Neansaí Ní Choisdealbha (Maidhcil Mac Fhualáin and Pádraig Ó Ceannabháin)

Maidhcil Choilmín Mac Fhualáin

Carna (1919–99). Maidhcil made a fiddle. He went to America for the first time in October 1947 and did not return until 1967. He did not play the fiddle for ten years after going to America. Ennis visited him there when Maidhcil was living in Bellarose, New York, around 1962–64. The weather was extremely warm and they sat outdoors. A crowd gathered, including Maidhcil’s brother Dara, Meait and Bridie Donoghue and various musicians, among whom was John Waters. Ennis spent the day in their company and they played music all day long. Ennis played the pipes and whistle. He was quiet and, when he spoke, he spoke in Irish. Maidhcil was delighted with his visit. Maidhcil was friendly with Joe Derrane, Paddy O’Brien and Paddy Reynolds in America and played music with them. 

Ennis often visited the Mac Fhualáin household, which he called ‘the Carna musical academy’. Ennis and Maidhcil often played together and the collector wrote on 4 July 1943  for example: ‘Playing music with Maidhcil Mac Fhualáin, who came to visit us in the afternoon’. And on 19 May 1945, Ennis wrote that he: ‘went to Carna to Maidhcilín Choilmín – the fiddle player, who is a close friend.’

Pádraig Ó Ceannabháin 

(Peait Pheaits Pháidín) (Canavan) An Aird Mhóir, Cill Chiaráin. He died in 1993 aged 82. He was a piper and flute player. He learned to read music and learned much of his piping from a book. He was constantly practising the pipes. He started playing the pipes as a result of hearing Ennis’ father playing at Feis Charna and he said that he hoped he would not die before learning to play them. Crowley in Cork made his first set of pipes in 1940. James Mulcrone made the full set. On one occasion when Ennis came to collect from Pádraig, he had brought paper but no pen or pencil. He used a pin to punch the notes in the piece of paper and was thus able to read and play the tune. On Sundays, Pádraig, Ennis and Micheál Mac Fhualáin, went up on the hill behind the house to play music. Ennis’ office diary contains the following note for 6.02.45: ‘I wrote a letter to Peait Canavan, An Aird Mhóir, Carna, giving him the address of J. McCrone, 10 Glengariff Parade, N.C.R, Mountjoy, Dublin–a man who repairs pipes – because he wrote asking for it.’ (See NFC 1296: 316.)

When Peait had the uilleann pipes, Ennis helped to keep them in tune and to repair them when necessary. In his diary entry for 21 May, 1943, Ennis described his conversation and collecting session with Peait:  ‘I went to Peait Canavan, the piper, in An Aird Mhóir after dinner. I was told he was out at the tip of An Aird Mhóir, earthing potatoes he has set there. … Having walked all of An Aird Mhóir, I found Peait. He was in a deep hollow out near the shore. He has the nicest field of potatoes I have seen in Conamara and it is very big, almost an acre, I believe. It was after five o’clock when I found him. … I sat down to talk with him and our conversation turned to tunes. He started whistling old tunes for me and I wrote three down from him. … I thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half I spent in his company.’