Requirements

Musical Instrumentation

bodhran
accordion
guitar
bass
bagpipes
hydrophonic metal instrument
Music from "St. Patrick's Breastplate" and "Whiskey in the Jar"
The bagpiper will make his or her own selection.

Featured Soloists

Ralph Duren-vocalist imitating night creatures, birds, insects, and other animals
Sterling Price-hydrophonic metal instrument emulating moans
Bill McKemy-acoustic bass

6.1 Channel Playback

Soundscape recordings produced in surround:
C ave ambience with rock drops and drips (White's Cave)
U nderground river ambience river rapids (Turner's Mill Spring, Devil's Well)
"St. Patrick's Breastplate" extruded from river rapids (Eleven Point River)
D eath yells filtering river rapids
N ight insects
"Whiskey in the Jar" phrases filtering watery drips from Devil's Well and night insects
Bullfrogs and sunset at White's Creek with bullfrogs
Timepod constructions (forward/backward moving sound sequences)

SFX

Ambiences used during the spoken introductory sequences--
waves of river,
mosquitoes river ambience
shifting to ocean ambience
circa steam locomotive
Horse riding
cold damp wind, background ambience of Hogan giving Absolution
horse-riding
day insect ambience
night ambience
Eleven Point river sound
distance soldiers
horses quiet day ambience

Async Playback

The following three elements are triggered in sycn with selected instruments (through the side-chain of two gates)--
death yells (close and distant)
period steam locomotive

LIVE SFX

Used during the spoken introductory segments:
Waves of river,
River ambience with filtered groans,
Clanked manacled hands against the deck,
Dragged with booted heels on the rough boards
Cleaving huge vegetables into lumps and slices with a piece of a scythe,
Hogs making a racket by biting, squealing and grunting underneath the floorboards,
The master hog itching its back on the floor directly underneath, his bristles sticking up between the boards
background ambience of the congregation singing "St. Patrick's Breastplate"
distance soldiers

Multi-channel Tape

For the soundscape composition --
cave environment created by multiple, infrequent, slight and spacious drips at differing pitches and water depths
underground water drips
river waves,
rapids, swirls
White's Creek at sunset

The Irish Wilderness:
Audio Theater Script

by Rev. Dwight Frizzell

Characters

Roger Gregg as Father John Joseph Hogan
T.C. West as the Narrator

MUSIC
Introductory segment from "St. Patrick's Breastplate"

SFX
(tape w/live SFX) waves of river, mosquitoes (up and under)

HOGAN
Arriving at Brunswick, I heard the whistle of a steamboat descending the river, mak ing signals for landing. It was the packet Spread Eagle, Captain La Barge, bound for St. Louis, with a miscellaneous cargo of Upper Missouri Staples: hemp, tobacco, flour, port, cattle mules, horses and slaves. My destination was Boonville, from Brunswick eighty miles down stream, where there was a Catholic Church, the only one within the region of my journey. The night was very hot. Mosquitoes buzzed around in swarms, and were unrelent ing in their attacks, so that sleep was impossible.

SFX
river up

HOGAN
The blacks of whom there were about fifty on board, all athletic men, suffered many cruel hardships. Their keepers, a few armed men, held them chained together in squads, so as to hinder them from getting away at landing places. At night, formed into line, shoulder to shoulder, their faces turned one way, manacled with iron hand cuffs man to man, they were made to lie down on their backs, on the boiler deck of the boat, without pillow, mattress, or covering--a position they could not change for one instant during the whole night, not even so much as to lie on one side. The groans of the poor fellows, as they clanked their manacled hands against the deck, or dragged and slashed in pain their booted heels on the rough boards on which they lay, were truly heart-rending. They were accused of no crime, were torn away without a minute's notice from their homes, husbands separated from wives and children, sons separated from parents, brothers from sisters. All were forced to leave dear friends and loved scenes behind them. Love of money caused it all. Traders had bought them and were taking them to trade them again, and for a much higher price, in the slave marts of St. Louis and New Orleans.

