Keeping the culture of Mayo island alive for future generations

SARAH Calvey has been attending the Scoil Acla Summer School on Achill Island since she was only young - now she is driving it forward as its chair.

Scoil Acla, which was recently nominated as a county finalist in the Arts & Culture category of the National Lottery Good Causes Awards, was originally founded in 1910 to promote the Irish music, language and culture of Achill, but it fizzled out within a few years.

However, in 1985, Sarah’s mother was among a group of people on Achill who decided to revive it, and it has been thriving on the island ever since.

“My mum was very heavily involved in that, and I would have attended as a pupil probably from 1987 onwards. I was learning the tin whistle, and I did the classes all the way up into adulthood and then I started teaching at it,” says Sarah, who is now chairperson of Scoil Acla.

Scoil Acla promotes the traditional arts and supports traditional artists throughout the year, but the highlight of its calendar is the annual Scoil Acla Summer School, which takes place from July 28 to August 3 this year.

With the support of National Lottery Good Causes funding via the Arts Council of Ireland, the summer school aims to keep traditional music alive and vibrant for new generations in part by introducing innovative new sounds.

Last year, it did so by hosting an African drumming workshop led by Anthony McNamee to enhance the cultural diversity of the programme and empower participants to experiment with their music.

“To keep people engaged with music you have to make it fun. If you think of Sharon Shannon the musician, what she does with Irish music is so progressive and dynamic - that’s what engages people and promotes the accordion,” Sarah says. “So, we try to put in other elements to keep people engaged with the idea that Irish music is still cool, it’s still on trend and there’s lots you can do with it.”

The summer school is so embedded in Sarah’s life that even when she went travelling in Australia for a year, she scheduled her trip around it. “I’ve never missed a year. It’s very, very important, not only for the music and the culture of Achill, and to share that with everyone, but for people living in Achill, it’s really something we have to hand down from generation to generation,” she says.

A committee of eight people organise classes, events and workshops throughout the year as well as the annual summer school.

“We would have around 60 different creative practitioners employed by Scoil Acla for the week of the summer school in different capacities. They teach classes, deliver workshops, give lectures and perform,” she says.

“It’s a very important and unique thing about Achill. We make lots of friends, lots of people return every year. Classmates I would have had in the 1980s now come back with their families, and they would have extended family and friends coming with them. We use every school in Achill as venues, and we’re always fully booked.”

Attendees are mostly Irish, but there is an international dimension and a strong representation from the Irish diaspora in America.

“Because we have the unique Gaeilg’ Acla aspect (the Achill dialect of the Irish language), there’s a lot of Irish and bilingual events, so we find that we have families coming from Connemara or Kerry or the Gaeltachtaí on the west coast to have a family holiday where the family are using Gaeilge and participating in the summer school,” she explained. “It’s a very varied and broad participant range that come to Achill but loads with really interesting stories and some of whom have been coming for generations.”

This year, the summer school is collaborating with Na Píobairí Uilleann to provide a special focus on the uilleann pipes because Achill has a strong piping tradition - with a pipe band, mostly playing bagpipes, in every village.

“We would like those skills to travel over to the uilleann pipes because they are a traditional Irish instrument, but it’s not accessible for everyone to play the uilleann pipes. So, we organise that people can rent the pipes, try them out at the summer school and hold on to the pipes for a year and attend our classes if they want.”

In a coup for the summer school, the opening night will feature a concert by Cherish the Ladies, the American female Irish traditional music and dance super group.

“In more recent years, Scoil Acla has been instrumental in bringing global artists to a local audience. Having such a renowned band coming to such a small place on the west coast of Ireland will be something very special,” said Sarah.

Scoil Acla was recently announced as a county finalist in this year's National Lottery Good Causes Awards. The awards aim to honour, showcase and celebrate the inspiring work being carried out nationwide by thousands of projects, clubs and individuals who have received support from Good Causes funding.