DARK TALES - Tribune Life article

Chilling tales at the Town Hall – giving a new life to old tradition

By Gráinne McMahon

When it comes to telling stories, there is nothing we Irish love more. Whether it is catching up on gossip over a pint or a cup of tea, some for of storytelling is inevitably involved, even if it is in the form of idle gossip. It is strange then, given our palate for hearing other people's tales that there are very few making a living out of storytelling in Galway. Rab Fulton is one man, however, who is doing just that.

A native of Scotland, it was by chance that Rab ended up in Galway nine years ago, a city he has called home ever since. Rab and his wife Jenny, who was his girlfriend at the time, decided they fancied a month away when thy spotted an offer in the Guardian newspaper.

"We figured we'd go some where and there was a token in the paper for a cheap return flight to Ireland for a month and now we're here and it's nine years later," he says in his strong Scottish accent before he breaks into laughter.

"That flight was on 12 June 1999. When we got to Galway we had great fun. We knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody and she helped us find our feet." He says of the couple's arrival to the city. Did they decide immediately that they wanted to settle here, I ask? "Pretty much," replies Rab laughing as he looks back on it, "It was a flush of excitement!"

Excitement is the spice of life for this forty year old Glaswegian, who fell into storytelling by accident.

"In Glasgow everyone talks all the time and in my family everyone tells stories, ones about fairies and then scary stories; when I was younger we lived in a two room tenement and my granny used to tell us really scary stories just so that we'd be scared and so she wouldn't have to bring us out to the toilet outside!" he laughs, adding: "I just passed these stories on and [had] not thought of myself as a storyteller."

Stories with titles such as The Nymph, The Scar and The Telling of His Tales give some idea of what audiences can expect Rab's upcoming Dark Tales show at the Town Hall Theatre, and with gory props including skulls and bloody hands, his tales are not for the easily scared. Finding constant inspiration for his stories is not a problem for the Glaswegian, not just because of his imagination, passion for history and love of books – an adventurous and eventful life up to the age of forty has helped in part. As he admits himself, college was not part of the plan when Rab was growing up, with most teenagers in his home place joining the army which Rab was not keen on.

Civil Rights

"I left school when I was sixteen. The military would come round and recruit children all the time and everyone just ended up in the army or navy and that option was there for me but fortunately I was more up for trouble – let's leave it like that!"

A civil rights activist, Rab says when he left school he began telling stories while having "lots of adventures getting involved in civil rights stuff and court cases and that was fin". The court cases and standing up to big corporations came between "doing all sorts of odd jobs from farm work to working in hotels and libraries".

It was then that Rab joined the Faslane Peace Camp, a permanent peace camp sited alongside Faslane Naval base in Argyll and Bute in Scotland where peace activists live. Rab stayed at the base for fifteen months helping to "blockade roads to stop nuclear weapons getting through" which he admits was tiring at times but he does not regret is. "I had lots of adventures in Scotland so in a sense I was living stories as well as telling them.

Eventually I was exhausted and came to Ireland".

In need of some recharging of batteries and a less hectic life, relatively free of road blockades, did Rab decide on a full time career in story telling once he touched down on Irish soil?

"You work on the assumption that I make decisions! A lot just happens and we go with it!" he laughs before pausing for a few minutes in order to refresh his memory as to his movements once he came to Galway. "I set up a music project called the Global Music Project which brought together Irish and African musicians to encourage greater respect between them," Rab says, stressing that he is not just a one dimensional character but one with many interests and talents. One dimensional is not how you would describe Rab's career. The Global Music Project and anti-racist arts journal Muc Mhór Dhubh are two examples of his ability to combine informal storytelling with literature and music to challenge racism and support asylum seekers and refugees.

A love of history and classics and an ambition to go to university prompted the father of one to apply to do an arts degree at the National University of Ireland, Galway. It also greatly helped him in his storytelling.

"I loved the history; the modules in Irish history I love. My focus was on medieval history and the classics side of things."

While studying full time for three years, Rab kept up his storytelling, sharing his medieval tales from Scotland and Ireland at various events. "It was just natural to keep that on. It was just something I did because it was something I was brought up with. Gradually people started asking about me and asking me to come to parties.