SFX
(tape w/ live)
River ambience shifts to ocean

NARRATOR
These are the words of John Joseph Hogan, a young Irish Catholic priest and poet who would later serve as Bishop of Kansas City. When he first came to Missouri in 1857, he witnessed suffering at every turn. Father Hogan was part of the movement of Irish Catholics who endured oppression and a devastating famine at home, and had crossed the Atlantic for the better life America promised. They placed ads in newspapers, hopeful to find jobs such as gardeners or servants.

SFX
(tape) crossfade with circa steam locomotive

FATHER HOGAN
When they reached the northeastern part of "show-me" state, they were received with hostility. They were doubly cursed for being both Irish and Catholic. Opportunities were scarce, and where jobs were available they were met with the attitude of "No Irish Need Apply." The only jobs they could get were dangerous and back breaking--laying the railroad--and they were discarded after injury only to be replaced by more of their brethren. During Father Hogan's sojourn across Missouri, he visited the work camps of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. The names of the workers--Murphy, Griffin, Shea--reminded him of home. They worked so hard and got paid next to nothing and their families were living destitute in the slums of St. Louis, and wherever else they could find a roof over their heads.

SFX
(tape) Horse riding, cold damp wind, slight ambience After visiting a railroad camp outside of Chillicothe, Hogan was riding on horseback across the tributaries of Van Dusen Creek, he came across this heartrending scene in a shanty in the rosinweeds.

FATHER HOGAN
As I was travelling along the railroad, at a point where work was seemingly suspended, I was passing by an apparently deserted shanty, into which, however, I happened to look, not supposing anyone to be in such a place. To my surprise, I saw several children, poorly clad, crawling on the bare earthen floor, and near them, on a sort of bed made of sticks and twigs covered with hay, a woman lying speechless and in the agony of death. There was no fire in the little cabin which seemed like a deserted stable. Through the open door the wide open chinks between the logs, the cold damp wind was blowing. Each minute seemed likely to be the last for the poor mother. An the perishing little ones of the floor, too young to know anything of their sad condition, gave symptoms by their cries that death would soon end their miseries likewise. Convinced from all the circumstances that she belonged to one of the railroad camps, I tried to arouse her to consciousness, but my effort was in vain.

SFX
(tape, to produce) background ambience of Hogan giving her Absolution

FATHER HOGAN
Kneeling by her bedside, I gave her Absolution, Extreme Unction, and the Plenary Indulgence. Then going as fast as I could to the railroad camp about two miles distant, I informed the people there of the deplorable condition of the poor family in the open stable, on the river bank, near the hill side. They had known of such a family, but had thought that the husband was in care of them. Hastening to the place, they arrived in time to see the poor woman die. The children were saved however. The husband had gone forty miles away looking for work. When he returned, his little children were cared for by strangers, and his beloved wife was lying near by in the woods in her grave.

SFX
Absolution fades out, horse riding is in (tape)

NARRATOR
Scenes like this made it clear to Father Hogan that his mission to go into the interior of North Missouri and and "build a chapel or two" would not be simple. Hogan was a compassionate man whose schedule kept changing to accommodate the needy.

SFX: (tape)
Horse-riding out, day insect ambience in

NARRATOR
He also had a keen understanding of human nature and a fondness for humor. In his travel diaries he recalls this scene from Center Point, Missouri.

FATHER HOGAN
Besides what was on paper, the town of Center Point had actually one house on the ground--a one story two-room shed, sides, floor and roof of cottonwood rough boards, but without plastering or weatherboarding, and used for a store. The merchant proprietor, whose stock in trade consisted of a few boxes of boots and shoes, and some bundles of ready made clothing, had failed in business, not having had customers. Under the influence of the speculative fever that gave the place its name, I rented the wooden shed from the man who had come to be a failure. One of the rooms I converted into a chapel, the other into a study. Board I engaged at a neighboring farm house. My congregation consisted of a few railroad laborers living in shanties near by. On Sunday I had a crowd from the backwoods to see the priest. My sermon had the happy effect of procuring for me an invitation from one of my hearers, but of a different faith from mine, and for supper as I understood him. I accepted the invitation with pleasure, and in due time as the evening came on apace, I found my way following the directions given me to reach his house.

