Songs, stories, and tunes from the Celtic world have a way of holding both joy and melancholy together in the same piece of music. It might be through a contract of words and melody, through a turn of phrase that may be taken more ways than one, or through a haunting pattern of notes. Whatever way this happens, it’s music that encourages and invites a listener to come in and explore the story.

That sort of thing works especially well when it comes to love songs, an idea which is taken well into account in both song choices and song sequence in the two disc set A Stor Mo Chroi, a recording which comprises thirty tracks from a range of artists from Ireland, Scotland, and Canada.

If your acquaintance with Celtic music is a passing one, you’ll still have heard of several of the artists involved. Sinead O’Connor, for example: she offers a passionate rendition of Anachie Gordon, a traditional tale of lovers whose lives and love were star crossed in so many ways. On a happier note, Sharon Shannon provides ever lively and creative instrumental partnership to Steve Earle’s vocals on The Galway Girl. Eddi Reader joins up with Alan Kelly for a haunting contemporary song of friendship and change, I Hung My Harp Upon the Willow. If you’ve seen Riverdance, you may well have seen Niamh Ni Charra play her fiddle and concertina– she’s here too, with Cailleach an Airgid.

There are all sorts of resonances through the songs, too, both in melody and lyric. John Doyle and Karan Casey’s False Lover John speaks to a different tale of love gone wrong told by the band Grada in Pretty Polly. Lumiere’s graceful harmonies illuminate the familiar admonition to take care in love in Fair and Tender Ladies, which stands well along side the grit and resignation of what happens when things don’t work out as planned in John Spillane’s When You and I Were True, and with the different sort of parting and reunion Loreena McKennitt talks of in She Moved Through the Fair. There’s quite a bit more, with music from Luke Kelly, T With the Maggies, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, and Solas among others.

About that title: mo chroí (that’s said kree) means my heart, in Irish. A Stor Mo Chroí may mean thing, treasure, value, part, of my heart, and is sometimes used as a bit of flowery shortcut for dear or darling. Romantic enough, and what with Valentine’s Day on the horizon. it might be the right the soundtrack for your listening just now.

The road to Fort William, in the western highlands of Scotland, travels along the banks of Loch Lomand and rises up through the mountains near Glen Coe. The road, and the weather, are ever changing, offering landscapes such as this one

That ever changing weather and that winding road are two reasons I choose to do this journey with Citylink, the bus service which has routes covering most of Scotland. If you’re think wait, I’ve not had the best experiences with travel by bus, I’ll say that I’ve found Citylink coaches (that’s what long distance buses are called in Scotland) to be comfortable and clean, and usually on time, and the people who run them to be friendly and professional. Traveling this route by Citylink also puts you in touch with local people gong about their travels for work, school, and family in a way taking a tour does not. There are several schedules which allow you to travel this road as a day trip from Glasgow — the trip takes about three hours one way — or if you wish, the route from Glasgow continues on further up into the Highlands and all the way to Skye in the Inner Hebrides.

Watching the landscape unfold is reason enough to travel this road. Fort William is a center for mountain adventure and outdoor activity, located between the shores of Loch Linne and Scotland’s highest peak. Ben Nevis. so there are many things to explore there, as well. Among them are an annual festival of mountain themed films, mountain biking competitions in the summer, and contemporary and traditional music in its pubs and clubs all year round.

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There were riots, there were army troops in the streets, there was death. The state defied the president; the president defied the state. Old wounds were opened, new ones were made. To watchers on television, it seemed as though Mississippi had become another country, and to people in Mississippi on both sides of the line about integration, it sometimes seemed that way, too. It was 1962. In Oxford, Mississippi, James Meredith was enrolling as the first African American undergraduate student at the University of Mississippi.

Things were quieter a few hundred miles away, in the Florida panhandle. In Tallahassee, Florida’s capital city, Maxwell Courtney was accepted to Florida State University. With an interest in math and high grades, he could have chosen to go elsewhere. He could have done that and chosen to stay in his hometown of Tallahassee: historically black Florida A&M University is just across town from the FSU campus. Courtney made another choice. He became the first African American undergraduate student to enroll at Florida State University. In his class he was the only black.

John Marks, who has served as mayor of Tallahassee, was one of nine African Americans who were part of the freshman class four years later. He has recalled that while some greeted them with kindness, in his words to an alumni publication, “ the welcome mat wasn’t exactly out. But we had each other.” Maxwell Courtney, however, had no black classmates to share his experience.

There’s a statue of Maxwell Courtney on the Florida Sate University campus these days. It shows a young man with a determined expression, a book in his hand, and his head held high. During his time as an undergraduate, civil rights issues were front page news almost every day across the American south, and elsewhere. People died, people disappeared, riots flared, churches were bombed, hard words were hurled, and so were rocks. Those things, too, were just what made it into news reports. With all this going on around him, Maxwell Courtney earned a degree in mathematics with honors, and with minors in French and English.

