
Joan:
I have lost lovely little pieces over the years because I did not write them down or record them.
So now, if something comes to me, I take out my phone immediately.
I might be walking around the house in my dressing gown playing fiddle when the idea comes.
I have learned to record it straight away.
There is definitely something healing in music.
That is a fact for me.
Joan:
I wrote one for my dad called Planxty John Hanrahan.
It was very simple.
I was playing a lot with Conor Keane, who writes fabulous music himself.
I played my little piece for him and he was so encouraging.
Sometimes you need that encouragement.
He would start playing a long bass note behind me.
It gave me confidence to play the piece and share it.
We were in Miltown one time, myself, Conor and Louise, my sister.
He said, “Play that piece you wrote for your dad, Joan.”
So I played it.
Jackie Daly was sitting nearby.
Jackie came over afterwards and said, “That is not finished.”
Conor immediately said, “No Jackie, that was written for her dad. It is fine!”
He was almost protecting me.
But I said, no, Jackie, tell me more.
He said the second part needed a tail at the end.
And he was right.
I added a little piece the second time round.
Then Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin heard it in a session and later used it in a film, with a violinist in Canada arranging it.
These things take on lives of their own.
Joan:
I wrote another piece when my sister Fiona passed away.
It was for her month’s mind.
I wanted my nieces and nephews to play it and some of them were very young, so it could not be too complicated.
At first I wanted it to be very sad.
We were devastated.
Fiona was only forty-five and she died during COVID.
It was a terrible shock.
But when I had written the first part, I thought, she would absolutely hate this.
She would be giving out to me saying, “For God’s sake, Joan!”
So the second part became much happier and more major.
That felt much more like celebrating her.
The third part slows down and, for me, that is about acceptance.
I have to accept this.
I have not recorded it yet, but I hope to.
Again, music was part of the healing.
Playing through difficult emotions
Joan:
My mother used to say when I was a teenager that I played my best music when I was upset.
She would say, “You play your best music, Joan, when you are in really bad form.”
I would go into a room, close the door and play and play and play for a couple of hours.
Then I would come out and be okay.
There must be something being processed.
Maybe there is something in the repetition.
Why play a tune only twice?
Joan:
I hate when people in sessions only play a tune twice or three times.
I would happily play it eight times.
Tara:
In my local Donegal session, we might play it eight or ten times.
By the second time you are only starting to get into it.
Then somebody changes tune and you think, what?
I was only starting to enjoy that!
Joan:
Exactly.
You have no time to get into it.
One of the things I love most about sessions is sitting beside somebody, playing a tune you have played for thirty-five or forty years and suddenly they do something really simple.
You think, why did I never think of that?
Why did I never put a roll there?
Or hold that note?
Or put in that triplet?
That intrigues me.
The shared skeleton of a tune
Joan:
That is the beauty of traditional Irish music.
You are composing all the time.
You have this shared skeleton of a tune.
But there is all this room for expression and your own take on it.
You can play it plain or fancy.
You can use as much ornamentation or variation, or as little, as you feel like doing that day.
That is why I think playing the tunes over and over is important.
There is something almost mantra-like about it.
You become one with the tune.
It takes over.
You are just in that place and that space.
The session is the place where all these magical things can happen.
Tara:
What would block those things from happening in a session?
Joan:
Everyone needs to be aware.
Being able to read what is happening is very important.
Somebody playing particularly loudly could affect it.
But probably the biggest thing for me would be if the rhythm was not together.
That would block my flow.
If somebody is pushing faster or the music is dragging, it is difficult.
I think fiddle players also have to understand that an accordion or concertina can be louder than us and sometimes those instruments naturally influence the pace.
You adapt.
You listen.
Making people feel welcome
Joan:
When somebody joins a session, especially an open session, I hope they always feel welcome.
I make a point of making people feel welcome because I know there are sessions I personally would not join.
I would not feel comfortable.
That may not be because the people are actually unwelcoming.
It could be my own insecurity.
It could be that they play a different style or I do not know them.
You cannot always pinpoint it.
But if I am playing in an open session, I want people to feel welcome.
I do not care how many tunes they have or how long they have been playing.
But everybody needs to try to gel with what is already happening.
Usually there is a core group establishing the pace.
Respect that.
Reading what is already happening
Joan:
I love playing fast music.
When I am revved up and in great form, it can be hard to catch me sometimes.
But again, it is about reading what is happening and slotting into the atmosphere.
You might start softer, gentler or slower.
Then it builds gradually.
I would not feel comfortable walking in and immediately banging out fast tunes.
It depends on the night.
It depends on the people.
