The Irish Craic In Paris

There are lots of Irish pubs in Paris, but this one is mine

craic /krak/ enjoyable social activity; a good time.

— Dictionary, Google

Many of us, if we are lucky, have a place we can go in our own town or city that feels comfortable, where we can talk, laugh, hang out, exist and feel like we’re in our own skin. Extend that luck and we have a place like the mythic Cheers, where ‘everybody knows your name.’

I had a few places like that in my Oregon town, where I lived and worked for thirty years. My favorite was the bar and restaurant on the ground floor of my downtown building. It felt incredibly special to hop on the elevator, go down a few floors, and walk across the lobby to the bar. The manager knew me; the bartenders and wait staff often (not always) recognized me — they had a bit of turnover in those years and I only dropped in every couple of weeks. But it was comfortable and kinda homey. A bit toney, I have to admit, but still homey.

That bar was a great place to sip an Oregon beer and browse my iPad — not a place to hang out with near-strangers and pass the time of — well, night. Sometimes I’d see a friend or colleague and have a brief chat.

My place in Paris is the Green Linnet, an Irish pub in the heart of the city. I go there to play music twice a week. If it weren’t for the music I probably would have found a café/bar closer to my neighborhood — because if it weren’t for the music, that pub might not feel like home. Or, more likely, I would not have hung around long enough to learn that it could.

Much as I enjoy my beer, I don’t go out to bars every night. I love the social scene, I love the camaraderie, but it’s a chore for a shy woman to take space over and over in hopes of making that space her own.

But because I wanted so much to play music in my new city, I persisted. I came back week after week, taking my place at the table, first making sure that it wasn’t somebody else’s place.

As I’ve written elsewhere, when you approach an Irish session as a musician, you must do it with heightened spidey senses.

Every session is different. Every session has its own rules, stated or unstated. There are Irish — or sometimes Celtic, a bigger cultural umbrella — sessions around the globe. One of the current Green Linnet sessioners comes from China. He taught himself Irish music and attended a session in Beijing. My guess is that he was a mainstay. I’m delighted to hear that he will stay in Paris for some years as a graduate student.

What are the rules about?

• What kind of music is played? (Irish, Scottish, Breton, North American, all of the above, et cetera.)
• Who is the leader? Is there a leader?
• Who starts the tunes? How often should you attend before you put yourself out there?
• Can you join in or do you need permission? Is it that weird phenomenon, a ‘closed session’? (How that is a session is beyond me, but people have their reasons. I think that’s a performance.)
• What instruments are allowed at the session? The common ones are fiddle, whistle, flute, mandolin, bouzouki and octave mandolin, squeeze box/accordion/concertina, uilleann pipes (Irish version of bagpipes), banjo (usually the 4-string tenor banjo), guitar, harp, and bodhran (Irish hand drum), voice. Less common: harmonica, cello, bass.

What do you mean ‘allowed’? Sheesh, that sounds pretty authoritarian.

You have to remember that the session is social music. It is not technically a performance. If somebody comes in with an electric guitar and an amp and wants to join in, there needs to be some control over how that happens or the session goes to shit. Truly. I’ve heard it happen.

Likewise, a good bodhran player can get completely canceled out by one or two bad ones. Ugh. A guitar player who has never grappled with modal music but strums away as if this is the blues can wreck a set. I’ve heard it happen. Ugh.

OK, that’s enough rules for now. The rules aren’t the point of this essay.

But the rules are relevant, because the session’s texture and longevity are directly related to its rules and the ways they are enforced.

It is a dance. Speaking of which — people do dance. It’s allowed. It’s cheered.

The Green Linnet session has swollen in the last two years because another popular Paris session ended with the closing of the bar that hosted it. Sad day indeed — but that was the spark that lit the second session night at the Green Linnet.

There are other sessions in Paris, but at the Green Linnet they are weekly (twice weekly, in fact). You don’t have to check your calendar to make sure this is the right week.

Travelers and Paris newcomers find the session by word of mouth or, more frequently, through a website called The Session, which keeps a record of all the sessions around the globe. Players enter time, place, contact info, and a map. Along with thousands of tunes. Truly. It’s a wonder.

So here’s the first thing about the Green Linnet session. There’s a guy, Rémi, who monitors The Session to see if somebody needs a response or encouragement to come ahead and show up. Rémi is bilingual, but if he hears of an American passing through he makes sure I see the note.

A woman from Oregon visited for a week. We didn’t know each other, but, you know, Oregon. I warned her online to come early to claim a seat. She came early, twice, to the smallest sessions of the year. Doggone. But she had a good time.

