A quick history lesson. Sit still at the back!
The Marymass Festival in Irvine is an annual event that dates back to the Middle Ages, although the Marymass festival that Irvinites are familiar with has been going in its current guise since only 1920. The Festival celebrates the time when Mary Queen of Scots stopped off briefly with her entourage of maids-in-waiting at Seagate Castle in (what is now) the town centre. In the lead up to Marymass, a group of voted-in dignitaries go around the local schools and select a 15 year old Queen and four Marys who’s job it is to sit in a couple of wee carriages and get drawn around the corners of the town as the centre piece of a parade. It’s all very serious stuff to those involved.
The parade appears to get smaller every year but always features a dazzling array of dancers, drunks and dandies. Horse-drawn floats dressed up in the themes du jour (this year will no doubt feature a Toy Story float) follow pipe bands who follow twirling majorettes who follow somersaulting seven year olds in leotards trying hopelessly to avoid the horse shit on the road.
The crowds love it. Sunburnt, tattooed and dressed in their Old Firm finery (and that’s just the women), they follow the parade as it progresses out towards The Moor on what was once the outskirts of the town. Ever since a drunk councillor pissed on the sacred, crumbling walls of Seagate Castle a few years ago, public drinking has been banned at Marymass. The pubs open ridiculously long hours on Marymass Saturday, but if you’re caught drinking outwith the walls of The Turf or The Porthead or any local hostelry, you can expect a clip roon the ear from the polis.
Glugging Buckfast from craftily disguised Cola bottles, the throng make their way to the greasy pole to watch as teams of young men (usually from the same family) make a human ladder up the pole to get to the top and remove a giant ham that awaits them. There can be only winner – it’s generally accepted that the ham is always won by the baddest boys from school’s big brothers and that all other teams are there merely to add to the spectacle. And it really is a spectacle. Horse racing, the shows (that’s a funfair, if you’re reading daan sarf) and any number of attractions, the whole of Irvine will be out on the streets this Saturday. Dontcha dare miss it now.
The music bit.
As part of Marymass, there’s an annual folk festival. Held over 5 days around Marymass, I think I’m right in saying it’s the oldest surviving folk festival in the world. This year is its 43rd year. It’s healthy, self-sustaining and plays to a small but fanatical crowd. When Billy Connolly plonked his big banana feet onto the bottom rung of showbusiness, he played the festival. Nowadays, there’s a hardy mix of locals, Irish, American, Scandinavian and Antipodeans who get together to swap stories and song.
Last night saw the annual ‘Open stage’ event and I was there. Judges from Living Tradition magazine put on their Simon Cowell masks and select an appropriate winner, judging performers on choice of song, musicianship, vocal ability, you know the sort of stuff. The act that won it were head and shoulders above all others, and I say that not because 2 of the trio were my parents, but because they really were the best. Pause. Pause again. Aye. You read that correctly. My parents. Way back before I was born, they were regulars on the folk scene, playing on the same bill as Billy Connolly, railing against the government with a handful of protest songs and a couple of cheap guitars. All this fell by the wayside when 3 children arrived, but they’ve picked it all up again and with a fanatacism that’s hard to beat.
Lou Reed? Joe Strummer? Him from Glasvegas?
One of the acts last night did a song that sounded like Greenwich Village folkie Fred Neil‘s The Dolphins. But it wasn’t. However, it gives me a good excuse to stick up some versions of The Dolphins, a spot-on brilliant song that’s been covered countless times by countless artists.
Tim Buckley‘s version
Beth Orton‘s version. Features Terry Callier on backing vocals.
A youthful sounding Trashcan Sinatras version.
Taken from a hissy radio session in February 1991.
Plain Or Pan 
There are a couple of live Tim Buckley versions, my fave is on a (corking) live set called Honeyman (if I remember correctly) from about 1973. It’s from the middle of his ‘soulman’ years but he’s on form that night.
There’s a Roddy Frame version live at Ronnie Scott’s, that’s pretty good too.
And Billy Bragg’s version from Don’t Try This At Home has a lovely feel, if not on a par with the vocals of the other two.
It really is a lovely song.
Thanks for the comments, Simon. The Roddy Frame version’s a cracker. I thought I had it in my collection until I went looking for it an hour ago.
I hate it when that happens…
Just having a Marymass flashback. I believe the notorious Affleck family are who you refer to. I remember one of them standing outside Ravenspark Academy with an umbrella as a weapon challenging the whole school to a “square go”.
I saw one of the aforementioned ‘family’ members too. Next to a horse. Or maybe she was the horse? It was hard to tell.