World Bodhrán Champion on Music, Belonging and Motherhood with Aimée Farrell-Courtney #186

Aimée Farrell-Courtney was six years old when she saw three girls playing the bodhrán in her school yard, the sun behind them and the sound going round the walls. She went home and announced she wanted to learn. Her mother's reply - "Oh my God, smelly pub" - is the first clue that this instrument arrived with a reputation attached, and with assumptions about who gets to hold one.

She learned anyway, was helping to teach by the age of twelve, and in 2010 won the World Bodhrán Championship. What she has spent the years since doing is quieter and, in its way, harder: asking why so many women take up the drum and so few are ever seen playing it.

She and Laura go from goat skin and tuning systems to the survey Aimée ran into women's experiences of trad sessions - the player left standing at the bar while everyone else is asked what they're drinking.

She talks about being told she only got a Royal Albert Hall booking because she could wear a dress, about designing a drum that fits the body holding it, and about the two communities she has built for people who want music without the judgement.

🔑 Key Points

She was six, and three girls in a schoolyard decided it

Aimée watched them rehearsing with the sun behind them and thought they looked like superwomen - with no idea yet that the bodhrán was a male-dominated instrument.

"My youngest student is four, my eldest student is 94"

The bodhrán is unusually easy to start, which Aimée sees as its gift and also the reason some people dismiss it without ever learning it properly.

A survey put evidence behind what women already knew

Working with a UK researcher, Aimée surveyed bodhrán players worldwide and found most women reported poor experiences bringing their drum to sessions.

"You only got that because you could wear a dress"