Last Night's Fun Counter Card: A Book about Irish Traditional Music

by Ciaran Carson

Reading these essays by an Irish folk musician, you are drawn in and transported, and it begins to seem that you can hear the fiddles and bodhrans, and you can almost smell the Guinness. Ciaran Carson, who has published several books of poetry, spent many years playing traditional Irish music in pubs with sawdust on the floor, and he evokes both scene and sound brilliantly in prose. We're lucky that the talented Mr. Carson takes time to put down his flute and pick up the pen. Anyone who appreciates folk music, or anyone who just likes fine writing, will enjoy this wondrously quirky little book.

Genres: Music, Ireland, Irish Literature, Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Essays

Unbound

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Ciaran Gerard Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast and educated at The Queen’s University, Belfast. He knows intimately not only the urban Belfast in which he was raised as a native Irish speaker, but also the traditions of rural Ireland. A traditional musician and a scholar of the Irish oral traditional, Carson was long the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is a flutist, tinwhistler, and singer. He is Chair of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is married to fiddle player Deirdre Shannon, and has three children.

He is author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, as well as translations of the Táin and of Dante’s Inferno, and novels, non-fiction, and a guide to traditional Irish music. Carson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.

Reviews

[Channing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ciarán Carson is a strange one. A novelist, poet, flute player and ex-chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, he was raised speaking Irish as his native language in Belfast in the 1950s---long before speaking Irish in Belfast was at all cool. Despite this, he shares a surname with Edward Carson, perhaps the most important figure in 20th century Loyalism. Like many people from Northern Ireland, he is a bundle of contradictions.

This is a book primarily about Irish traditional music, and anybody wondering about its appeal would do well to read it. It's also a book about slipping in and out of time, and Carson leaps from tangent to tangent, taking the reader from dark, smokey pubs in '60s Belfast to dark smokey pubs in Clare to cafes in Dublin to moonshine parties in Virginia and back. It also contains the most romantic description of black pudding ever written.

[Francisca · Rating 5 out of 5]

i can only aspire to ever write with not just such eloquence but deeply felt love about the links between music, landscape, language and, yes, even food.

[Brian Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciaran Carson manages to evoke a rich interest in a variety of topics I would never have considered myself curious about. He has such a passion for Irish music and such a beautiful writing style that I was not only captivated the whole way through, but felt a sort of sadness that there's a whole lifestyle I'll never be a part of. Having been taught Creative Writing by Carson for a year, throughout the book I was reminded of a few stories/jokes he told us over the course of that time. I was unsure what rating to give this book as there were one or two short areas in the novel that I could not fully grasp due to my limited knowledge of the instruments involved - but I didn't just 'like it', I 'really liked it', and so four stars it is.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last Night's Fun is a collection of memoirs/essays about Irish folk music, smoking while playing Irish folk music and after, drinking while playing Irish folk music and before and after, eating before or after playing Irish folk music, growing up in Northern Ireland in the 50s and 60s, and the general carrying-on that makes up a large portion of why people get up out of bed. Carson's descriptions are precise and vivid, and he gets at some of the power of folk music as a river of expression that is never finished, never correct (though it certainly can be played wrongly), and which flows only through the people who play it and teach it to one another.

[Linda Pincus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the Allen Ginsberg, Grace Slick, Ken Kesey and Jimi Hendrix vibe of Irish music. I slipped into a Craic parallax of smoky rooms, warm whiskey, accordions, flutes and Galway guitars. I absolutely felt transported to the smoky dusty ascension of reels that made me reel. Right good stuff.

[Seán Ó hEithir · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal achievement. Carson's writing is witty, evocative, and original. The flow he sustains through the book is similar to a great session in its own right, full of deft flourishes, old and comfortable reminisces, and new takes on old conventions. Would recommend this to anyone with even a passing interest in Irish music and the culture around it.

[Vasha7 · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Ciaran Carson plays the flute or listens to other musicians, as he tells it, his mind wanders among the turnings of the ever-new variations on the tunes, and also rambles among the memories of other times the music evokes. He's written a rambling book, here, woven of memory and reflection. It does have structure, though, and repetitions, in a canny evocation of the form of traditional music and narrative. The prose is incantatory, often brilliant. I lingered over many pages in sheer pleasure, and found many a touching or hilarious anecdote here. But it expressed best of all a way of thinking about music that I had only half-understood until now.

[Don Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellently woven tail about traditional Irish music and the lifestyle it ensues. Since I'm a mutt, some of the concepts were a little foreign to me, but the heart of a tradition passed down from master to apprentice is still interesting to learn about. The author really has a way of making the experience tactile. I would recommend it if you like traditional Irish fiddle music and like to read about culture.

[Moira McPartlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read the recent obituary of Ciaran Carson, I noticed he had been a flute player and had written this (hard to find) book. I play whistle and love Irish whistle tunes so this was a must read. I was not disappointed. The prose is as lyrical as you would expect from such a gifted poet. The anecdotes and good time stories are in abundance. I loved it.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it.

