Andrea Palandri is originally from Venice in Italy and has been living in Ireland since 2014. He started to take a keen interest in the music of Sliabh Luachra, and in particular in the fiddle music of Pádraig O’Keeffe, Denis Murphy and Paddy Cronin in his late teens. He has been looking through O’Keeffe manuscripts and studying the bowing techniques found therein for several years now. He is particularly interested in the distinctive bowing patterns taught in O’Keeffe’s notation, in which much of the rhythm and detail of this unique regional style is hardcoded. These manuscripts are an incredible resource for any fiddle player who wishes to study the techniques taught by O’Keeffe to his students, effectively allowing us to carefully retrace the steps taken by some of the most extraordinary musicians ever to emerge from this region.

Andrea choose to focus on 21 tunes from various O’Keeffe manuscripts, 11 jigs, 2 hornpipes, 2 polkas, 2 slides and 4 reels.  Each of these tunes was recorded individually and made available on the ITMA site with a full suite of learning resources.

Links to all 21 tunes can be found in this collection.

21 tunes chosen by Andrea Palandri and made available as interactive scores

He also recorded a number of the tunes in sets. Note in the recordings below the sets were recorded in a different key to the individual tunes.

Polka set

Untitled [tune no. 28], polka from O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor MS A

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Untitled [tune no. 85], polka from O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor MS E

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Reel set

Untitled [The ladies cup of tea] [tune no. 30], reel from Pádraig O’Keeffe ITMA-Collins manuscripts, book 2: fiddle.

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Untitled [Murphy’s] [tune no. 59], reel from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-Miscellanous Manuscripts

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Jig set

Untitled [tune no. 7], jig from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript C

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Untitled [tune no. 8], jig from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript C

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Untitled [tune no. 9], jig from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript C

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Slide set

Untitled [tune no. 104], slide from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript E

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)

Untitled [tune no. 27], slide from Pádraig O’Keeffe Mac Aoidh-O’Connor Manuscript A

• Interactive score
• Staff notation (PDF)
  

Videos, like those above, were recorded for each of the 21 tunes chosen by Andrea.  Each tune also has an interactive score synced with the video and a downloadable PDF of the staff notation.

Paudie’s Blog for ITMA World Fiddle Day 2020

Since 2018 the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA) has been delivering Pop-Up Archives around the country.

The objective is to bring the archive in a physical form (ITMA staff, computers, access to the database etc.) back to the epicenter of the tradition, to the places where the artefacts of Irish traditional music, song and dance were collected and later catalogued and stored at No 73, Merrion Square. The people of the area, or those attending a particular music event where the Pop-Up is stationed, get a chance to reconnect with the songs, tunes, interviews and written word contributed by their family, neighbours and friends to the archive.

One of the proposed Pop-Up Archive dates for 2020, was to be at the excellent World Fiddle Day celebrations held annually, each May in Scartaglin, Co. Kerry. ITMA kindly asked me to spend some time reviewing archive material from the Sliabh Luachra tradition, with the highlights unearthed to be presented at the opening of the World Fiddle Day Celebrations on May 16th.  For the duration of the Festival, an ITMA Pop-Up Archive would be available, so that people could search the archive with assistance from ITMA staff. The Pop-Up archive would increase the attendee’s awareness of the archive and hopefully increase their interaction with it in the future.

Undoubtedly the highlight was a series of previously unseen video recordings made during field trips to Sliabh Luachra by former RTÉ Music Producer Tony MacMahon. Tony had the novel idea of getting musicians to interview musicians. Better still, musicians who had grown up playing music together, travelling the roads of Sliabh Luachra to dance halls and pubs during the halcyon days of Pádraig O’Keeffe and his pupils.  

Among the footage was a fascinating video recording of Paddy Cronin being interviewed by accordion player Johnny O’Leary. Johnny using his own unique turn of phrase, reminded and questioned Paddy about times, musicians and characters long gone. 

Another interesting piece of video footage was legendary Sliabh Luachra musician and character Con Curtin being interviewed by the late Denis McMahon. 

Other interviews of note featured Maurice O’Keeffe, Mikey Duggan and Patcheen Connell.

Each year, I help out with the Handed Down Series of lectures in Scartaglin County Kerry which culminates with the aforementioned World Fiddle Day celebrations in May. My input usually entails giving a lecture on a topic related to Sliabh Luachra music. 

The focus of this year’s lecture was to be a tribute to my neighbour, renowned fiddler and music historian, the late Denis McMahon who passed away in 2018. This year I decided to use the ITMA to help with my preparation. With the help of the ITMA staff I was able to locate a vast store of television performances, radio performances, interviews, obituaries and tributes that appeared in different publications after his passing.  

