Bwoie Doal

A session group frequently credited with being the main driving force behind the revival of Manx traditional music as we know it today.

This is how Colin Jerry RBV described the group in 1986:

"Slightly more than 10 years ago some musicians began playing in the Central Hotel Peel each Saturday night. When they started they played a mixture of folk songs and tunes from many times and places. However, by a process of evolution, they ended up playing Manx traditional material almost exclusively. Musicians have come and gone out the content stays roughly the same.

The instruments they use are varied. Some are the usual traditional ones like the fiddle tin whistle and melodeon. Also there is the Celtic harp, Irish bagpipes and Bodhran. Then there is the orchestral flute guitar, banjo, mandoline bouzouki and sometimes concertina and mouth organ, it all rather depends on who turns up on the night!

The Central has become the gathering point for all folk musicians who have a repertoire of Manx traditonal tunes and songs. Thus it is that, although there is always a caretaker group of musicians there, the range of tunes and songs depends on who else arrives on the night. The songs are few but mostly in Manx Gaelic, the tunes to be heard are drawn from the collections of Dr John Clague, W.H. Gill, AW Moore and Mona Douglas. Some of them are not to be heard regularly anywhere else in the world. The style of playing is also unique. Because there is no evidence (or very little) on the Manx traditional style, a way of playing which has accepted influences from many places has grown up and is still evolving. It is a kind of cultural cauldron.

The room is small. Once the musicians have got themselves settled there is still a bit of room around the walls for a small audience. However audience is not the best word because at least some of them come knowing that they will see other regulars with similar interests. Quite a few of them come for an opportunity to speak Manx to others in relaxed circumstances. On the whole it is a very flexible situation with the accent on music, Bwoie Doal is not a musical group it is a cultural concept."

['Heritage: The Monthly Review of the Manx Heritage Foundation', No.3]

The 2017 article, Bwoie Doal – 30 Years of the Manx Music Session, is available as a PDF online here.