Below, programmer maker Donal Scannell visits Leitrim, where he finds an old tradition alive and kicking...
It's not every day you meet a future national treasure. That woman is Edwina Guckian. The superlatives you hold back on in normal life just flow when you’re describing Edwina. She’s a force of nature, a one woman, Leitrim promoting, Irish culture celebrating, folklore collecting, dancing dervish. One of those people it’s impossible to keep up with. We can but try.
Her whole life is based on where she’s from and what she does there. On the one level it’s really simple, but on a deeper level there’s generations of stories, practices, thoughts and ideals that Edwina works incredibly hard to promote.
Where to start? Jimmy Gralton is a good place. The only Irish citizen ever to be deported from Ireland. His crime? Organisng dances that existed outside of the control of the Catholic Church. As chronicled in the Ken Loach movie Jimmy’s Hall, those who gathered in Effrinagh to dance freely were shot, bombed and burned out of it. All encouraged from the pulpit. Where Jimmy’s Hall once stood now stands a monument to him, unveiled by President Michael D. Higgins.
Jimmy and his deeds inform much of Edwina’s backstory. She weaves tales from her grandparents into conversation constantly as she talks about the wildness of those days, when people danced and danced, often without any stimulants (other than the music) and no instruments, just music made by mouth. Edwina tells tales of dance-offs where the surface the dancer has under their feet gets smaller and higher until there are people dancing on the roof on chimney pots to show they have the best moves!
Still standing is Jimmy Gralton’s cottage, where he grew up and lived until he was exiled to the US in 1933. We filmed Edwina dancing there with Mohammad Syfkin and Ultan O'Brien. Mohammad plays drum machine-infused wedding dance music from his native Syria and Ultan shares a selection of pre-famine Leitrim tunes he’s been researching. The tunes Ultan have been working with capture a swagger from before the west of Ireland was devastated and cleared out.
As well as the cottage, we film at the monument and the local T-junction with a wide array of locals and students of Edwina’s Áirc Damhsa dance school. It’s crucial to Edwina that there are spaces like roadsides where people can come together without permission from anyone. The Public Dance Halls Act of 1935 still regulates dancing in Ireland and was designed to shut down unauthorised gatherings. It’s still in force today!
All of this fans the fire in Edwina’s belly and makes her such a potent force in Irish life today. She appears bright and breezy but there’s a determination beneath that makes her a warrior for what she believes in.
"My grandfather Huey grew up just across the hill", explains Edwina as she points yonder and over the hill, "He was 13 at the time of the 1930s controversy around Gralton. Even when Ken Loach came to make the film about it, people in the area didn't really speak about Gralton. It was really divided. Those people that were surrounding Effrinagh who stood by Gralton, had a lot to lose.There was a book produced called ‘My Cousin Jimmy’ by Margaret Gralton years ago, and I remember getting a copy of it from my grandmother and reading it and learning all about Jimmy and asking them to tell me more about him.
"That passion that my grandfather had and the stories he passed on has really influenced us to host the crossroads dance like Jimmy did. We bring the community together and dance and have fun together and find ways to include everyone - not just the people who grew up here, but also the Syrians, the Ukrainians, the Kurdish, everybody's coming together to create and learn and socialise. I think that's very much what Gralton wanted."
Edwina is also one of Leitrim’s loudest and proudest exponents, she’s even gone so far as arranging her own version of coach tours around her native land. She wants everyone to move here, as she explains: "We're the lowest populated county in Ireland. It's very rural. Our county town has about 5,000 people in it. And the rest of the 30,000 are just scattered across the landscape.
"We all know each other and we all know what everybody's at. It's a place that over the years hs welcomed so many people, be it people that have had to move here in refugee situations, or that have moved here by choice from across Ireland or across the world to make Leitrim their home. We're a very open and embracing county as people. I think it's a really special place and that's where I organise things for people to come. The idea, when I organise a crossroads dance here in Effrinagh, is to bring the community together, all ages, people that you don't see maybe from one end of the year to the next.
"I want to encourage people from all over Ireland to take the concept and go find a crossroads and a few musicians in your own area and have your own dance. The idea is to bring then them to Leitrim, and keep them if we can!"
Edwina, if you could talk to Jimmy Gralton, what would you say to him?
"I’d ask him what does he want us to do now? We're doing some of his ideas, but I'm sure there's more to it. We're starting a big campaign to do up Jimmy's house and have it as a community space, that if people want to come and play music and dance in it, it's there. If people want to learn to knit or learn the Irish language better or play cards or just have a cup of tea with their neighbors. Or if artists want to come and create new music for Jimmy so that we can all dance in the hall when we rebuild it. That's the plan. So, thank you. Jimmy."
Edwina thanks Jimmy, but we have to thank her, for introducing us to the people of Effrinagh, Mohammad Syfkhan and Ultan O’Brien (another future national treasure).
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