James from Brooklyn visited for a month. He is originally a banjo player, but has taken up the fiddle in the last few years: hard work, lessons with Kevin Burke, et cetera. Last night was his last session with us — he’s headed to eastern Europe and then Africa, to travel around and play the banjo. He brought it last night and we had a great detour into American old time.

What? Not against the rules? Nah. The second thing about the session is that people get to try whatever they like, as long as it’s not way crazy far out or really long — they can’t take over.

So here are a couple of regulars each trying particular songs for the first time.

The bar owner plays the bouzouki and sings. He is really good, but he doesn’t play long or often these days, alas. He usually doesn’t come in until almost eleven. He teases me about leaving early. I don’t like to stay into the wee hours. It’s a safe city, relatively speaking, but standing on a metro platform alone — or worse, nearly alone — at midnight: not my idea of a smart move.

Eoghan has owned several pubs in Paris over the years. He is one of the bosses of the scene, though quietly. He has earned his creds. Letting us have the second weekly session was a bit of a business risk, but it has paid off, I think. Eoghan lets Rémi store his guitar in a cubby hole at the pub so he doesn’t have to drag it to work twice a week. That way too there’s an instrument for wandering musicians.

Alex runs the bar pretty much single-handedly all evening until Eoghan shows up. Kind of astonishing. It’s a busy place. The smokers mingle outside; the musicians sit under the television; the pool players racket and laugh at the back; tourists and regulars crowd the bar. There is a constant swirl.

I adore Alex — he’s one of my human Paris landmarks. How he manages the orderly chaos is beyond me. Occasionally he stands me a beer or a whiskey shot.

And always the double-kiss — la bise — lightly near each cheek, usually in the air, sometimes just brushing the skin. I love the French. Guys do this too.

Or the handshake. Just a quick clasp. When I started getting the handshake around the table, I knew I was home.

Birthdays! Book releases! Returns from concert tours! Once a year visitors. Young players arriving in a kind of swarm. You never know what the session will be like that night.

I used to set out with some trepidation. Would I be welcome? Get a seat? Are those guys laughing at me? Then I realized that I can always find a seat, that if they laugh it is teasing. I’ve pretty much stopped worrying about my level of musicianship, partly because I’ve learned a lot of this session’s repertoire just by hearing it over and over, and partly because, well, I do just fine.

There are a couple of bar regulars who don’t play but love the music. We’ve become pals as well. One of them kisses my hand. As an old(er) woman, I find that fun and funny.

One of the joys of playing Irish music here and there is that there is such a huge overlap of repertoire. There are thousands and thousands of tunes, and each session has its own collection, but there is a solid core of maybe a hundred that pretty much everybody knows.

“Looooow liiiiie the fieeeeeeelds of Athenry…..”

— A session member, jokingly transcribing the chorus of a popular Irish song.

“The Fields of Athenry” has become one of our song staples. I’d read about it but, shockingly, hadn’t heard it until Rémi started singing it a year ago. It’s popular, but no way was I ready for the happy, sloshing enthusiasm of eight visiting Irishmen (and women) who picked up the tune last night. Wow.

Sometimes a newcomer will drop into a session without their instrument just to see whether they’ll “fit in.” The answer is usually not the repertoire but the rules: who’s in, who’s not. At the Green Linnet, it’s all in.

The session population changes over the months, but it’s more circular than linear. People come and go and come again. The French take long holidays over the summer. When I first contemplated being gone for six weeks, I worried that the session would melt away (not because of my absence, for heaven’s sake, but just because I wanted it to be there so much). And when I got back there it was, going on as always.

We have a discussion thread on WhatsApp so that we can keep up with any variations or unusual closures — or the impact of the rugby world cup on the session.

Two weeks ago the rugby was a problem, with fans refusing to give up their tables. Last Saturday by contrast it was just a lovely chaos. The musicians claimed our tables. The rugby fans stood around. We all monitored the game. I mean it was the Ireland 15! I had to keep my fiddle bow from poking some guy in the face, but we had a nice chat along the way. It was a good game and a good session.

There are a lot of flutes in this session — more than in my sessions in Oregon. These guys and gals are good, and the flute, mellow as it is, can cut through bar noise even better than a fiddle.

If you come to Paris, come have a Guinness. Or some orange juice. Or any of the drinks you see on those lists. Yeah, you can bring your own food. As the chalkboard above says, “Life is a vacation. Enjoy it.” At least at the pub, it is. And we do.