SFX: (live)
cleaving huge vegetables into lumps and slices with a piece of a scythe, throwing piece onto the floor, then eating sounds

FATHER HOGAN
Soon I was hospitably treated to a plentiful supply of squashes and watermelons, spread out on the puncheon floor of the log mansion of my host, who did the honors of the occasion, by cleaving the huge vegetables before us into lumps and slices with a piece of a scythe, the heel of which, straightened, had been set into a stout wooden handle. If there were any dishes or knives or forks in the mansion, they were not called into use, the etiquette in vogue at the time, as I supposed, not requiring them.

SFX
Eating is out, night ambience in (tape w/Foley)

FATHER HOGAN
The house I rented, stood upon wooden blocks, the floor being about two feet above the ground. The space underneath the floor, hollowed out to some depth, and partly filled with stagnant water, afforded a delightful retreat to the hogs of the neighboring farms, on the frequent sallies into town on pleasure bent. Having recited my office and said my beads, I was in happy anticipation of peaceful slumber, when my attention was aroused by a fresh accession of visitors to the underground story, who seemed to come rather as invaders than as friends to the parties in possession.

SFX (live)
hogs making a racket of biting, squealing and grunting underneath the floorboards, then the master hog itching its back on the floor directly underneath, his bristles sticking up between the boards

FATHER HOGAN
Soon a more that usual racket of biting, squealing and grunting went on, which, together with the unbearable odor of the place, had an unnerving effect upon me. yet I might possibly have held the fort and been victor in the end, had not a new and unexpected attack in force been made on me. The master hog of the place, a huge fellow, adjusting his itchy back to the floor under my feet, his bristles sticking up between the boards, gave me and my little chapel such a rocking and shaking, that I thought the end of the world had come. Realizing that the abomination of desolation was in the holy place.

SFX: (live into tape)
fade out hogs, night ambience

FATHER HOGAN
I fled, not to the mountains, for they were not near, but into the woods which were close by. How I spent the wearisome night I do not know. In the morning, however, feeling that there was yet a little life in me, I went, meek and humble, to the poor railroad men and told them my sad story. The pitied me very much, and forthwith went to work and built a log shanty for me, so that I was soon domiciled amongst them.

NARRATOR
The same difficulties that had forced so many to leave Ireland were recurring across the ocean. In Ireland, however, even amid all the hardships, one had one's family. But in Missouri, through necessity, families were almost always separated. The men worked on the railroads while the women, left behind, worked as domestics in the cities, if they were so fortunate. With their families fragmented, young men and women unable to marry, and with no churches or sense of community, Hogan bean searching for land that these people could buy and live on.

SFX: (tape w/live)
crossfade with night ambience going out and Eleven Point river sound coming in

NARRATOR
It was only after he arranged purchase of land south of the urban turmoil, between the Eleven Point and Current Rivers in southern Missouri, that the hope of a place where they could worship openly and raise families could be realized. The land was partially tillable, and fresh water gushed endlessly from wondrous springs. Game was plenty, and in the forest wilderness they believed their children, church and community-at-large would be protected.

SFX: (Tape w/live)
River ambience crosses with day ambience.
Background ambience of the congregation singing "St. Patrick's Breastplate" fades up mixing with day ambience

FATHER HOGAN
Already in the spring of 1859, there were about forty families on the newly acquired government lands, or on improved farms purchased, east and west of Current River, in the counties of Ripley and Oregon; and many more were coming, so that the settlement was fairly striding towards final success. The little chapel amid the forest trees in the wilderness was well attended. Mass, sermon, catechism, confessions, devotions, went on as in old congregations. The quiet solitariness of the place seemed to inspire devotion. Nowhere could the human soul so profoundly worship as in the depths of that leafy forest, beneath the swaying branches of the lofty oaks and pines, where solitude and the heart of man united in praise and wonder of the Great Creator.

