Dinny McLaughlin ‘Whiteharra’ had the ‘mind of a genius’ and the ‘fingers of a surgeon’ and was central to a renaissance of music, dance, language and culture in Inishowen, mourners were told at his funeral on Friday.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The Scots-Gaelic poet, Sorla MacGilligan, speaks of those special people in every community whom he calls the tradition bearers.
00:11These, he maintains, are more important than all the other classes in society, more important than the gentry or the peasantry, the guilds or the landlords, the clergy or the military, but they are drawn from all these groups.
00:28A tradition bearer is someone who carries with them, or more specifically within them, the knowledge and understanding of what makes them a people.
00:39Mostly living among their own, through language, music, song, dance and the multitude of other things which give expression to a tradition or culture, they bring about a sense of identity and belonging.
00:56They are a dangerous group, for their effects are far-reaching. They span space and time. They can bring a sense of confidence and contentment wherever they go.
01:10They may be few and far between, but they are, in short, invaluable.
01:17They are cultural mercenaries, bringing a whole culture to life through what they say and do, through the stories they tell and through the traditions they plant.
01:29Amid all the complexities of his life and how he lived it, Dinnie MacLachlan Whitehara was surely a tradition bearer.
01:42Dinnie was born on Low Sunday, the 28th of April 1935, in the house where he lived all his life in Shandram.
01:52He was the youngest of six children born to James and Mary MacLachlan Ní MacEireann. As he put it himself, he was the shakings of the poke.
02:03Only his sisters, Annie Devlin and Bridget McGonigal, outlive him.
02:10While money was scarce and luxuries few, Dinnie's quick eye and keen ear meant he gathered the lore and the melodies he saw and heard in his day.
02:21His sister Bridget told of how Master Rodden once challenged the class to see who could be the first to learn to sing R on the Vian when he wrote it up on the board.
02:33In a very short time, Dinnie had it off to a T. He was the one who got out to play that day, but he realised on his way home that he had let his guard down, for now the Master knew what he was capable of.
02:50It would be Pat Mulhern, across the moor in Falask, who would plant in Dinnie the melodic seeds which still flourished to this day.
03:02Little wonder that, having listened to Pat Mulhern play, Dinnie desperately wanted a fiddle from the age of six.
03:12In the ceilidh which went on in the houses, and the gatherings that took place from time to time and place to place, Dinnie picked up so much of what he then, in his turn, taught to other generations.
03:24Through Dinnie, White Harrah and Pat Mulhern, a whole revival of music and dance, language and culture took place in this part of Inision.
03:36Traitheanga, Ceol, Aranacht agus d'Austa – such a lovely tradition that we know and love so much began to flourish again.
03:51In our heart of hearts, we know, too, the truth of the phrase, airsceach a chéile a bhfuar an na Dinnie – that as a people we live in the shelter of one another.
04:03There were many who took shelter in the lee of Dinnie White Harrah, many whose gifts and talents he nurtured and developed.
04:11And many of these people are here today, for they have never forgotten his goodness to them and his talent as their teacher.
04:22As a teacher, he was strict and demanding, for he knew that he had to draw out the treasure he could see within.
04:29The St. Oran's School of Dancing, Boncrana and Cairndonna, St. Mary's School of Dancing, Castle Finn,
04:35Ceolta's Crave na Hinche, Fiddle, Whistle, Flute, Piano, Guitar, Pipes, Harp, Piano, Accordion, Melodion, Concertina, Fesina, Flas, Sessions and more –
04:48all meetings and moments and memories of this man who became the Pied Piper of Shandru.
04:59When you begin to learn to play or sing or dance, you have to slavishly perfect the notes, the pitch, the rhythm, and follow them as they are written down.
05:12But with time and practice, as Dinnie might say, you can then play it by ear, injecting life and freedom into the melody or piece.
05:24The result is a completely transformed performance where the soul of the music has met the soul of the musician and the magic can then be heard and seen to flow.
05:38In some ways, it is an out-of-body mystical experience, a sacramental moment when God-given gifts of goodness, truth and beauty come to the fore.
05:50It takes what the second reading calls perseverance and what the first reading describes as discipline, but once these have been invested, a captivating freedom and joy soon follow.
06:05Today's Gospel speaks also of that perseverance and talks of the seeds that are sown and the success of the harvest which will depend on the environment in which the seeds land and the effort of the response.
06:24There was no want of effort on Dinnie's part, but he could be, would we say, complicated at times, and the devil's buttermilk didn't help to clear the air.
06:39Like so many other geniuses, he had his flaws. Think of the great writers who were dyslexic, the great singers who had a stutter when speaking, the stand-up comedians who coped with manic depression, the list is endless.
06:57It's just that by times, his flaws were more obvious than our own. By dint of talent, though, Dinnie still produced a good harvest. We see and hear some of it around us here today.
07:14Mind you, I'm told that when the guards would occasionally leave him home, one of his delaying tactics, like asking the police doctor in Strabane for his ID until such times as he might be sober, was to have always forgotten where he put the key for the front door.
07:34That was in life. Now in death, it's someone else who holds the keys. St Peter here, looking down on us. While Dinnie had a complicated relationship with religion, we will mourn our loss and we pray Dinnie only sees gain.
07:54The English Victorian poet Tennyson put it so beautifully when he wrote,
08:02And the stately ships go on to their haven under the hill, but oh for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.
08:13We will now long for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.
08:22Dinnie, as you know at least as far as records record, never married, but he had a wife, Ashley, his beloved fiddle.
08:34So I will finish with a verse by an American poet named Myra Brooks Welsh. We think of Dinnie and the meanderings of his life as we reflect on what she wrote.
08:48T'was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin, but he held it up with a smile.
08:59What am I bidding, good folks? he cried. Who'll start bidding for me? A dollar, a dollar, then two, only two, two dollars, and who'll make it three?
09:09Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three, but no. From the room far back a grey-haired man came forward and picked up the bow.
09:21Then, wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening the loosened strings, he played a melody as pure and sweet as a caroling angel sings.
09:31The music ceased, and the auctioneer, with a voice that was now quiet and low, said, What am I bid for the old violin? and he held it up with the bow.
09:41A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? Two thousand, and who'll make it three? Three thousand once, three thousand twice, and going and gone, said he.
09:53The people cheered, but some of them cried. We do not quite understand. What changed its worth? Swift came the reply, the touch of the master's hand.
10:07And many a soul, with their life out of tune, and battered and scarred with sin, are auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin.
10:20A mess of potage, a glass of wine, a game, and they travel on. They're going once and going twice. They're going and almost gone.
10:32But the master comes, and the foolish crowd never can quite understand the worth of a soul and the change that is wrought by the touch of a master's hand.
10:46Dine Madlochlan, Dine Whitehara, a man with the mind of a genius, the heart of a lion, the eye of a sniper, the ear of a fox, the fingers of a surgeon, the feet of a ballerina, and yes, the soul of a priest.
11:07For him, we pray today, that at the touch of his master's hand, outstretched to him now in tender mercy and warm welcome, he will find his place among the saints and the caroling angels above.
11:22Having borne his cargo of tradition for eighty-nine years, may the angels now bear him to heaven. While he might have struggled always to find the key of the door, may he find the door to paradise ajar and open to him now.
11:40Yve Halahic Arishan. They'll never be his likes again. May Dine now rest in peace.