Trad music in Doolin: the pubs, the sessions, and the Russell brothers

People come to Doolin for one thing above all others, and it is not the cliffs. It is the music. County Clare is the heartland of Irish traditional music, and Doolin is widely called its home, with sessions played in the pubs every night of the year. This is the practical and the human side of it: where to go, when, how to behave, and why a scattered village on the edge of the Burren became a place trad players from all over the world want to say they have played.

The four pubs

Older guides will tell you Doolin has three music pubs. It has four. Gus O'Connor's on Fisher Street, near the harbour, is the oldest and most famous, established in 1832 and a centre of the local tradition for the best part of a century. Up the road in Roadford, the inland part of the village, are McGann's, run by the McGann family since the 1970s, and McDermott's, in the McDermott family since 1867. The fourth is Fitzpatrick's, known as Fitz's, at Hotel Doolin, which opened in 2006 and runs music every night of the year. Each room has its own feel, and the right way to do a night here is to wander between them rather than settle in one.

When the sessions run

The short answer is most nights, all year. The longer answer has a rhythm to it. Through the summer the sessions run seven nights a week and the rooms are full of visitors; in the quiet months they thin out but become more intimate, more like the locals' own. Gus O'Connor's runs sessions most nights from early in the year through November, plus weekends year-round, and keeps a long-standing early Sunday session. Start times vary, but the music usually gets going after eight. None of this is on a fixed printed timetable, so if you are planning your evening around a particular pub, a quick call or a look at its page that day saves disappointment.

The Russell brothers

You cannot understand Doolin's music without the Russells. Three brothers, Micho, Packie and Gussie Russell, were born up the hill at Doonagore in the early twentieth century, and between them they carried the Doolin style to a worldwide audience in the decades after the war. Micho, born in 1915, was the most famous, a master of the tin whistle and flute and one of the best-known traditional musicians in Ireland in the latter half of the century. Packie was a stonecutter and concertina player and a great storyteller; Gussie worked the local quarry and played whistle and flute but recorded little. Collectors and players began making their way to Doolin to hear them, and the reputation grew from there. Micho died in 1994, and the village has kept the brothers' memory every February since with the Russell Memorial Weekend, the marquee trad event of the Doolin year.

Session etiquette, briefly

A session is musicians playing together for the love of it, not a band putting on a show, and a little understanding goes a long way. Listen rather than talk over the tunes, especially the slow airs. Do not request songs as if it were a jukebox. If you play, the form is to ask quietly whether you might join, and to follow rather than lead until you have the measure of the room. Buy a drink, leave space at the musicians' table, and if you film, be discreet about it. Get this right and you are welcome; get it wrong and the room lets you know.

Is it the real thing?

It is a fair question, and worth being honest about. In high summer the pubs are wall to wall with tourists, and there is a strain of opinion that says the music has become a performance for an audience that is almost entirely visitors. There is something in that for July and August. But the counter-point is the one the regulars make: the players are genuinely skilled, the tradition is real and continuous, and in the shoulder season and winter, with the coaches gone, the sessions feel like they belong to the locals again. If authenticity is what you are after, come in October or on a wet night in February rather than a fine evening in July.

How to do a music night

Eat early, before the music starts and before the rooms fill. Then start at one pub, have a pint, listen, and move on when the mood takes you. There is no cover charge anywhere; you pay for what you drink. Aim to be settled in before the session begins if you want a seat near the players. And do not over-plan it. The whole point of Doolin is that you do not know what you will hear or who will be playing, and the best nights are the ones you stumble into.