In the Florida Memory project archive, there’s a photograph of a slightly older Maxwell Courtney than the man in the statue, a man caught looking up and smiling, as though he’s just about to say hello to someone he likes. Those two images, the resolute face in the statue and the open face in the photograph, stand as vivid memory of the courage and perspective he must have had to take the risks and face the challenges he did. The statue, by renown sculptor Sandy Proctor, has been in place since the 1980s, but Maxwell Courtney never got to see it. After graduating from FSU, he moved to the Washington DC area, where he earned a master’s degree from the University of Maryland and did consulting work for the Smithsonian. He died in a boating accident in the 1970s.

1962. Part of history, and yet close enough to touch as part of living memory as well. Take a look at this UPI newsreel about integration at the University of Mississippi, and this excerpt from a documentary with archival footage and interviews. James Meredith and Maxwell Courtney both took actions of great courage in hard circumstances, and both walked a sometimes lonely path to open the way for generations to come.

Along with Maxwell Courtney, Fred Flowers and Doby Lee Flowers are honored in the FSU Integration statue. Thoughts on their legacies to come.

photograph by Kerry Dexter

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In the heart of any city, there are times when things take on a quiet aspect, times when a quiet view of a usually busy scene arises. That was the case with this view of Buchanan Street in Glasgow, Scotland, which for me took on a bit of the aspect of an impressionist painting when seen from the steps of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall one winter evening.

This is a time of year when Scots across the world, and all who enjoy Scottish life, history, and culture, take the opportunity to celebrate around Burns Night, the anniversary of the birth of Scottish poet Robert Burns on 25 January. They may do this with the traditional meal of haggis, cock a leekie soup, and cranachan, or with other dishes and festivities suited to their own tastes. Burns wrote a poem famously using haggis as a metaphor for Scottish pride and independence of character, which is why the dish often turns up on Burns night celebrations.

Care to learn a bit more about Robert Burns?
Visit Scotland tells you about Burns Night, past and present
Eddi Reader sings his graceful song of enduring loveJohn Anderson My Jo, and his lively one celebrating good friendship, Willie Stewart
Emily Smith, who is from the same area of southwestern Scotland where Burns lived, has recorded a fresh look at his songs on her album called Adoon Winding Nith

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Rostrevor is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It stands on the shores of what in Norway would be called a fjord and in Ireland is called a lough, looking across the water at the Cooley Peninsula, in the Republic of Ireland. The mountains in Cooley play an important part in Irish legend and myth, as do the Mourne Mountains, which rise up behind Rostrevor. Just a stone’s throw up the road is the city of Newry, long a center of connection and commerce, a hub for travelers and traders from within the north and from across the nearby border. A bit further on to the north and west is south County Armagh, a lovely land and one that holds so much conflict in its recent history that during The Troubles it came to be known as known as Bandit Country.

Tommy Sands took in all these things as he was growing up in Rostrevor. He made the choice, as a young man, to make his way in music and to do his work for peace and healing in Ireland through that music. Across the years, he’s written about other subjects, of course, and sung and taught and brought all sides of his music, and worked for peace and connection and understanding in different lands, from the Middle East to India to North America. It is that land along the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the conflicts and connections that happen there which have been the forge and center of his ideas, though. For his album Arising from the Troubles, he’s gathered eighteen songs, many he’s sung for years but never recorded and others recently composed, that speak of peace, conflict, healing, history, and hope, in both personal and political terms.

You do not have to know or care about the Troubles in Ireland to enjoy this music: for one thing, the songs stand on their own as compelling tales, and for another Sands has a storyteller’s voice and a fine knack for imagery as well. The songs themselves tocuh on unioversal themes, too.There are anthems of hope, history, and reconciliation, such as Song for Erin, and funny songs that take a lighter perspective on things, such as The Mixed Marriage. There are songs which look at the history from different sides, such as You Sold Us Down the River and Bloody Sunday, civil rights anthems such as We’ll Sing It All Over, and songs of hope for the future seen in passing moments of change and connection, such s A Stone’s Throw.

Ideas and lyrics such as these are grounded in place and circumstance, and help with the understanding of those things, even as they reach beyond them. So just listening to the songs on Arising from the Trouble, you’ll likely come away with different perspectives on Northern Ireland and the peace process there than you had before. hearing them. Reading the thoughtful liner notes, in which Sands reflects briefly on the story behind each song, will add even more to your understanding.

Sands in joined on the songs by his daughter Moya and son Fionan, both fine musicians in their own rights. Guests include others whose names you may know, among them Pete Seeger, Dolores Keane, Greg Anderson, and Arty McGlynn.

you might also like to

read about the political situation and travel in Northern Ireland
learn about another album by Tommy Sands, called Let the Circle Be Wide

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