The story
An old Irish idea holds that music comes in three strains. Goltraí is the music of sorrow, the kind that brings tears. Geantraí is the music of joy, the kind that gets you up to dance. Suantraí is the lullaby, gentle enough to send you to sleep.
Cathy Jordan says a Dervish concert gives you all three. For more than thirty-five years the band has moved between them: old ballads carried by Jordan's voice, and reels and jigs on flute, fiddle and accordion, pushed along by mandola, bouzouki and her bodhrán.
“The evening is a glorious celebration of a tradition that's in deliriously rude health.”
Dervish came together in the music sessions of County Sligo in 1989, first as the Boys of Sligo, and soon took their name from the whirling dervishes. Jordan joined in 1991 and has fronted the band ever since. She explains the name through the Irish session itself, where people meet for the first time over a tune and "as the night progresses, a euphoria builds."
That build is the reason to be there. "Irish music to me is like a tennis game, it's like serve and return," Jordan says. The more the audience gives back, the higher the band goes. Reviewing them in Dublin last year, The Irish Times heard "a tradition that's in deliriously rude health."
“Irish music to me is like a tennis game, it's like serve and return, you know? If you serve it and it gets good feedback, the return to them again is even stronger and it builds a bigger and bigger and higher and higher energy.”
Come ready to feel all three.