The Joyous Roy Arbuckle

Roy Arbuckle is a true delight and leaves a smile on everyone’s face after talking with him.  It was a pleasure to be able to meet with him, ask him a few questions, and truly just be in his presence.  Roy tries to live by the mantra “be joyful,” and one thing that brings him joy is music.

Roy grew up with a Protestant background and struggled with what that meant for him growing up and living in the time of the Troubles and Conflict.  After getting an email from a friend in Canada, and talking with people from Holywell, he decided he wanted to start a group of musicians that came from both Catholic and Protestant backgrounds to create peace and eliminate the boundaries and tensions that lie between the two communities, Different Drums. Originally the name came from people having their own individual beat while also having to co-exist in community together.  However, later the name also became literal as people added in multiple different drums from many different cultures. Roy said humbly that he didn’t know if what he did actually made a difference, but he would get people that would tell him years later that they remembered him coming to their schools.  

In his dissertation, he stated that “music can be an agent of social change” and that “The project [Different Drums] gave Protestant/Unionist respondents a way to positively embrace a part of their musical tradition” (Arbuckle 2003).  When interviewing him he talked more about this phenomenon and the impact Different Drums had on people of all ages.  

One story he highlighted was when his band played at a school in Derry. The band consists of many drums, two of which are the lambeg (a Protestant drum that usually stroked fear into many Catholics) and bodhran (a Catholic drum).  A little while after their concert at the school, he heard of three Catholic students that had gone and gotten a lambeg drum to try and practice. By doing Different Drum concerts around schools, they were eliminating the symbolism that was tied to drums meaning fear, and added a fun and more peaceful connotation to it.

Roy is a humble and amazing person.  He went on to travel the world doing concerts whether or not it was for money.  Today, he still gives back to his community by joining people to write songs, doing concerts in local places, and playing music for people suffering with dementia.  After all that traveling he still comes back to Derry and feels a strong personal connection with the people here and his friends from Holywell Trust. I learned so much from Roy and I hope that I can be just as joyous through the roadblocks and the barriers that life throws at me.

Thank you Roy, may you be a joy to this world now and forever!