Boston College’s Connolly House held a Gaelic Roots concert, featuring uilleann piper Joey Abarta, on Nov. 7. The event took place in the Andover Room, giving the performance a homey and welcoming environment. The seats were filled with fiddle players, Irish flute players, and lovers of Irish music.
Abarta began the concert by playing a few reels, which is a form of bagpipe music played with two main beats per bar. As the night progressed, Abarta started playing jigs, dedicating one to his late friend Jimmy Devine. Before Abarta played the rest of the jigs, he introduced them by relating them back to both Irish and personal history.
In regards to the jigs, BC alumna and fiddle student Francesca McCaffrey, BC ’14, remarked on their liveliness.
“I love how everything has a very dance-centric quality to it, and even though there aren’t dancers here tonight, the beat and rhythm is really invigorating so it’s been a lot of fun listening to it,” McCaffrey said.
Irish flute and whistle player Leslie Kurtzberg agreed.
“He’s just amazing the way he shapes the notes, incredible,” Kurtzberg said.
Abarta emphasized the fleeting nature of Irish music, especially jigs, since most of it is orally shared.
“When all of this stuff is orally transmitted, you only have a couple generations and then something is lost,” Abarta said. “It’s generation after generation, stuff is basically thrown away and the stuff that’s in fashion keeps going, so unfortunately the hop jig got tossed, but it’s a beautiful dance time.”
The hop jig is a traditional Irish dance that is often performed alongside bagpipers.
“A lot of the dance tunes that I was playing, that’s why we exist,” Abarta said. “We haven’t always been on a stage. We were used as a jukebox, really.”
Fittingly, Abarta’s wife Jackie O’Riley is a step-dancer who used to perform with him as a duo before they had children.
“My wife is a great step-dancer … We used to go around as a duo but now that we have kids someone has to stay home,” Abarta said.
Abarta later expanded on the struggles and complexities of an uilleann piper, emphasizing that the uilleann pipes should be thought of as multiple instruments within one.
“I’ve actually been hired for weddings and sometimes they’re just texting me saying, ‘Ok, so you’re going to march us out,’” Abarta said. “I said, ‘Well these are the Irish kind. You can’t walk with Irish bagpipes. Think of it as a family of instruments.’”
The pandemic was a particularly challenging time for Abarta as an uillean piper.
“I ended up becoming a mailman during that time because there wasn’t a lot of work for an Irish bagpiper, Abarta said. “And during that time I wasn’t playing music at all and my wife said I was a terrible grump.”
Abarta released an album in 2023 called King of the Blind, inspired by a father and son from Dublin who created a collection of harp tunes, which was the first collection in Ireland made by Irish people. This inspiration, coupled with Abarta’s inability to read music, led him to this name for the album.
The night ended with an encore, which Abarta took advantage of by playing “King of the Pipers.”
Despite Abarta’s challenges with his niche passion, his love for the uilleann pipes is lasting.
“I was talking with people about how in traditional music, you have people that are real nerds about something,” Abarta said. “Now, nerds is not a bad word to me. If you nerd out on something that means you love it. And if you love something, that’s what life’s about. I just happen to be a nerd on this stuff.”
