Well-known musicians from the four provinces feature on Fleadh Town, a new album of traditional tunes from all over Ireland. It’s the brainchild of bodhrán player Damien Quinn, who has worked with Riverdance, Van Morrison and the Chieftains among others. The longtime Galway resident is also a keen historian with a special interest in military history. He talks to JUDY MURPHY about the album, the secret of being a good bodhrán player and about the role played by Irish men in the services of the British Crown.

It often gets a bad rap but in the right hands, the bodhrán is a wonderful, rhythmic instrument that can add depth and resonance to any trad session.

Damien Quinn, formerly of Riverdance and with a whole lot more under his belt besides, is someone who plays to its strengths.

Long resident in Galway, Damien has been doing just that since he began playing the instrument as a teenager in his hometown of Newbridge, County Kildare, “a garrison town”, he observes.

Newbridge has produced some of this country’s finest musicians, including singer-songwriter Christy Moore and bouzouki player and general all-round wizard Dónal Lunny, while the late piper Liam Óg O’Flynn was also from Kildare. All three were involved in the groundbreaking group, Planxty, founded in 1972, which helped changed the face of Irish folk music. However, when Damien started on his musical journey in the 1980s,  he cut a solitary figure in a town where the popular music of the day came from bands like New Order.

“But Christy Moore and Donal Lunny were on the doorstep,” he says of the duo, who with Liam O’Flynn and Andy Irvine, had formed Planxty. Their mix of vocals, pipes, bodhrán, bouzouki and guitar was unique and, for Damien, transformative.

Long before Riverdance featured in the 1994 Eurovision, Planxty had performed Timedance for the interval of the 1981 Eurovision, something Damien still remembers clearly.

That group was coming to an end in the early 1980s when he was in his teens, but then along came Moving Hearts – which featured several of them, including Christy Moore –  bringing folk in a new and more rock-oriented direction.

Damien had fallen in love with the bodhrán as a child – he credits Santa with nurturing an early love of percussion – and although Newbridge wasn’t a hotbed of trad or folk when he was a teen, that’s the route he took.

“The 1980s were a dark time in Ireland and I plunged myself into all things Irish,” says Damien who later went on to study military history, which makes sense, given that there’s an army tradition in his family

His father, Billy, worked as a baker with the defence forces, while his grandfather, who was originally from Tuam, had moved to Kildare with the army in the 1920s.

Damien credits his general love of history to a young, newly qualified teacher whom he encountered while at secondary school in Newbridge.

Brian Fahy from Galway, whose family owned the Hole in the Wall pub on Eyre Street, had a profound impact on the young student.

“I will be forever grateful to him for the way he helped and encouraged me,” Damien recalls of a teacher he describes as “a mentor”.

But academia came later, long after he’d moved to Galway, which he did 32 years ago after meeting his partner, Laura Thomas, on a night out here. Like many others, Damien never left and he found a musical tribe here.

While he was still in Newbridge, one of Damien’s first bodhrán teachers was the renowned percussionist Tommy Hayes who, at the time, was a member of Stockton’s Wing, another groundbreaking folk group, with its roots in County Clare.

Pictured: Damien Quinn got his first musical break via Dónal Lunny, with a little help from Christy Moore’s mother, Nancy. PHOTO: JOE O’SHAUGHNESSY