On my first trip to Ireland, in 1997, people were still blowing things up in Belfast, and so I gave that city, and the rest of Northern Ireland, a pass. This time, on a visit with Jack, I wanted to check it out despite some items in the newspapers about continuing Troubles. I felt the tiniest tremor of trepidation arriving in Belfast. I needn’t have.
We had only two nights, and longed to listen to Irish music, preferably in an old pub. From a monthly free guide to Belfast, I chose Maddens Bar: Traditional Irish music seven nights a week, a haunt for traditional Irish musicians, with instruments hanging behind the bar, wooden booths and open fires, the ad read.
Maddens Bar, Belfast
We located Maddens that afternoon despite the fact that bitsy Berry Street had vanished from the latest city map. But when we returned that evening, we couldn’t find it. Looking around, I noticed three young men in conversation on the corner. “Excuse me,” I said, “do you guys know this area?”
A tall young man with shoulder-length hair turned to me. “We do! Where do you want to go?”
“We’re looking for a pub called Maddens.”
“Do you like Irish music then?”
When I replied in the affirmative, he asked, “Have you ever been taken hostage, fed Guinness, and tickled?”
For a nano-second, two words intruded into my consciousness: hostage, and Belfast. But he was handsome as only a dark Irishman with a killer smile can be, and a delightful smile had bloomed on his face. “That sounds wonderful!” I said.
He was a musician, he said, and was playing around the corner, at a place called Kelly’s Cellars.
Kelly's Cellars, Belfast
“Anyway, they’re step-dancing upstairs at Maddens tonight, and it’ll sound like the roof’s falling in,” he said, as we set off around the corner.
Rohan Young was the name of our captor. He plays in a duo called Scorpion Jack, he said, but tonight was an informal gathering of musicians. In addition to playing the badhran, a hand-held Irish drum, he’s a skilled badhran maker and teaches the instrument at Queen’s University in Belfast. He also conducts badhran-making workshops and plays traditional Irish music all over the world.
Rohan sat with us and chatted on breaks from his playing. He gave me his phone number in case we had any question at all about Belfast or anywhere else in Ireland. We couldn’t believe our luck at finding this guy, this place, these musicians, and a table close to where they would play.
Rohan was eventually joined by four fiddles, a guitar, a flute, and Ulilleann pipes. He described their music as folk rock. We didn’t care, it sounded wonderful, and we got so much more than we could have hoped for. Who would have thought being taken hostage in Belfast could be so much fun?
