Keeping Gaelic alive through music

By Walter J. Lyng, September 12th, 2012

You know what Celtic music sounds like. You've gone to a St. Patrick's Day Parade. You've seen the movies with the sweeping shots of the Emerald Isle coupled with that unmistakable soundtrack. It's such a recognizable genre that it might come as a surprise to find out that before Clannad came onto the scene, Celtic music just wasn't that well known.
After a period of dormancy, Clannad has reassembled its original lineup and  will be embarking on a 60-day tour, stopping in Montreal on Thursday, Sept. 20 at Théâtre Maisonneuve.
Founding member Noel Duggan recently told The Suburban how great it's been getting the gang back together, especially since it seemed so unlikely at one point.
 “It's a bit nostalgic,” he says. “We're doing some numbers we recorded in the '70s. We never thought we would tour together again. It's fun.”
Currently in the early stages of recording a new album, Duggan says that the final product will both embrace their past as well as incorporate new sounds.
“It's going to be a mixture of everything now,” he says. “This is the first time we came together where my brother wrote songs and I'm writing songs and Moya is writing more songs. It's not going to be the usual Clannad album at all. It's very hard to say what it's going to be like before we get into the
 studio. We have material written for it. It's only a matter of getting a studio and a record company to back us up.”
Duggan and his twin brother Pádraig are the uncles of siblings Moya, Ciarán and Pól Brennan. Hailing from Northern Ireland, the group frequently incorporates traditional Gaelic into their lyrics - a language which Duggan admits is increasingly rare.
 “I know it's hard to understand it, but it's all to do with the way we play it and the harmonies,” he says. “We give the people a bit of knowledge before we play the songs, anyway.
“It's almost dying in Ireland at the moment but where we come from in Northern Ireland, it's spoken widely. We do have our own radio station and TV station. It keeps the language alive.”
 As proud as he is of his culture, Duggan today has chosen a sunnier climate to live in: Spain. “The weather in Ireland is so boring I decided to move,” he says plainly.
Finding inspiration from his newly adopted country, Duggan says one of the songs he will be contributing to the new album will be about a little Spanish town called Moraira. “I wrote about it because there's great history connected with the Moors and the Christians,” he says.
 Regardless of where they currently live, however, the members of Clannad are still clearly committed to celebrating the country that has informed so much of their body of work.
Tickets are available at the Place des Arts box office, at 514-842-2112 and www.laplacedesarts.com