This article is from page 26 of the 2008-07-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 26 JPG
IF Irish tourism was a boxing match, Doolin would be a flyweight – stand- ing toe to toe 1n a ring of big bruisers – giving much better than it got.
The story of Doolin is the story of the little town that could. The beautt- ful, but tiny, fishing village, sat right on Ireland’s last outpost before the Atlantic, that somehow became the centre of the world.
That world, of course, is the world of traditional music. While the last of the Doolin gealgoirs were dying out on the late 1930s, a new cultural movement was starting to take hold.
Singing, dancing and story telling had always formed the very fabric of this proud community, and this musical and cultural richness finally began to be recognised when Sea- mus O Duillearga began to record the local talent for the Irish Folklore Commission.
It would take another 30 years how- ever for these centuries old seed to truly come home to roost in Doolin.
Born and bred in the shadow of
Doonagore, the Russell’s were a family on a mission. Men of destiny – brothers in talent – Packie, Gus- sie and Micho first gave Irish tradi- tional music back to the Irish, and then delivered it, gift wrapped, to the (eye b
Almost overnight Doolin was trans- formed – the cobwebs brushed away the village began to claim its posi- tion as a Mecca for musicians from all over the world.
They came from German, Holland and France, bringing with them a new since of vitality and energy than transformed the western seaboard from Kinvara right down to Quilty. The came for the music, but they stayed for the people.
But Doolin is many things to many people. From the lively to the tran- quil; Doolin is as much about walk- ing the Cliffs of Moher or touring the archaeology of the Burren as is it about caving or scuba diving. It’s as much about exploring Pol an Ionain as it 1s about trying your hand at a spot of sea angling.
Doolin is the village that could.