{"id":303185,"date":"2026-02-17T21:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303185\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T21:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T21:55:14","slug":"tips-on-non-iron-shirts-after-show-selfies-and-23-other-parts-of-life-on-the-road-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303185\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips on non-iron shirts, after-show selfies and 23 other parts of life on the road \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

From performing at the Rainforest World Music Festival in Malaysia to gigs in Zimbabwe, Australia and Canada, T\u00e9ada have never let the grass grow under their feet. The traditional group from Sligo, who are celebrating their quarter-century with a performance with the RT\u00c9 Concert Orchestra this month, are anchored in the fiddle playing of Ois\u00edn Mac Diarmada and the bodhr\u00e1n of Tristan Rosenstock. The musicians are both meticulous in their approach to their music and still in its thrall. They have been mulling over their Kerouacian education and 25 of the things they\u2019ve learned on the road over the past 2\u00bd decades.<\/p>\n

Traditional Irish music always goes down well at world-music festivals<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving performed from Borneo to Taiwan, you get to see where Irish music sits in the context of a global musical family,\u201d Rosenstock says. \u201cAs soon as Irish traditional music is heard, people\u2019s faces light up. We have such a range of emotion in Irish traditional music that resonates with different audiences, and it\u2019s amazing to see that reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The live experience is what matters most <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing like making a connection at a live concert,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cMusic is a great way of breaking down barriers and bringing people together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reach of Irish music extends well beyond the diaspora<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople with no connection to Ireland come to hear Irish music, love it and learn it,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. <\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to be Irish to play Irish music to a very high standard<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard people playing the music to an extraordinary level in places like Japan, in North America and all over Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many places still know nothing about Ireland<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always try to introduce ourselves in whatever language is spoken locally, and forge some sort of a connection,\u201d Rosenstock says. <\/p>\n

But the things other countries know can take you by complete surprise <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes a connection is the last thing we might expect,\u201d Rosenstock continues. But in Japan, he says, \u201cThey\u2019d all read Gulliver\u2019s Travels, which meant they had Jonathan Swift as a reference point.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Taiwan, audiences make a trad band feel like rockstars<\/p>\n

The demand for after-show selfies is like nothing that Irish traditional musicians would experience at home. <\/p>\n

It only takes one committed person to light the spark and help build a community of music listeners in an area<\/p>\n

T\u00e9ada says they\u2019re indebted to the many people who have helped touring musicians like them reach audiences around the world, giving both their time and their hospitality. \u201cLooking back, you think of the people who give a little bit of encouragement,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cThere was a great lady called Mary McPartlan, who invited me to put together a band for a TG4 series called Flosc in 2001. Looking back 25 years now, we\u2019re very thankful for that, because it can be the luck of the draw whether little opportunities like that come your way over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culture Ireland deserves huge credit for helping artists promote Irish culture around the world<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started off, other countries supported artists better,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cCulture Ireland<\/a> made it much easier for Irish art forms to reach audiences across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arts centres and other Irish venues have come on hugely<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started touring you\u2019d see a huge deficit in Ireland compared to venues in other countries,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cThat has completely changed in the last 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bringing a book on tour is often pointless<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever it is about a tour, it just sucks you in,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cIn a way we\u2019re living in a parallel universe. You might be reading the news about Ireland, but you\u2019re in your own little bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bringing work on tour is even more pointless<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve all brought work with us on tour, and typically it never gets done,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cBut there\u2019s huge value in living in the now, because we\u2019ve been to beautiful places. We\u2019ve met the most amazing people, and life often doesn\u2019t bring you back, so you have to enjoy that moment while you\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n

T\u00e9ada began at a great time for Irish music <\/p>\n

T\u00e9ada began life in the decade that followed Riverdance, \u201cwhich really elevated traditional music all over the world\u201d, Rosenstock says. \u201cTG4 also brought an incredible confidence. There was a golden period when traditional music was in demand all over the world, and we were so fortunate that we could ride that wave and walk through those doors that were opened by so many other Irish bands,\u201d The Chieftains, Altan, Dervish, L\u00fanasa and Dan\u00fa among them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a battle of the bands<\/p>\n

\u201cEach band warms up the room for the next touring band. If an audience has a great night with an Irish act, they\u2019re more likely to go to see the next Irish act that\u2019s touring nearby. We\u2019re all just holding the door open for the next band,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cWe look back on Irish music\u2019s golden moment in the 1920s and 1930s, and we\u2019re very lucky that the musicians back then made the best of it, and we\u2019re still feeding off that. Hopefully this new wave of musicians will sustain the music for another few decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Téada.T\u00e9ada. Photograph: Brian Hall <\/p>\n

Giving workshops is a great opportunity to reflect on your own playing<\/p>\n

\u201cWith classical music there\u2019s a right way and a wrong way of doing things,\u201d Rosenstock says. \u201cWith traditional music, people tend to develop their own quirks. I\u2019m self-taught, so if a student asks me about how or why I\u2019m playing in a certain way, I have to really think about that, because there\u2019s no right or wrong way to play this music.<\/p>\n

The older you get, the more weight punctuality carries<\/p>\n

\u201cTouring is a job,\u201d Rosenstock says. \u201cYou want to pull together, and that becomes more important the older you get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Americans will travel for hours to see a band they love<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve played in cities in the middle of America and a person might have travelled three hours to the concert,\u201d Mac Diarmada says. \u201cWhen people have a passion for an artist, they\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaeilge is a global language, and not only among the diaspora<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in Japan,\u201d Rosenstock says, \u201cand we were invited to the Irish Embassy, where there was a table quiz as Gaeilge. The questions were about Ireland, and a room full of Japanese people were all over it. It was astonishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0‘N\u00ed fh\u00e9adf\u00e1 a bheith i mbanna ceoil le 25 bliain anuas gan an tuiscint sin a bheith agat go bhfuilimid ar fad ag brath ar a ch\u00e9ile’Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The album will make a comeback<\/p>\n

\u201cVinyl was dead \u2013 and now it\u2019s made a comeback,\u201d Rosenstock says. \u201cI think that people will get bored of the endless streaming choices and want to get back to listening to an album from start to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditional musicians have a unique connection with their audience<\/p>\n

Many people who\u2019ve been to see T\u00e9ada over the years have become close friends, according to the band. \u201cIt\u2019s always lovely when you revisit a place and meet the same people again,\u201d Rosenstock says. \u201cThese are people who might come to see us 15 times, and it\u2019s great to be able to show them around our home place too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friendship is crucial for a band\u2019s longevity <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re doing something that will last for 25 years, then it has to be grounded in something really important,\u201d Rosenstock says. \u201cFriendship is the key to our longevity, without a doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t always need a set list \u2013 S\u00e9amus Begley always ignored them anyway<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen S\u00e9amus was on stage, the audience would be in the palm of his hand. He would have them in tears of laughter,\u201d Rosenstock says of his late bandmate. \u201cThere was never any point in having a set list if he was there. It made the concerts all the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

And three final, self-explanatory lessons from the road: <\/p>\n

Shirts that don\u2019t need to be ironed are a musician\u2019s best friendSingle beds are just not comfortableBaz Luhrmann was right: wear sunscreen!<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 Concert Orchestra Presents: T\u00e9ada at 25<\/a> is at the National Concert Hall<\/a>, Dublin, on Thursday, February 26th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From performing at the Rainforest World Music Festival in Malaysia to gigs in Zimbabwe, Australia and Canada, T\u00e9ada…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[143171,93,61,60,14169,15337],"class_list":["post-303185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-culture-ireland","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sligo","tag-tg4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}