Martin Hayes Photo: Supplied
"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." So said L.P. Hartley, but the past, so long as we have memory, is also part of our present.
The world Irish fiddler Martin Hayes grew up in no longer exists.
That was a world of near-subsistence farming, when horsepower came from horses, when an open hearth fire was the centre of the kitchen.
In that foreign country, people still made their own entertainment. People like Hayes' father PJ, and his Uncle Paddy, who taught Hayes the céilí tunes the locals danced to on Saturday nights, ahead of Sunday Mass.
County Clare, top fiddling country. Photo: Patrick Franzis
This was County Clare in the 1960s, facing the Atlantic, right on the edge of Europe.
Yet, even as a boy - or perhaps in hindsight - Hayes could see the world was changing; via the black and white TV beaming grainy images of faraway places, even men leaving footprints on the moon.
If that television had arrived a decade earlier, Hayes might never have learnt the tunes that became his staple, before the cathode ray took over our Saturday evenings.
You can still hear the differing influences of those first two teachers in Hayes' playing today.
Speaking to RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump, Hayes talked about his father PJ's rhythmic drive (to keep them dancing) and the contrast with his Uncle Paddy's more lyrical style (to soften their hearts).
But his is a talent too great to wrap up in one style. In his work with other musicians (such as The Gloaming, and The Common Ground, even in duets with the US guitar genius the late Dennis Cahill) you can hear Hayes journeying into classical territory, maybe the edge of jazz, even the sound of the Indian Carnatic violin.
Hayes is in New Zealand for one gig only, at the Auckland Town Hall on Friday 15 March as part of the Auckland Arts Festival.
The marketing suggests going to it might be the perfect thing to do in the run-up to St Patrick's day.
Hayes is ambivalent about the merits of 17 March, which can descend into an excuse for a lot of people to drink a lot of stout.
Crump quotes a line from the late Philip Chevron's great Pogues song "Thousands are Sailing":
"Where e'er we go, we celebrate the land that makes us refugees."
In earlier times, the actions of others forced many Irish to leave, but for many in the 20th century the flight was from Irish conservatism.
His music may have its roots in it, but Hayes is not nostalgic about a past when his country was (in his view) near-dysfunctional.
Hayes too became one of the thousands who headed across the Atlantic. The move did his music and career no harm.
Why did he go back to Ireland?
That was mainly to do with a Spanish wife, Hayes says, and Ireland is closer to Spain than the USA.
Hayes largely likes the way they do things in Ireland now, and in the post-television world of the internet, folk music has never been stronger there. He struggles to explain why, but of one thing he is certain; he's not going back to the farm in County Clare, which is now a dairy operation.
He made a deal with his brother: there's no room for a fiddler in the cowshed.
