Donaghmede native, Damien Dempsey joined forces with the dynamic team from Munster Music Academy and the students of Scoil Cholmcille SNS on April 25th last, to get young and old around Ireland involved in the #SongsandStories project.
The initiative is the brainchild of the Galway based platform, Inspiring You, which compromises of two friends, Philip Cribbin and Kamil Krolak, who work in education and media. Together they strive to engage young people in real life activities and to use social media less. The duo teamed up with leading Irish musician Damien Dempsey and Munster Music Academy to nurture and awaken the craft of storytelling, tunes, folk traditions and songs which has been part of culture for generations.
Raising the roof in Scoil Cholmcille’s!
Damo and the Munster Music Academy musicians received a rapturous reception from over 200 staff and students during his recent visit. Clare native and 5th class teacher, Ms. Isabelle Brennan, helped organise the visit, and led her class on a sing song that will live long in the memory where her students sang, “The Rattlin’ Bog” and “Beidh aonach amarach”. Damo sang his evocative, “Bustin’ outta here” as requested by the students. The young fans had plenty of questions for the Dublin balladeer including asking what his all-time favourite song was!
Dúchas archive
The, “Songs and Stories” concept is simple. We want to encourage children and schools to make time for songs, stories and tunes in everyday life. The Dúchas archive from 1937, as championed by John Creedon, is a vast well everyone can draw from. Founders of Munster Music Academy, Pius McGrath and Tara Doolan, together with Damien, are leading advocates for cultural appreciation, social inclusion, wellbeing, resilience through music, tunes, songs and stories.
200 strong chorus
The highlight of the memorable visit was when Damien was presented with a copy of, “Songs and Stories” gathered by Ms.Brennan’s class. The book is filled with tall tales, myths, legends and family history with a range from Rwanda to London by Scoil Cholmcille students.
The visit of the Munster Music Academy, who will lead the project with Inspiring You, and Damien finished with the entire school singing, “The Rare Ould Times”.
We hope that “Ould times” will become more common place with families, clubs, community groups and students of all ages when they engage in #SongandStories.
Sharing #SongsandStories online
Why not post your content online under #SongsandStories and share the link with us here We would love to share it to a wider audience and together we could create a digital Dúchas archive for the 21st century.
Songs and Stories video
The entire visit was filmed and photographed by award winning filmmaker Kamil Krolak of KamilFilms. Some of his videos have received over 20 million views and we hope that his “Songs and Stories” video will inspire the next generation!
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