Hidden Treasure in the Antrim Hills

Here is a flowing conversation with Glens Music's Seán Quinn, an icon in the traditional music world in Ireland. I've actually had the pleasure of sitting on a stage with Seán at the very trad venue of Mary McBride's. Seán owns Glens Music of course and records and produces some of the top trad records to come out of the North. He has a knack for finding those rare treasures that are the heart and spirit of the music of the Ulster. Not only does he record regional musicians in the Antrim area he is also a top performer, a magician on the piano accordion. His own band called the Trasna Ceilidh Band which plays the authenic Irish and Scottish ceilidh music.

Seán Quinn talks to Barry R McCain

I came into the Glens of Antrim through marrying a local girl, and after taking most of our holidays there we eventually acquired a small house with a large garage which we initially converted into a play room for the kids. Having played traditional accordion for many years I quickly fell in with the local Comhaltas (traditional musicians’ fraternity) and with the great accordion player James McElheran and his sean-nós singing wife Caitlín, who live close by our vacation house. Through these contacts I met a number of other musicians and singers from the Nine Glens (which lie in the North-East corner of Ireland between Larne and Ballycastle). I was impressed at the quality of the music and craic which they had, but it was confined within a very small group of mostly older people. In particular they were big into set-dancing (the set-dancing revival had not yet become widespread in the North) and traditional unaccompanied singing. Although there were several Comhaltas branches in the Glens, they were not terribly active in the late 1980s, apart from running irregular sessions and the occasional local Fleadh, and there were no young musicians or singers.

I persuaded some of my new friends to join with me in forming a radical local arts organisation: “The Glens Traditions Group”. We sought public funding to help bring traditional music, and particularly set-dancing and traditional singing to a wider audience locally, and also to promote the traditional culture of the Glens to the world at large. We got support initially from the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council and then the Arts Council and launched our first rake of activities to coincide with the new “Heart of the Glens” festival in Cushendall in the summer of 1991. We ran one-day traditional singing, set-dancing and instrument workshops and a great set-dance céilí, which led to winter set-dance and instrument classes running from then until the present and a monthly traditional singing night. This in turn led to a re-birth of the Cushendall Comhaltas to cater for an influx of new young members.

I had always been interested in tape recording and around this time I released my first music cassette of piano accordion music, recorded direct to tape at the home studio of a friend. That music cassette was the first to come out on the “Glens Music” label. Then I used a borrowed portable DAT machine to record the first traditional singing day at the Cushendall Festival in 1991 which headlined singers like John Kennedy, Sean Corcoran and Brian Mullen, and brought out “The Glens Sing” on audio cassette in collaboration with the Glens Traditions Group. James McElheran had made, for the NI Arts Council, some reel-to-reel recordings of the great local traditional singer, Archie McKeegan, and the Arts Council arranged for them to be mastered on to DAT by Harry Bradshaw in Dublin. I helped the Traditions Group to bring out Archie’s Songs on cassette when he was about 80 years old, and a few years later they asked me to be sole distributor and I transferred the album to CD.


below, The Trasna Ceilidh Band


By this time we were phasing out cassette production and had released a number of Glens Music titles re-mastered on to CD, including 2 albums of music for set-dancing by the McElroy ceili band from Co. Down, two albums of music for céilí dancing, two more albums of my own accordion music, and a CD of unaccompanied songs by another Cushendall man, Charlie McDonnell. This was all done very much as a kind of cottage industry by myself and family members. Through my work as an education media specialist in Belfast, I had acquired the sound recording and computer design skills necessary to do almost all aspects of the CD production , hiring some studio time in Belfast when required, and going out only for printing and CD duplication services. Most of the early productions were based on location recordings.

Two things were left to do in order to realise the original concept for the Glens Music enterprise: to have a studio in the Glens and to release some recordings of the other traditional musicians of the Glens. The kids had grown up so I cabled and soundproofed the garage of the Cushendun House, my workshop at the back of the garage becoming the control room. Then we worked with the outstanding Ballycastle fiddler Dominic McNabb to bring out his debut album “Traditional Fiddle Music form the Glens of Antrim” in 2003. This was followed in 2004 by “The Slopes of Knocklayde” featuring two local session stalwarts: PJ Hill (banjo) and Leo Brown (accordion), and including a number of Leo’s own compositions. That was the first album to be completely produced in the new Glens studio and was followed quickly by a CD of the Trasna Ceilidh Band in which I play lead accordion, offering a selection of Irish and Scottish music which is very typical of the Glens (you can see the Mull of Kintyre from the beach at Cushendun). That was also the first project to be completely digital from start to finish.

The final breakthrough came in 2005 with the first contract job – a mammoth project for the debut album of young Ballymena, fiddler Johnny Murphy. Johnny had all his friends, including a number of other fiddlers, the All-Ireland champion bodhran player Sheila Rooney, Cavan accordion virtuoso Padraig Lynch, three different keyboard accompanists and a singer on board…so we broke a lot of new ground for Glens Music and it took over four months to bring to fruition. Johnny’s CD “Tuned In” is not on the Glens Music label, but we were able to make it available world-wide for Johnny through our web shop which we had set up at www.glensmusic.com and where we sell our own CDs as well as other recordings, books and videos related to the Glens of Antrim.

