Musician of the Month: Dee Armstrong

I am a self-taught musician, playing fiddle, viola, hammer dulcimer, bodhran and tunes percussion. I am mainly known as a composer, arranger and fiddle player with Kila for the last thirty-four years. I also play with Freespeakingmonkey and The Armagh Rhymers.

Several generations of my family were and are musicians. My grandmother Maggie Armstrong was a great singer and storyteller who sang old traditional and gospel songs. My father was taught traditional and classical music by Derek Bell of the Chieftains and my mother was a brilliant classical piano player and teacher. Many cousins and my sister all play. My four children play and /or sing.

I also make massive willow puppets and structures for carnivals and am a community arts worker. I run a Rockschool for kids aged 10 to 18, where kids learn to play in bands, write their own songs and perform gigs and record.

I have just released my first solo album, Deichtine’s Daughter. The title comes from a poem by Louis De Paor, which I love. Deichtine was the mother of Cúcullin, one of Irelands great mythological heroes. Deichtine means “Ten Fires” in Irish as a literal translation and I loved that.

However, we know much more about Cúcullin than Deichtine, which is a recurring theme in Ireland where women get written out of history. What if Deichtine had a daughter, or Cúcullin a sister, what would she have been like? Louis de Paor was asking that question to himself, and then he saw her…walking down the road in Galway, swinging a hurl…and she made such an impression on him he wrote a poem for her.

The poem hit me immediately. It was more a feeling than anything of strength, having a voice, fighting for your rights, fighting for your life. Fire and inspiration. So, the piece of music says that to me. It’s an expression of that. I wrote this piece on the hammered dulcimer, which has an ancient sound, but is very rhythmical, very strong, though at times it can sound delicate like a harp.

I write intuitively, I don’t read music very well and I learn tunes by ear, and do string arrangements by ear and use the recording process to arrange music usually, as I can’t write it down. It’s all in me head. Tunes usually pop into my head as I am sitting playing the fiddle or banjo or whatever. They express whatever is going on in my life at the time I guess. I try not to get in the way and let it happen.

My sons will tell you, I often don’t like doing more than one or two takes. I like catching the initial spirit of the piece. Music is an amazing communicator. The feeling of the story is there, as I write tunes and music, there are no words. I often focus on the atmosphere of a piece of music; what’s coming through and emphasise that.

I studied film in Dun Laoghaire VEC, way back. I ended up doing soundtracks for numerous short films, and this experience was valuable when Kila got soundtrack work with Cartoon Saloon doing animated features for Wolfwalkers, Song of the Sea etc.

I love working with my sons, writing and recording. Plenty of craic, arguments and door slamming! We are all quite particular, but generally we all get on great. We have a similar musical sensibility I think. Lughaidh and I have been working on soundtracks and stuff for theatre since he was about 14 or 15. He’s a very gifted musician. We both love creating atmospheric soundtracks, and indeed I think this is a shared composing trait with us. There is a visual element, we are painting a picture. Diarmaid is a dancer and he brings another angle into it all with that. We all have a zany imagination and made strange short films over lockdown. We are a creative family

My daughter Rosie is a lovely singer and my other son Tiggy plays bass. His son, my wee grandson Leon is very musical. He sings away. Sure, who knows what will pop out. Music is my anchor, and it will probably be theirs.

My cousin Bridget is a great musician, and her kids are all musical and so it goes. If there is a love for it, it will probably continue.

I didn’t want to play music as a kid, I wanted to be a dancer! So, I came late to the party. My parents tried to get me to play fiddle, and I got a few lessons from an amazing violin player Mary Gallagher, but I just wanted to dance.

I was into Heavy Metal, Rock, Disco and Funk as a teenager. I never imagined I would play traditional music, but it was always there in the ackground, especially the Chieftains as Derek Bell would come and make reeds with Dad and we would visit Paddy Maloney sometimes. I took up fiddle aged 16 or 17, then had a baby, so it wasn’t till I was 19 or 20 that I took up learning tunes properly.

