J 1 - Comhaltas Archive

BIG NIGHTS AND A NEW DAWN
Dorothy Gharbaoui of "Farmweek"
Talks to Willis Pa tton
"Cullybrackey is full of first class
musicians", said Willis Patton himself an
agricultural contractor born and bred in
Cullybackey. "But no one seems
interested in it."
However, by his own record as a
champion tin-whistler, Mr. Patton has
helped to make his native village ,. lOwn
in the world of traditional music.
Last week, he and other Ulster folkmusicians
appeared on a programme on
Telefis Eireann, in which Southern
Ireland soluted music of the North .. And
Willis Patton can boast that he has made
friends through music that he would
never otherwise have .
"The O'Briens live six miles away in
Portglenone", he pointed out. "Yet he
and I both had to go 280 miles to
Listowel, Co. Kerry, before we met.
It was outside a pub door on a Saturday
night. We played our instruments till
two a.m .. and gathered a crowd on the
pavement, listening to us".
Now the O'Briens and the Pattons
are firm friends , and are keeping up the
rural traditions of Big Nights. "Once in
three months, maybe, they'll have a Big
Night or we'll have a Big Night. Half a
dozen of us'll get together and play till
three or four in the morning. There's
nothing better".
Though still only a young man, Willis
Patton remembers nostalgically his grandfather's
Big Nights, when the best of the
country fiddlers came from miles around.
He is helping to keep up a tradition that
could easily have died out in these days
of television and canned music.
"Traditional music was always more
valued in the South than in the North,
but, during the last two or three years, it
has had a new lease of life up here.
There's fifty in PortgIenone being taught
the tin-whistle every Monday evening,
and quite a lot in Dunloy and Ballycastle.
In fact, it's spreading everywhere. There's
some great musicians in Co. Tyrone".
He told me of how, when he first
entered for the all-Ireland championship,
his music was rejected by the judge as
being "not traditional". But, by the time
he won it in 1975, it had been recognised
that it was traditional to his own not-sowell-known
part of the Irish countryside.
Once having obtained a championship
and proved his mastery of his instrument,
Willis Patton usually retires. After
becoming the Ulster champion, he retired
in 1975 but the one competition he has
kept returning to is the annual feis of the
Antrim and Derry Country Fiddlers'
Association in Ballymena. Since a
beautiful cup for the tin whistle class was
presented by Mr. and Mrs. William McKee
in 1973, Willis Patton has won it every
year, so his name appears on it five times.
RELAXATION
Nowadays, pressure of the contracting
business he set up in 1969 prevents
him from going out playing several nights
a week as he did when a youth. "But
that makes it all the more fun and a real
relaxation now", he remarked.
Finally, just before he left school,
his father bought a farm. The young
Willis worked hard on it, and, in order to
earn pocket-money joined the Mid­
Antrim Variety group, which toured the
six counties, providing music, dancing,
sketches and other entertainment at
concerts and guest teas.
"First, I got paid five shillings
then twelve and six, and finally two
pounds for three nights".
In 1963 he went to compete in his
first Fleadh in Cootehill and won the
Junior class. But, after that, he didn't
bother competing again until 1972, when
the Antrim and Derry County Fiddlers'
Association held a competition for tin
whistles for the first time as part of their
annual feis.
PLEASURE
Life for Willis Patton, since then,
has been a round of competitive success
and of gratifying awareness that the
once-despised tin whistle is now
recognised as an instrument which is as
much part of the Irish. country tradition
as the harp used to be .
"If I had a child who showed any
musical ability on the recorder or
anything else", he said, "I'd encourage it
to the utmost extent. I had to do it all
myself, and I know how much pleasure
it has brought me. But I wish I'd learned
to play the fiddle ; it's too late for me,
now".
What he particularly enjoys is the
sense of being united with
fellow-countrymen of any creed or class,
who love traditional music. "There's
never any mention of religion or politics,
when we get together. It doesn't matter
what colour a man is ; he's welcome."
And finally he quoted the words of
Master Liam O'Connor, a Belfast
schoolteacher and folk-music enthusiast,
who, on the R.T.E. programme declared
"We're hoping this'll be the beginning of
a new dawn in which the swords may not
be beaten into ploughshares, but in which
they'll have a mighty good chance of
being beaten into musical instruments".
,
CLUDACH
WeD-known Keny musician DONAL DE
BARRA. Donal is a versatile performer
on accordeon, tin whistle and concert
flute: he teaches traditional music and is
leader of "Ceoltoiri Luimni".
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