A demon for work, Rab was not content with just his studies and storytelling and began working in Áras na Mac Léinn at the university where he helped develop a wellness programme for children. From that he began working with NUI Galway's Access Programme along with his storytelling partner Clare Muireann Murphy, who he met at Galway Festival, Project 06.

Social element

"Clare was at NUIG when I was there and I didn't really know her," he explains, "She was setting up storytelling for Project 06 and she asked would I do a two hour show. This was the point where I changed from informal to formal storytelling and it was a great success!"

Realising they had something in common and that they could make a living from storytelling the pair got together.

"We sat down and thought that to improve ourselves we could work together. We both had a social aspect to our work so we thought we could use the storytelling in that," explains Ra with his social conscience shining through.

This awareness of the less fortunate around the pair has manifested itself in various educational, music and school projects Clare and Rab have worked on over the last few years.

"Definitely the social conscience reflects in the work we do. We've been doing this programme with the access office building students' confidence. Last year we worked on a project where Leaving Cert students swapped stories with old age pensioners and we worked on getting the young ones to appreciate the older ones. Now we're doing one with the multi national community," says Rab explaining that having a social aspect in storytelling is crucial.

"A lot of thought goes into deciding why we're doing stories. So that's important in a modern context. So with the young ones we had to teach them how to listen and at the start they told us what they thought of the elderly and it was quite negative but as the project went on that changes. A lot of stuff I've done in Scotland comes around respect. The work we do with children through the Access Office has to do with self respect and confidence," he says explaining that they work with children from three schools in Galway. "We try to get them to listen to each other and we've got to the stage where these young children are critiquing each other in a positive way."

Whilst Rab is best known for his storytelling, he is also an award winning writer of poetry and prose having had work published in The Guardian, Books Ireland, The Herald, Poetry Ireland Review and Poetry Scotland so it is no surprise that he is a man in demand.

He is hard at work getting ready for the Dark Tales show which will include modern urban legends from Galway and promises to 'take the audience on into the darker recesses of the Irish and Scottish psyche, sending a shiver down their spine, [so] that they will be left shaking at every little shadow, gasping in terror at the slightest creak or groan'.

So, what tales does Rab promise to scare us with during the show which runs at the Town Hall Theatre from 6-10 May?

Urban Myths

"It is a sample of different stories. There are humorous horror stories and then there is the more horror creepy stuff. It is a mixture of different elements. I have stuff from my family, which is lovely and then there is Irish folk and different aspects to Ireland. Then there are the nasty urban myths from Galway," he says, telling a gory myth dating back to the launch of the Galway Arts Festival in 1977 about the body of a dead man in a hole at the bottom of the River Corrib which explodes into the air just as the festival is declared officially open. Music affects during his dark tales show will add to the effect for dark myths like this and Rab admits he is nervous about the show.

"I'm always nervous! For most of my shows I'm in a state f absolute terror!" he says explaining that by nature he is a very private person. "There's something very personal about sharing stories, it's OK in a non formal way but in a formal way it's a strange thing to be doing. I'm a nervy person, I take my work very seriously."

Taking the job seriously means getting a feel for an audience before a show. Whether it is a private event or a public performance.

"I like to understand my audience. For a starter show it's nice to talk to the audience." Then, once Rab gets over his nerves, he admits he is in storyteller heaven. "I love the social side of it, the audience. I love the fact that when I hear people tell stories that you are drawn into the story – I get amazed that I can do that as well; it's a lovely thing to be able to do," he says adding that the worst thing that can happen to him before a show is having no nerves at all. "The worst thing to do is get comfortable and you need to be half excited and half terrified!"

Rab's zest for life and his talent of connecting with people definitely put him ahead of most storytellers although he admits the career is not a closed shop: "I'd definitely recommend it. There was no scene to break into in Galway. There's more room for more storytellers in Galway," he says explaining that it is a viable way of making a living, although it was something he fell into. "At no point did I think that I'd be working as a story teller full time, it jut happened. I really enjoy it but I'm always terrified and part of me is wondering why I am doing this! But it is like if you spend your whole life with people picking their noses and then you get a job picking your nose!"

Storytelling may be a far cry from picking your nose, but maybe somewhere in the Dark Tales, Rab might just come up with some story of how a child lost it's nose for the habit. We'll have to wait and see.

This article originally appeared in Tribune Life on 2^nd May 2008; and is reproduced with the kind permsion of the author.

Copyright Gráinne McMahon - 2008

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