It can even depend on whether it is summer or winter.
But what blocks it for me is somebody joining and not respecting what is already there.
Not respecting what is already happening.
Is “will I benefit the session?” too much pressure?
Tara:
I often think if I walked into a session where I did not know anybody, I would sit and listen first.
Then maybe ask myself, “Am I going to benefit this session by joining?”
Or even, “Is it going to benefit me?”
Joan:
I would hate people to feel they were not welcome.
So I would be careful with “Am I going to benefit the session?”
As long as you do not interfere with what is going on, I think that is enough.
Asking whether you will benefit the session might prevent a lot of people from joining.
And what you think you are bringing to a session and what somebody else interprets you as bringing might be completely different.
It is all open to interpretation.
It is amazing that it works so well most of the time.
It really is incredible.
How big should a session be?
Tara:
What would be your ideal size of session?
Joan:
Maybe four to six.
You can have bigger sessions that work brilliantly.
But once it gets very big, does it start becoming more like a céilí band?
I think in a session you should be able to hear new tunes.
Everybody should not have to play every tune.
You should be able to hear somebody playing a little bit of something you do not know.
You might want to record a tune.
It does not always need to be everybody belting everything out.
That starts moving towards a stage performance.
Sessions should inspire you
Joan:
It is lovely to come home from a session with a tune you want to learn.
Or the name of a tune you heard and thought was gorgeous.
Or something that you know in your head but never properly learned.
A session should inspire you.
There should be space for you to keep growing.
Festival sessions are different
Tara:
At a festival like Willie Clancy Week, you will have much bigger sessions.
You are unlikely to find just six people.
Joan:
No.
And those sessions can be enjoyable too.
The festival atmosphere is different.
You are meeting everybody and playing together.
But regardless of the size, I think it is very important that people feel welcome.
I hate thinking somebody could be hurt.
There is enough meanness in the world.
We do not need it in music.
Joan:
It hurts me when people do not feel welcome.
I think, what is the big deal?
They are only a few notes.
It is not rocket science.
We are just playing tunes.
Some people are amazingly gifted at playing them, granted.
But it is only one small part of who we are as human beings.
We owe it to each other to be open.
Ultimately, I think we should make each other feel comfortable.
That is the kind of community I want music to be.
It is an amazing family.
Clare, creativity and following your heart
Joan:
I love walking around Ennis.
You meet musicians, photographers, sculptors and artists.
They are all paddling their own canoes.
I think it is incredibly healthy.
We live in an extraordinary county and an extraordinary country.
Where did all these talented people come from?
Actors, poets, writers, singers, musicians.
We are this tiny dot on a map and yet Irish people have influenced music, song and dance around the world.
We punch way above our weight.
It takes bravery too.
People follow their dream and follow the need to create music, art, books or poetry.
It is not always the easiest livelihood.
But people talk so much nowadays about wellbeing, authenticity and being true to yourself.
That is already what people in the arts are trying to do.
Especially in Irish music.
Ten ingredients of a successful session
Tara:
The previous guest left you a question.
What are the ten most important factors contributing to a successful session?
Joan:
Ten?
That is very generous!
Comfortable seating.
A nice venue where you can see everyone and hear everyone.
An appreciative audience.
I think listeners are incredibly important.
My dad, God rest him, and loads of his friends were great listeners.
That little hop when you change a tune and you know somebody is listening, that somebody is on the wavelength with you, means everything.
Joan:
The people around you do not need to come from the same place or play the same style.
We played together earlier today, Tara, and it sounded lovely.
You are Donegal and I am Clare.
It does not matter.
The important thing is that you listen.
It is about opening your ears.
Listen to what is happening around you.
Have people around you who inspire you.
Hear something you would never have thought to do yourself.
Tunes, singing and dancing
Joan:
I like hearing different tunes.
I love old traditional tunes and do not feel the need to learn hundreds of new ones.
But it is always nice to hear some quirky tune or an old tune I do not know.
Something to take home with me.
I also love singing in a good session.
Growing up, it was never just music.
There was music, song and dance.
After five or six sets of tunes, maybe somebody sings a song.
Then set dancing.
To me, a great session could have all of that.
But the dancers need to listen to the music and dance to what is actually being played.
That is a whole other conversation.
Joan:
I love set dancing myself.
There is great joy in battering the floor and swinging around the place.
There is freedom in it.
When I was younger and my parents went set dancing, it could be around the house and mind the dresser.
It was not always structured figures.
It could be advance and retire, then tear around the house again.
Great craic.
It lets off steam.
Sometimes I think the world has become too sanitised.
Too clean and fresh.
