In Focus: The Glory of Gaelic Choirs
By Pat Kieran
Pat KieranImage provided by Smartify
This audio forms part of a series of audio interviews conducted in 2022 by Smartify as part of the Spirit of the Highlands and Islands project. Listen and discover the Spirit of the Highlands and Islands through the eyes of the people who live, work and visit here.
In our 'In Focus' audio mini-series, take a closer look into a wide range of topics spanning the vast natural and cultural heritage of the Highlands and Islands. Here, in this edition of 'In Focus', listen to Pat Kieran as he shares his passion for singing songs of love, loss and landscape in his local Gaelic choir, the beauty of stylistic expression of Gaelic choir singing and the need for new voices in Gaelic choirs across the Highlands and Islands.
...there's a pathos to the songs...there's a happy-sadness about this. You're kind of happy to be sad, as if you should be sad about what you're singing about. It's a melancholy or reminiscent kind of sadness. That's one thing that runs through a lot of the songs and those are the ones that kind of stick with me.