A very pleasant experience was the visit to our humble studio in 2006 of the Bush River Band (now The McCains) of Mississippi when we recorded some tracks of them playing alongside local musicians including members of the O’Kane clan. One of these tracks (Over the Mountain) ended up on Donovan McCain’s debut album Traveller’s Way.

Since then we have recorded another Johnny Murphy album specially for competition dancers and the first of what we hope is to be a series: Master Fiddlers of County Antrim, featuring Denis Sweeney of Randalstown and Davy Rice from Belfast. We also have a major multi-media project now on sale: a teach-yourself Irish fiddle course by the same Denis Sweeney, comprising books and CDs.

This continues to be a very satisfying and, I believe, worthwhile activity - providing a reasonable recording facility and showcase for the outstanding traditional musicians and singers of this beautiful part of Northern Ireland and bringing them, Irish Music and the region to the attention of people world-wide.

Ulster Heritage DNA Project News April 2008

As the Ulster Heritage DNA Project grows it continues to uncover fascinating details into the history of many of Ireland’s leading families. Often this is from following the paternal descent of a family, but also, there are clan and dynastic groups that are appearing as the results are gathered. The UHDP has also announced they are to add mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which will allow families to research their maternal lines.

Dál Riada Haplogroup:

Over the last two years as the results come into the UHDP a collection of DNA matches appeared which some researchers call the Dál Riada group, so called because the men in the group have ancestors that are from the historical kingdom of Dal Riada, i.e. from the Bann Valley east to the sea and then south to Belfast and then mid Argyll around the historical capital of Dal Riada, Dunadd in Kilmichael Glassary.

Dunseverick in north Antrim, capital of Irish Dál Riada

The Irish of Dál Riada colonized Argyll in the 5th and 6th Centuries and this Irish kingdom existed both in northeast Ulster and mid Argyll for several centuries. The kingdom reached its height under Áedán Mac Gabráin (anno domini 574-608). The Dal Riadians were called the Scotti in Latin from which the word ‘Scot’ is derived. But to totally confuse the uninitiated into Ulster history, the Latin word Scotti means Irishmen. The shifting nature of the nomenclature used to describe these Gaels is complex and probably has started more than a few heated arguments, but at least the DNA testing is allowing us to better understand them as a group.

Another interesting aspect of the Dal Riada haplogroup (DNA signature) is they appear to have distant links to an area in northwest Spain associated with the Austure. The Austure were a Q-Celtic speaking tribal group in what is now modern Asturias west into Galicia to the sea and then south into the mountains in northern Portugal.

Dunadd, capital of Dál Riada in mid Argyll

Was the Dal Riada group the movers and shakers in east Ulster and did they lead the Irish colonisation of what is now Scotland? Was this Dál Riada dynasty the rivals to the Niall of the Nine Hostages dynasty? The Dal Riada group outnumbers the Niall of the Nine Hostages haplogroup by more than two to one in the UHDP results. This probably reflects participation in the project by a large percentage of men whose ancestors are from east of the Bann, but still given the Ulster wide scope of the UHDP, it is an impressive statistic.

Ulster mtDNA Project:

For several months now the UHDP has wanted to open the project up to people wishing to research their maternal lines. The UHDP was set up to study surnames and uses Y-chromosome tests, for this reason they are open only to men. The Y-chromosome is only passed from father to son making it the perfect tool to research surnames. Mitochondrial DNA testing is more complex and more expensive, but will help those who are interested in tracking their maternal lines. The mtDNA tests are getting better and more affordable and the UHDP agreed it was time to add this test to the project.

Ulster Clans and Families:

Among the Irish clans participating in the UHDP, the Ó Catháin clan results are perhaps the most dynamic. They are, just as their history says, from the Niall of the Nine Hostages group and several of the septs that the seanachaithe say descend from the Ó Catháin line, such as the McHenry family of Ballyrashane, are indeed a DNA match to the Ó Catháin men. To date every Ó Catháin man from the Dungiven area has been a DNA match to the group. Details of one line located can not be given out for privacy concerns, but the UHDP does acknowledge the descendants of Manus Rua Ó Catháin of Dunseverick, the famous general under Montrose, have been located. Other clans and families that are having great success at locating their members via DNA testing the McGuires, McAmis, McCains, Henrys Elders, Hamiltons of Abercorn, and Wallaces to name a few.

Information on the UHDP, the Ulster Heritage mtDNA Project, and the Ulster Clans and families is located at: http://www.ulsterheritage.com/

Dunadd photo courtesy of www.darkisle.com


Barry R McCain

FIRE! Ready, Aim...

