JUST AS the lead up to Leaving Cert results day (this Friday, August 22) can be stressful, so too are the exams themselves. But Murroe scholar and musician Billy Moylan got well into the rhythm of things by playing the spoons.
And the 18-year-old became the first student ever play the spoons for the Leaving Cert music practical exam.
The St Mary’s Newport student has a long-time fascination with the very old tradition of spoon playing, inspired, he told the Limerick Post, by a local woman who had it down to an art.
“She lived across the road from me. Mary Hartnett was her name, but everyone knew her as Mary Spoons. She won two All Ireland titles playing the spoons,” the young talent said.
Billy practiced with ordinary cutlery for years but then two years ago, he got a present of a purpose made set for Christmas.
“I brought them into school and my music teacher, Eleanor O’Meara, asked me to play a tune. She said I should play them in the exam.
“She had to write to the Department to get the okay for it and they agreed.”
A member of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, Billy also plays the concertina and played both instruments in his Leaving Cert exam this summer.
“My grandfather, Jimmy Galligan, helped Peig Ryan found Comhaltas in Murroe,” Billy said, explaining the firm musical roots in his family.
“The spoons are a very old tradition. They’re unique and very practical as well. You can use ordinary spoons anywhere – in a pub, in someone’s house, or a restaurant – just ask for a set of spoons and play,” said Billy.
He maintains that to play the spoons, you need “to listen to the rhythm of a tune and be able to follow it”.
And for anyone who has a yearning to join a session but is a bit too skint to buy an instrument, purpose made spoons for playing cost only around €10.
Having left the exams behind, Billy has spent his summer having a musical ball at festivals.
“I played the spoons on the street at the Fleadh and it went down very well,” he said.
And will the exam results need a spoonful of sugar to go down?
“We won’t know until they’re out,” said the wise Billy.
