PECKER DUNNE- LAST OF THE TRAVELLERS
A play with music about the travelling musicians of Ireland, mostly concentrating on Pecker Dunne and Margaret Barry. They were both from travelling families, Tinkers, and were marginalised by Irish society. Looked down on, indeed persecuted for their way of life. Both were great singers and musicians, and along with the great Johnny Doran, did more to promote Irish traditional music than almost any other person of our times. Both are dead now and the play is set in a kind of imaginary ‘halting site’, where departed souls are temporarily resident while awaiting transport to somewhere permanent.
‘I never met Bob Dylan but I sang with Pecker Dunne’ Christy Moore
extract from the play:
Scene one
A darkened stage, then a spotlight. PECKER DUNNE appears, carrying a banjo case. The case has Pecker Dunne stencilled across the body. Bearded, he wears a wide black leather belt with silver buckle on his trousers, and could be anywhere between 40/60 years of age. He sings I’M THE LAST OF THE TRAVELLIN PEOPLE (c) Pecker Dunne)
PD: Me name it is Paddy, I’m called Pecker Dunne
I walk the road but I never run,
I’m the last of the travellin’ people
With me banjo and fiddle I yarn and song,
and sing to people who do me no wrong
But if others despise me I just move along,
and know I’ll find friends in the morning
Arah money is money and friends they are friends,
And drinking with them is where all money ends
But it isn’t on money it’s on them I depend
When friends and the guards are against me.
From Belfast to Wexford from Clare to Tralee,
a town with a pub is a living for me
I haven’t a home but thank God I am free,
I’m the last of the travellin’ people
The road isn’t aisy but it’s what I choose,
I’m not always a winner but I’ll never lose
I’m the pride of me race, I’m the last of the few,
and I live like my father taught me
Now I’m on the road again travellin’ still,
Summer and winter keep travelling I will
But the road it is long and I know it will kill
The last of the travelling people.
As Pecker finishes the stage lights come up. There is a blank screen as backdrop. Towards the front we see what looks to be a travellers halting site; campfire, cooking utensils etc – the impression being given is that the wagons etc are just out of sight. It should be a hazy, sort of unreal-looking place, with a few people seated at various points. Some of these can be musicians.
PD: Where the bloody hell is this place?
On screen we can now read HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY PECKER.
PD: Birthday? Eighty? What’s goin’ on here?
MARGARET BARRY appears from the mist with her banjo. She sings THE GALWAY SHAWL (traditional)
MB: At Oranmore in the County Galway,
One pleasant evening in the month of May,
I spied a damsel, she was young and handsome
Her beauty fairly took my breath away.
Chorus:
She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
No paint or powder, no, none at all.
But she wore a bonnet with a ribbon on it
And round her shoulder was a Galway Shawl.
We kept on walking, she kept on talking,
‘Till her father’s cottage came into view.
Says she, “Come in, sir, and meet my father,
And play to please him The Foggy Dew.”
She sat me down beside the fire
I could see her father, he was six feet tall.
And soon her mother had the kettle singing
All I could think of was the Galway shawl.
I played The Blackbird and The Stack of Barley
Rodney’s Glory and The Foggy Dew
She sang each note like an Irish linnet.
Whilst the tears stood in her eyes of blue.
‘Twas early, early, all in the morning,
When I hit the road for old Donegal.
She said goodbye, sir, she cried and kissed me,
And my heart remained with that Galway shawl.
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