The well known English leftist newspaper, the Guardian, recently ran an odd article supposedly to debunk the reported ancestry of the popular American Republican presidential candidate. The head line of the piece proclaims…

John McCain, veteran war hero: yes. But a descendant of Robert the Bruce? Baloney

Then we get the hard hitting gist

... Asked by the Guardian to investigate McCain's family history, genealogist and medieval historians described the link to Robert the Bruce as 'wonderful fiction' and ' baloney'...

It is an odd article to the educated reader as the subjects of the sentences toggles back and forth between John McCain’s paternal and maternal lines. The article is not in fact about John McCain’s paternal McCain ancestors, but rather those of two of his maternal lines, the Earles and Lamonts and their connections to Robert the Bruce. The writer of the article is unaware of some basic biology or prefers paternal surnames when leveling remarks that could be taken as less than flattering to the Republican Presidential candidate.

The Guardian asked a panel of experts it selected to ‘investigate’ an oral history told in John McCain’s family, which has never been offered up by the family as the written-in-stone truth, but rather exactly what is stated, an oral history passed down. Despite this aspect of the Senator’s story, the newspaper felt it necessary to debunk it none-the-less.

Rather than rely upon the speculation and guesses of an English newspaper’s selected genealogists and medieval historians it is now possible to turn to the brutally honest science of genetics to examine one’s ancestors. So how do John McCain’s ancestors stack up?

John McCain’s roots go back to the McCain family of Teoc, which is in Carroll, County Mississippi. The Carroll county McCains and their relations has been the subject of a five year running Y chromosome DNA tests. The results have been very revealing and also confirm John McCain’s ‘oral history’ about his paternal line. There was some Victorian era colour brushed upon the tale, but the basic facts were spot on.

John McCain’s paternal line is a Gaelic one, from County Antrim. They are not really Scots-Irish, but rather an old order Gaelic family that had links to the mid Argyll. For those readers not familiar with Gaelic history, Irish and Scottish Gaels moved back and forth from Ulster to the southern Hebrides and Argyll for centuries. In the late 1400s into the mid 1500s there was a large movement of Gaels from mid Argyll into Ulster to settle, encouraged to do so by the leading Gaelic clans of that day, such as the McDonnells of the Glens and Route, the O' Neills of Tyrone, the Aodh Buí O’Neills of County Antrim, the O’Kanes of County Derry. The DNA results place the McCains among these Gaels that moved from Argyll into Ulster circa late 1400s to mid 1500s.



Gaels of Argyll origins often were part of the Irish Gallóglaigh caste, left is a late Medieval stone carving of a Gallóglach.


The Y-chromosome haplogroup that the McCain family belongs turned out to be interesting. This haplogroup is centred in the geographic area of the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Raida, i.e. County Antrim, Ireland and mid-Argyll and in this area it even out numbers the famous Niall of Nine Hostage (R1b1c7) haplogroup discovered by researchers at Trinity. It is very possible these McCains belong to a paternal dynastic family long associated with Dal Riada; additional research will likely reveal even more details.

While the Y-chromosome DNA research into the McCain family does not relate to the validity of the Earles and Lamonts in John McCain’s ancestry, the research does show that the parts of John McCain’s family’s oral history that has been researched, did in fact turn out to be true.

In the hurry to obtain readers and ratings the media increasingly presents stories before facts and research have been done. It might be a good idea, that prior to announcing that a prominent family’s history has been debunked to have actually done some in-depth research relative to the matter. The Guardian-led investigation is mere speculation which when given the labels wonderful fiction and baloney suggests political motivation rather than a desire to provide its readers with the facts. In fact, the article offered no evidence of in-depth research on these families’ link to Robert the Bruce. The matter is as yet unknown. Perhaps one day there will be such research, perhaps both mtDNA and Y-chromosome DNA testing could be a part of this research. Until that time it might be wise to hold off on the gleeful debunking. The Guardian may be thinking ahead here as one of the experts went on to say Robert the Bruce was ‘an absolute scoundrel’. I guess this is to cover their bases just in case Senator McCain’s link to The Bruce turns out to be bona fide.


McCain's Corner

Barry R McCain (c) 2008

Congratulations Mac !!!

John McCain won the Texas Republican primary on Tuesday, 4 March and clinched the number of delegates needed to win his party's presidential nomination. John McCain’s family emigrated from north County Antrim to the Colonies circa 1719 and it is always good to see Antrim descendants doing so well. Senator McCain’s experience and wisdom will serve him well in the upcoming presidential contest. He is unique in that he had a career, that of naval pilot, prior to entering the world of politics. The story of his bravery and service in the face of extreme hardships and danger is well known.


Also a nod to his opponent Governor Huckabee for running a good and honourable campaign that kept important issues at the forefront of the race. An interesting sidebar, Governor Huckabee’s wife’s maiden name is McCain. While there is no known relationship to Senator McCain’s family, both families hail from the Deep South and research done by the Ulster Heritage DNA Project have shown most of the McCains from the Deep South come from the north Antrim McCain family, some interesting research waiting to be done there perhaps.


John McCain has had an interest in Ireland for many years, to use his words… I count myself as a friend of Ireland… (photo, John McCain with the Taoiseach)


Barry R McCain