Dermot Bolger
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
The thing with everyday wonders is that because they hide in plain sight, often only when they are gone do we realise how blessed we were to have encountered them.
I was 16 years old at Easter 1975 when I stumbled upon the great John Doherty, a reclusive genius and Donegal's last travelling fiddler.
No poster advertised that this maestro was playing in the small Donegal village I found myself in.
Like Patrick Cavanagh in 1950s Dublin, Doherty was an everyday wonder on his visits there, respected for such an integral part of life that his presence barely merited comment.
Indeed, if a local woman hadn't told me that a man she called the Last of Shanna Key was playing in the local pub, I would never have encountered the astonishing music and life of John Doherty.
That Easter Saturday, a friend and I set off from Dublin for Donegal, back when teenagers hitchhiked across Ireland from a sense of adventure.
Frost gripped Sligo Town when we finally reached her and spent the night in sleeping bags in the shop doorway, a gada kicking us awake at dawn.
We hitched on into Donegal on Easter Sunday.
Perhaps one of those transcending childhood moments that you never forget.
This happened on Easter Monday when I entered that pub and heard John Doherty.
An off-duty garter in the bar must have guessed that I was underage.
But realising I was only there for the music, he insisted, with Jesuitical wisdom, on buying me a glass of stout, ordering me to nurse it all night.
Locals quietly chatted until finally the woman of the house opened the door and Doherty appeared, having been resting upstairs.
He sat quietly on a chair set apart, tuning the fiddle she handed him.
A hush descended as Dorothy raised a bow and began to play.
His chin and eyes were the only still parts of him.
It seemed impossible for any old man to play so fast, his bow hand drawing grace notes and ornamentations between the notes.
The sound so rich it seemed more than one fiddle had to be playing.