Trish Nolan, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist

From story to song

Born in Monaghan, Ireland, Irish Traveller Trish Nolan says that music was a big part of her childhood. In her family:

‘It was [as] natural to sing freely as it was to talk. There was always someone singing a song around the place. I did not grow up with a TV or electricity, so I remember the flicker of a candle or campfire at night and songs and stories [as well as]… the stories behind the songs and the moral in the stories or lessons. Those stories about the songs could lead to a storytelling session and then a story could lead back to a song.’

Family evenings were spent singing songs that had been passed from generation to generation in Trish’s extended family. Dublin’s Royal College of Surgeons, Trish points out, has recently offered very strong DNA-based evidence that Travellers ‘predate Celtic times and are indigenous to Ireland’. This lineage, Trish says, is ‘reflected and even quite evident in the popularity of Irish traditions within our community’. Oral tradition is ‘very prominent’:

‘Many of the songs within my family can be traced back 150 years or more. Typically music in our community has not been commercialised or seen as an industry by Travellers, more of a way of life, culture and entertainment. Traditionally, Traveller style singing is unaccompanied. The singing focuses more around a form of expression within the community rather than how it may be received by the masses. Theory of music is not generally learned within the Traveller community, and many play music by ear. Expression is vital and memories conjured up are of equal importance. The delivery of the song and stories and moral of the story [are] of great importance.’

Broken Lines

Trish performs traditional songs, as well as Country and Western and her own original compositions, accompanying herself on guitar and harmonica. Her powerful song, ‘Broken Lines’ (accessible on YouTube), is autobiographical. At the age of eight, Trish was taken into institutional care, along with four of her sisters.

At the time, the authorities offered her no explanation and she ‘had no idea what was happening’. It was only much later that Trish read in documents that the Irish state perceived her and her siblings to be ‘neglected’ due to her family’s low income and ‘our Traveller way of life, such as being nomadic’.

Trish remained in care until she was seventeen. ‘Broken Lines’, she says, ‘talks about the broken lineage of my Traveller identity, the brokenness created within myself and my family and the broken lines of communication between settled and Traveller communities’.

Trish still performs many of the old songs she learned from her parents and older relatives. Today, she says, ‘Travellers are branching out into a contemporary styles of music which reflect the society we now live in and evolving culture. While traditional will always for me be the genre that was part of my first music and singing experience, I do today like to experience music and song from all genres’.