The ITMA isn’t just a resource to be used by academics or those doing work-related research. While working on the Denis McMahon tribute I also realised what a valuable resource the ITMA can be for those of us just wishing to find out a little more about our local musical heroes.  It’s a wonderful experience to while away a few hours listening to, or reading about neighbours and friends who have been an integral part of the rich musical environment we live in. From our own perspective in Sliabh Luachra, the past twenty years have seen most of the direct links with the music of O’Keeffe pass on to their eternal reward. A few hours spent in the archive can be a wonderful way to relive and experience their music and stories.

The archive can also be a invaluable gateway to local history.  My father came from a townland four miles from the village of  Scartaglin called Ballintourigh or Baile an tSamhraidh, the town of Summer. During visits and summer holidays at my grandmothers house I had heard much about a famous dance hall that operated a few hundred yards away at the John Richard’s Cross back in the 1930’s. A quick search using the key words ‘Baile an tSamhraidh’ unearthed a journal article from the renowned Sliabh Luachra: the journal of Cumann Luachra, volume 1, no. 11 (2003). The article ‘Musical days around John Richard’s Cross‘ written by Pat Feeley* provided an insight into life in the townland from the 1930’s up to 1948 when the dance hall closed. It gave first hand accounts of the dance hall, the musicians, the adjoining all purpose shop, the coming of the motor car and subsequent demise of the rambling house. It was wonderful to read about the local characters often mentioned by my Grandmother Maggie May and Aunty Mary back in Baile an tSamhraidh, including Mary O’Sullivan pictured above.  It was Mary’s father who had initially built the dance hall.  Mary a pupil of Pádraig O’Keeffe and Tom Billy Murphy, was a character and gained notoriety for standing up to the local clergy in the aftermath of the Dance Halls Act 1935. 

Since starting my research and blog, the COVID-19 has lead to the postponement of World Fiddle Day celebrations in Scartaglin and the ITMA Pop-Up Archive.  The travel and work restrictions have seen teachers, parents and pupils have searching for online resources to keep them busy and learning. One of the primary aims of the World Fiddle Day and The Handed down Lecture Series has been to expose the next generation of musicians to the heritage of the Sliabh Luachra Music tradition. Again I feel the ITMA can be a valuable resource in this regard. 

There are wonderful Sliabh Luachra related resources currently available through the online facility www.itma.ie that pupils, parents and music teachers can use together. One resource that I’d highly recommend is the the Pádraig O’Keeffe fiddle and accordion manuscripts kindly donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive by accordion player Paud Collins from Knockacur, Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry. The manuscripts belonged to Paud’s brother Jerh and his brother Dan (accordion), both former pupils of O’Keeffe. The manuscripts, written in O’Keeffe’s unique tablature are accompanied by an interactive music scores, making the tunes accessible to all learning styles. 

When treasured trips to Dublin for football matches, concerts and other social events do return to our lives, I strongly recommend that people consider taking a few hours to include a trip to ITMA in their itinerary. Be it listening to a few tunes from a departed neighbour or friend, reading about the life and times of a local musician or learning a few verses of a song from your locality, the experience will leave you much the richer.

Until then, tabhair aire!

And one more tune ……

The Kerry fiddle player Con Curtin (1926–2009) was a noted figure among the emigrant Irish traditional musicians of London in the 1960s, both as a performer and, after a period working in construction, as the landlord of the Balloon public house in Chelsea, London SW, which was one of the centres of Irish music in the city. He returned to his native Brosna in the 1970s where he set up again as a publican. In 2001, while he was still alive, a music festival in his honour was established in the village, with sessions, concerts and pub trails.

The videos presented here were recorded by Irish Traditional Music Archive staff in June 2014, at the 14th Con Curtin Festival. This year the festival was part of a new initiative, the Sliabh Luachra Music Trail, which links the various traditional music festivals of the region, and which was launched in March in Ballydesmond with ITMA participation at an event recorded here. The launch also formed the basis of an RTÉ Radio 1 ‘Rolling Wave’ programme which is archived on the RTÉ website here.

With thanks to the musicians who have given permission to publish, and for facilitation to Cian Heffernan of the Cork Co Council Arts Office and to Gerard Curtin & the Con Curtin Festival Committee of Brosna.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 August 2014

The 40 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from one of five sets of manuscripts originally written by Pádraig O’Keeffe for his pupil Mrs Catherine O’Connor. They have been transcribed from O’Keeffe’s unique form of fiddle-music tablature. The tunes in this manuscript (O’Connor Manuscript A) date from 19 May 1934 to 6 February 1935.