Old pubs, fires and places with draíocht
Joan:
We went to McCarthy’s in Coore yesterday.
I love an old pub.
I love an open fire.
I think I prefer winter sessions.
Your big polo neck, your boots and your fiddle.
There are publicans who really understand the music and understand musicians.
That makes an enormous difference.
There needs to be a culture of appreciation.
I used to love PJ Kelly’s in Ennis.
Ciarán Browne’s.
Peppers in Feakle.
The minute I arrive outside Peppers, I am a happy girl.
There are places that seem to lend themselves to music.
There is some bit of draíocht about them.
Good company, old friends and new friends
Joan:
And good company.
It is nice to share music with friends.
People who have known you a long time and still like you!
Tara:
And new friends.
Joan:
And new friends, of course.
House sessions and listening
Joan:
We had friends staying in Johnny Hill’s cottage near us in Lissycasey.
They loved music and listened to me on Clare FM.
Myself and Alan went up one night.
We sat at the hearth.
I played fiddle, Alan sang and they absolutely loved it.
I said the next time they came, we would bring more musicians.
So we did.
Tom Kelly came and sang and we had loads of tunes.
There is something special about cottages, open fires, súgán chairs and those kinds of sessions.
Joan:
The biggest beauty of the session is the age range.
That night, Tom Kelly was there.
He is Patrick Kelly’s son, the great fiddle player from Cree, and Tom is a wonderful singer.
He will be ninety next year.
He had us eating out of the palm of his hand.
Our own children were there singing too.
So you had people from about nine to eighty-nine.
That is the common space.
This lovely, joyous place where you can play tunes, sing songs, talk, eat, drink and relax together.
That is the session.
Tara:
Joan, thank you so much.
It has been lovely talking to you.
Joan:
Thank you, Tara.
There is a line from Joan’s father that sits right at the centre of this conversation.
People first. Music second.
The longer I work on this podcast, the more I think there is something important in that.
It does not mean the standard of the music does not matter. Joan cares deeply about rhythm, pace, listening and musical quality. She talks about that moment when everybody settles into the same pulse and the playing seems to lift. She talks about hearing one tiny variation from the musician beside you and suddenly seeing a tune you have played for forty years differently.
The music matters enormously.
But it happens between people.
Joan’s earliest memories of sessions are not just lists of tunes. They are Tom Rynne collecting two teenage girls from Lissycasey and bringing them to Inagh. Older musicians on the little stage. Younger musicians sitting below. Learning by listening. Meeting people. Having the craic.
She remembers Joe Ryan as much for being lovely company and a humble man as for his music.
Decades later, she remembers a family in Cape Breton because something passed between them through music that survived more than twenty years without contact.
And when life became difficult, the fiddle remained.
That part of the conversation stayed with me.
Music can sometimes carry things we do not have words for. You do not have to explain your grief to the person beside you. You can play. The repetition, the rhythm and the concentration do something. Joan does not pretend to know exactly what that is, and neither do I.
But musicians recognise it.
Maybe that also explains why she does not want to rush through tunes.
If you only play something twice, sometimes you have barely arrived before it is gone. Play it again and something changes. You hear the musician beside you differently. A roll appears somewhere you never thought of putting one. Someone holds a note. A tune you thought you knew suddenly opens another door.
That is one of the things sessions can give us that playing alone cannot.
There is another important distinction in Joan’s conversation too.
Welcoming somebody does not mean asking them to prove that they will “benefit” the session before they are allowed near it.
Joan pushed back gently when I suggested that question.
Her version is simpler.
Come in. Listen. Take stock of what is already happening. Do not interfere with it. Try to gel.
That is different from believing everybody must play everything or that what was already happening has to change for every person who arrives.
It is about listening in both directions.
And when it works, you can have Clare and Donegal fiddles playing together. A ninety-year-old singer beside a child. A tourist listening at the bar. Dancers battering the floor. Someone hearing a tune for the first time. Someone else playing it for the thousandth.
Nobody knows it all.
That might be part of why the tradition keeps moving.
There is always another tune.
Another person.
Another variation.
Another night when, for a few minutes, everything settles and all is well with your world.
The West Wind with Joan Hanrahan – Clare FM Joan’s long-running traditional Irish music and song programme on Clare FM.
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Recorded and produced by Tara Connaghan and edited by Anita Alvarez Santos.
Recorded in person in Miltown Malbay during Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy 2025.
*Produced & recorded by Tara Connaghan and edited by Anita Alvarez Santos
*Intro music: Recording of Joan Hanrahan and Tara Connaghan for Clare Fm broadcast live from Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy 2025.