Mock launch with song and drum

The Mock Funeral was launched 25 October at the National Irish Feis at Kapiti College with song and drum. Guest speaker, Paekakariki poet Michael O'Leary, enjoyed impromptu accompaniment from Phil O'Connell on bodhran, the amazing Irish finger drum, but not before the launch was held up while a hair dryer warmed the drum skin to finger tapping elasticity. Michael sang 'Skibbereen' and Phil then demonstrated the bodhran's range, his wooden knuckles employed on the skin as he sang an Irish song, then turning the drum on its side and beating the wooden skittle against the wooden surface, making the instrument its own orchestral accompaniment for his traditional singing. This was folk music at its most potent and primeval, foot-tapping good. I asked Phil what they did in the days before hair dryers. The obvious answer, an open fire warmed the skin. No peat fires available, so you adapt, eh? It looks like one of those crossed wooden trays you sift dirt in, and apparently that is what the instrument was adapted from, whatever was to hand in the 'dirt'poor Irish bogs. Phil of course has played his drum in the H Block and Armagh protest Irish band Ourselves Alone (Sinn Fein in Gaelic)for 30 years.He has even, he told me, played with the fellow from the Chieftains, whose DVD is an incredible bargain for $10 at the Warehouse. Slainthe!