[James Oden · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a musician and one who has entered the world of Irish session music from time to time, I could totally relate to this book and relate to the authors passion for the tunes. I don't think I have heard any one articulate the nuances of a what a tune actually is and isn't quite so well as Ciaran Carson. Frankly even the organization of the book felt like the movement of a session, where for some time you're playing a set of reels and then we're doing a slow march, and who knows a ballad might be sung, and maybe something played that is not even Irish at all. So it goes through the night with the thing that connects all this disparate music together being ourselves and the time we have together. In the morning we'll remember it simply as last night's fun.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. If you play Irish music, it captures so many moments you have had in sessions. Hilariously poignant and true. Rekindles love of the music and makes you feel like you are in the midst of it again.

[Philipp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started this book back in school. Finally finished it.
Lovely musings on being a musician. The loves shows through in every little essay.
Strangely, the one about making fried eggs seems the most memorable.

[Liam Guilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book I've ever (re) read about playing music.

[Alek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books that I have ever read. Utterly beautiful portrayal of Irish folk music life.

[Linus Gunnarsson Cederborg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a treasure to me and my friends. Every now and again we get together on sundays to have a fry like the ones he describes in the book and read out loud a chapter to each other. When one of our friends got cancer and had to move back home the rest of us recorded ourselves reading it and playing a couple of the tunes mentioned.

I originally got it because I craved a non-internet way to delve deeper into irish music as a player who lives an ocean away from Ireland. I read the book back to back once and since then I have revisited many chapters, some more times than I can count.

Carson's poetic style of writing takes you to very specific places and moments, sometimes drawing you so close to the detail that you can hear the bow touching the strings of the fiddle in question or the softness of the carpet that he is lying on while other times jumping back and forth in time in a way that obfuscates the the circumstances in the most wonderful way. Thus, recalling scenes from the book feels less like remembering a story someone told me and more like recalling a dream I had.

It is an easy favorite.

p.s. Having a dictionary at hand is recommended since the vocabulary is vast and unusual.

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable windows into Belfast, Irish music, and the Irish language over the years. I picked it up as a beginning fiddler, Carson is more of a flute player, but it doesn't matter -- this is a story of being in a time and a place more than it's a story about the exact instrument you play. There's a lot of discussion of how traditional music or folk music emerges from the circumstances of its playing which I found super enlightening... I've spent a fair bit of time in the pubs, but trying to make the music rather than listen to it changes how you appreciate the experience.

[Nate Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A joyous traipse through the annals of Ciaran Carson’s musical memories. He brings alive the sessions he performed, attended, or was himself told about. Having spent the past year in Belfast myself, I felt I could just hear the rosined horse hairs tickling the strings of a fiddle and echoing through the now empty lanes once inhabited by débaucherous bars or saloons devoted to tradition. As the 11th Night and 12th marches approach, that Ould Orange Flute was an appropriate note to end on (for better or worse).

[Shaun Deane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Constructed like a session, where each new chapter picks up the thread of the previous "song," this was a delightful read. Just fun, as the title suggests. And, as someone who attempts to play mandolin, it was exciting to see the background offered about performances and influence.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know how to describe this book. It has history, poetry, autobiography, tunes, and parallels that connect it all. People who aren’t into Irish music might not find it as interesting, but the writing is quality throughout.

[Ronan O'Driscoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book about Irish trad ever

[Colin Baird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable traditional Irish music stories

[Judson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carson is a great poet and it shows. Funny, and readable even by folks who don't follow Irish music.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best book about not much that I've ever read, I think. Clearly written by a poet and someone deep into the tunes and with a head full of music.

[Emma]

Really lovely writing, meandering, mostly in a good way

[Susan Csikos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book of Irish session, if an event where words mean so little can have a book. To read this is to sit where I sit in my mind, at dining tables with friends after a long night's playing; in circles, head down, ear cocked to hear the lead instrument, striving to hear everything and your own instrument in relation to it; leaning against the phonograph speaker as a child, one hand on the needle, trying to interpret lyrics; the storytelling; the partaking of the wonderfully original potluck made like gifts; the carefully measured drinking. Nothing replaces it, the place where the musician's soul recharges, and no one has ever understood it like Ciaran Carson, nor will anyone, I guess.

[Steve McCarthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

MY GOD I LOVE THIS BOOK! I keep it in my car so anytime I'm stuck somewhere, I can pull it out and read from it. It's pace, it's rhythms, its texture are pure genius! You don't need to know or care about Irish music or indeed Ireland to love this! He descriptive skills are beyond compare. "Coin shaped sounds" for the music of a flute! BRILLIANT!

[Damon · Rating 5 out of 5]

writing with texture and flavor from by an authentic traditional musician. this book is full of drink, smoke, and the best of tunes. breakfast is strongly considered early on in the book, so i was hooked.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful look into Irish Music. It reads like a set of jigs with a few reels and maybe a barn dance thrown in. Absolutely delightful.

[Dearg Glas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant, poetic essays on Irish traditional music. Highly recommended.