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Button accordionist and fiddler Tom Dunne came in 1992 from Tombrick, Ballycarney, County Wexford to New York, where he and his late wife Ann shared a tiny apartment on West 4th Street in the heart of Greenwich Village. In his youth, there was hardly a fleadh or traditional music festival in Ireland that Tom missed, something attested to by much vintage documentary footage. He was a successful competitor and a music teacher, and one of his old students, John Redmond, is another outstanding button accordionist in New York today. In 1967, Tom struck up a close friendship with Kerry fiddler Paddy Cronin, took up the fiddle himself and is today perhaps the best exponent of Paddy’s style and repertoire. Tom recorded one CD on the accordion with the late Joe “Banjo” Burke and another on the fiddle as a tribute to Paddy Cronin.