SFX: (live into tape)
Singing fades out, day ambience continues

FATHER HOGAN
In keeping with these scenes were the simple, quiet ways of the early settlers of southern Missouri, who were mostly from North Carolina and Tennessee, and of whom much may be said in praise. They were kindhearted, honest, sincere and sociable. No stranger ever travelled amongst them without feeling his heart warmed with the fullest conviction, that if worthy his presence gave them pleasure, that he was treated to the best they had or could afford, and that his person, money and property were safe and sacred in their keeping. Vice was little known amongst them. Intemperance was nowhere observable, although they usually took as a matter of course, their morning dram, or a drop with a friend, from a keg of the best, distilled by themselves or by some neighbor willing to share or barter on accommodating terms. Every one smoked, men and women, young and old. The weed grew abundantly, and was usually the best tended patch of crop on the place. There was no need for manufactured tobacco or of fancy pipes. Home growth and home manufacture found favor. Corncob pipes were easily made, and for pipe stems cane was abundant. It grew along the streams and by the water's side. The maidens and swains married young, usually before twenty, often at sixteen, and their married life was remarkably virtuous and happy. The marriage dowry was usually a one room log house. The young man was fortuned by his father with a yoke of oxen and a plow. The bride was dowered by her mother with wealth of homespun dresses and household fabrics of like manufacture.

SFX: (Tape w/live)
Distance soldiers, horses

NARRATOR
When the Civil War erupted, not even Hogan's Irish Eden would be untouched. The wilderness settlement was surrounded by the war and used as a rest area by both sides, and the Irish settlers suffered a murderous fate at the hands of bushwhacker roughians.

FATHER HOGAN
Thirty millions of people begirding themselves with deadly weapons and falling into antagonistic battle lines, their hearts filled with hatred of each other, was a scene that can never be witnessed again until the world's final tribulation has come. Property became at once of no value. Home afforded no shelter. Friendship, and event the closest family ties, fell off into party lines. Churches and schools, religious and benevolent associations, public works and private enterprises, were suddenly suspended or paralyzed. All that was, was comprehended in one word--war. The tread and tramp of armies on foot and on horseback, the clatter of cannon wheels and the clanking of weapons, the hoarse commands of military men marshaling their forces, made a constant din and a never ending pageant. Soon, with appalling force, the two tidal waves of wrath and power fell upon each other. Out from their recoil came the shouts of victory and the moans of defeat; and, with both, the wails and cries of widows and orphans, to whom the strife, end as it may, could bring no hope or comfort. The peacefully inclined fled in terror whithersoever they could, to places of safety--to the Pacific shores, to the Canada borders, to countries beyond the sea. Missouri as a Border State, and consequently as a battle ground, lost its tens of thousands--fully as many by flight as by combat. My poor settlements suffered irretrievably. The Wilderness Community especially suffered severely during the Civil War, being occupied alternately by both armies, besides being invaded by marauding parties and bushwhackers, who murdered the peaceful citizens, and destroyed their houses, fences and crops, until towards the close of the war scarcely a male citizen was permitted to remain at home, unmolested. From cavalry soldiers on duty in that county I learned, that corn to feed their horses had to be carried by them in sacks behind them on their horse's backs at a distance of eighty miles; not so much as an ear of corn being left, that they could find, in the whole country.

SFX: (tape w/live)
war ambience crossfades into quiet day ambience

FATHER HOGAN
Alas: the devastations of war and the woes and sorrows that follow after it. Who now will build up those waste places? Who now will lead back the poor scattered settlers to their humble but ruined homes? Who now will rekindle for them the light faith or preach the word of God to them in their little chapel beneath the pines in the forest: Has all that was done and endured there, been for nothing? Is there no hope for a place once so dear and so sacred? To the most adorable will of God, whose ways are ever full of mercy and above our understanding, we most profoundly bow.

NARRATOR
The soundscape play you are about to hear has been created from ambient recordings made in the Irish Wilderness area this week--it's rivers, springs, waterfalls, caves, wildlife, flora and fauna. Music known to these Irish Catholics (circa 1859), such as the hymn St. Patrick's Breast Plate, is played and digitally intermingled with these soundscape ambiences to trace these settlers' phantasmic presences in the wilderness. At times the instrumentalists, using accordion, string instruments and percussion, will trigger some of the sounds you hear by what they are playing. At other times, ambience sounds are filtered by musical phrases giving them a melodic shape. We offer it as a meditation on this place and the people whose lives were shattered by prejudice and war.

SFX
(tape w/live) quiet day ambience fades out by end of Narrator