Writing music became an expression for me. It depends on the tune, but often I’ll write a tune for a person, as in The Prince of Laughter, or one of my children, as in Django’s. Ed the Visitor is for our legendary dog Ed who was a constant companion through good times and bad.

Sometimes they just come to me. I dreamt the Killi Willi Waltz. It was funny. I wonder was it the shit loads of B52s I had consumed the night before! Luckily, I crawled over to the fiddle and managed to extract the tune to the fiddle before I forgot it!

I have dreamt other tunes, but they have slipped away. I think the best tunes come to us in unexpected moments. Wandering down the road, after chatting to a friends; while trying to learn a tune; after a good shag. You just never know.

I included an old Jewish dance tune, a ‘frailach” on the album. I’m a huge fan of Roma gypsy and Irish Traveller music, also Middle Eastern music, Jewish Music. Nomadic people carry the music with them, absorbing everything they hear and turning it into their own versions of gold. Often the most powerful music comes from the most oppressed. Look at the history of the Blues. The experiences of the people live in the music.

Music is the lifeline. It can’t be taken away, and then it speaks to us down through the generations. We are witnessing the attempted obliteration of Palestine, and the Palestinian, people currently. So many Jewish people have spoken out against this genocide as it is a repeat of their own suffering. This tune is for them and the people of Palestine and their children, who suffer occupation, death, starvation and destruction every day.

The album is made up of all original compositions bar Frailach, and Yon Do, which is a traditional Selkie song from Scotland. I liked the combination, and I wanted them all to fit together and these did fit. I wanted it to be an album of primarily my music.

Eoin Dillon, longtime piper in Kila, and I were playing a few tunes one day, and he wrote one part of the Bearna Waltz. Bobby Lee wrote Prince of Laughter together. He wrote the chords and I wrote the tune and strings. Bobby played a lot of guitar on the album and I loved playing with him.

I live in a very wild and beautiful place in North Leitrim, on the side of Benbo Mountain near Manorhamilton since 2001. It’s very different to Dublin, where I grew up!

Up until the 50s and 60s there were 158 families living in this small townland, all with loads of kids. They nearly all had to emigrate because the land was poor, and it was too hard to make a living. This always resonated with me, and it’s so sad that this had to happen.

There were lots of music on the mountain and musicians. There was a great musician Micheal Clancy, who was called the man of 1000 tunes. He was from Boihy and his cottage is still there, though he died in the 80s. I am making a documentary about him, as he taught all the people of the area music in his day.

I had to move to Leitrim because if was impossible to afford rent in Galway or Dublin any longer. You could get a bedsit or a small flat in Dublin in the 80s and 90s for 12 or 15 quid a week. Even if you had little money you could still live in the middle of town where all the action was. You could go busking, go to sessions, meet other musicians and walk home.

I had a young baby as a teenager, so I was lucky to live with my friends on Wexford Street and they helped me with the baby. Otherwise, I would have been very isolated.

The scene in Dublin was buzzing when I was growing up. This Lizzy, Sinead O Connor, Dolores O’Riordain and the Cranberries, U2, Aslan, Waterboys, and so many more. There was a sense of excitement with so many great bands and a freedom of musical ideas across the board, traditional and folk included.

Riverdance and Ireland getting in to the World Cup helped as well! All this meant a lot to us. Suddenly, people across the world wanted to hear us. The Celtic Tiger didn’t do us any favours.

No one can afford to live in the cities in Ireland now. If you don’t have affordable housing, musicians and artists and ordinary people will have to leave and the community and music scene will be dissipated.

Luckily, the folk and traditional scene is having a real revival in Ireland again. Look at the wonderful Lankum for example. It’s brilliant to see. I’m looking forward to getting out to a few gigs after being a single mum for years and years!!! It’s exciting!

I am just finishing a thirteen date tour around Ireland to launch the album. I have more music recorded with my sons. Music the three of us wrote together, and I am hoping to finish that off in the next few months. I’ll be playing festivals in Ireland in the summer and we will see after that!

Link to Dee Armstrong’s Bandcamp