
HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO ALL!
There is also a Celtic song for your listening pleasure about fishermen, interpreted and performed by Kate. It is difficult to place Kate in any one category such as poet, writer or artist, because she is all of these and more. A musician, teacher, storyteller, a Celtic language expert... St. Patrick could not have a better representative. My “Official” Bio: Kate Chadbourne is a singer, storyteller, and poet whose performances combine traditional tales with music for voice, harp, flutes, and piano. She holds a Ph.D. in Celtic Languages and Literatures from Harvard where she teaches courses in Irish language and folklore – but the heart of her understanding of Irish folk tradition comes from encounters with singers, storytellers, and great talkers in Ireland. She has been a featured “tradition bearer” in the Revels Salon series and in the Gaelic Roots Concert Series at Boston College, and her music has been featured on NPR’s programs, “Cartalk” and “All Songs Considered.” She has published two collections of poetry: The Harp-Boat, about her father, a Maine lobsterman, winner of the Kulupi Press Sense of Place Chapbook Contest, and Brigit’s Woven World & other poems of Ireland. Kate is on a quest to help create a warm, imaginative, enchanting world through the practice of the Bardic Arts. She loves to sing, laugh, and revel with YOU! Request a free well-wishing song at www.wellwishingsongs.com, or find out about her teaching, new music, and upcoming performances at www.katechadbourne.com. HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY! | About the song: Tá na Báid, “The Boats (are out deep)” – from The Irishy Girl CD My own interpretation of a fishing song I discovered in the pages of Ceolta Gael. I was attracted to it both for its brooding melody and for its refrain repeated almost prayerfully: Slán abhaile go dtaga na fir, “May the men come safely home.” The perspective toggles between that anxious person on the shore, willing the men to return safely despite rolling seas and fierce wind, and a fisherman who looks at his meager catch and wonders if it was worth braving the dangers – especially the wild March seas around St. Patrick’s Day. In the end, he blesses all the men who go on the sea and wishes them fishing nets full to the brim. I sing this for my brother, Dan, and for my father, both fishermen. ![]()
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