Theme image and instruments used

The visual motif for the concert is the Companion’s cover image – a profound painting by the Irish artist Daniel Maclise of an 1832 Halloween party in Co. Cork. In vivid colour, this depicts all the elements of Irish music traditions – the piper, fiddler and flute player, the boy with the tambourine, the young learners, the dancers - all performing in an animated community celebration. Present in this image too are symbolically-important figures: one of the earliest folklorists - Thomas Crofton Croker – and an early antiquarian - Fr. Matthew Horgan – both of them contributors to the philosophy which energised the 20^th-century revival of Irish Traditional music - of which this concert is the ultimate expression. A reconstruction of the tambourine depicted in the Maclise painting - the oldest image of this instrument in Ireland - was commissioned by Turas of leading bodhrán maker Séamus O'Kane of Dungiven, Co. Derry.

A unique object, this hand-struck tambourine with jingles was the fore-runner of the Irish bodhrán. It invites fresh discussion on the Irish drum, and was used in the 2018 CD recording of Compánach.

Turas takes all its aesthetic cues from Maclise's painting by using only pipes, fiddle and flute. It opens with music collected by Rev. James Goodman which is likely to have been played on that night in Blarney, 1832. It also has song in both Irish and English languages, as would have been common at that time, and has sean-nós style (old style) step dance as a vital percussive part of the performance. It links the past - as depicted in the 1832 painting - with the present. This is partly achieved by the inclusion of newly-composed tunes, but mainly through a powerful visual narrative which has several hundred modern-day shots of musicians and music-making among the nine hundred images of both past and present players and performances. These tell the story of the music visually rather than using spoken commentary.