The O’Connor manuscript collection was sourced from Mrs Catherine (Kitty) O’Connor (née Horan) of Knockhorrin, Scartaglin. She originally lived at Dirreen, Scartaglin as a young girl when the manuscripts were written. Mrs O’Connor lent the collection to Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in 1984 and once copied they were returned to her in full. They consist of five school jotters which Mac Aoidh labelled, in no particular order, A, B, C, D, and E .

Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript are also available.

The O’Connor collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

The 210 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from a set of manuscripts originally written by Pádraig O’Keeffe for his pupil Pat O’Connell (known locally as Páitín Connell) a small farmer from the townland of Cordal, Co. Kerry. Páitín kept his manuscripts in two biscuit tins in his kitchen. He was a near neighbour of Pádraig and remembered him with great affection. He lent Caoimhín Mac Aoidh his collection in full. Caoimhín was unable to photocopy this collection but he copied the music tablature meticulously using stencils and Rotring drafting pens.

Caoimhín Mac Aoidh writes:

Of all known existing individual collections of O’Keeffe’s fiddle tablature Paddy ‘Páitín’ O’ Connell of the townland of Cordal is the most comprehensive both in numbers of tunes and in terms of time span.

The music occurs on music paper, cigarette packs, school jotters, loose papers etc. It contains the earliest written piece of all the manuscripts, a reel called The Flowing Bowl, a version of The Piper’s Despair which bears no relation to O’Neill’s version of The Flowing Bowl. The tune was written on October 2^nd, 1931. The latest tune in the collection, The Wonder Hornpipe was written on October 31^st, 1962, less than five months before his death. The greatest period of writing seems to have taken place during the mid-1940’s.

The music transcriber for this current project worked from three different sources for these scores:

• Copies of original manuscripts of Pádraig O’Keeffe’s unique form of fiddle-music tablature
• Fair copy transcriptions made of O’Keeffe’s fiddle-music tablature by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh
• Staff notation transcriptions of O’Keeffe’s fiddle-music tablature also made by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh

Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript are also available.

The O’Connell collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

The 69 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from 16 different miscellaneous Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscripts which were given to Caoimhín Mac Aoidh by various people over the years.

Three of the manuscripts are dated, the earliest is from April 1941 and the latest dates from October 1953. Some of the tunes were written on the inside of open cigarette packets etc. The collection is made up of 16 manuscripts in total and contains the greatest number of melodeon tablature tunes in Caoimhín Mac Aoidh’s Pádraig O’Keeffe Collection.>

Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript downloadable as one PDF.

The Miscellaneous collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

The 14 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from a set of manuscripts originally written by Pádraig O’Keeffe for his pupil Jerry McCarthy. Jerry played frequently with O’Keeffe before emigrating to New York where he spent some time working with Denis Murphy in the New York Zoo along with Rory O’Connor a whistle player from Doolin.

Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript downloadable as one PDF

The McCarthy collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

The 37 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from fair copy transcriptions made of Padraig O’Keeffe’s music tablature by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh.

Caoimhín Mac Aoidh writes:

The McAuliffe Collection was sourced from Nicky McAuliffe by Máire O’Keeffe who passed them on to me. These manuscripts were not photocopied but were transcribed directly off the originals. Given his interest and abilities on the fiddle they were offered to Nicky by local past pupils of Padraig’s. It can be dated at least from January 14^th, 1951 to December 23^rd, 1951.

Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript are also available.

The McAuliffe collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

The 91 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from a set of manuscripts originally written by Pádraig O’Keeffe. The Horan Collection was sourced from Mrs. Katie Horan (nee O’Brien). It can be dated at least from 5 June 1942 to 22 March 1949. As with the O’Connor Collection it contains the information on how to read the tablature and ornament the tunes in terms of rolls and Pádraig’s notion of “trills”.

Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript are also available.

The Mrs. Katie Horan (nee O’Brien) collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

The 14 interactive music scores on this page have been notated from a set of manuscripts originally owned by Mickey Duggan a former pupil of Pádraig O’Keeffe. Some of the original manuscripts are in Pádraig O’Keeffe’s music tablature system. The tune ‘Sean Ryan’s wonder hornpipe’ is written in staff notation.  Contemporary transcriptions of the individual tunes in this manuscript  are also available as a downloadable PDF.

The Duggan collection is one of seven Pádraig O’Keeffe manuscript collections sourced by Caoimhín Mac Aoidh in the early 1980s. The manuscripts mainly belonged to Pádraig O’Keeffe’s pupils, and in a limited number of cases to others. Mac Aoidh photocopied the manuscripts where possible and returned the originals to their owners.

It would seem that when bellows bagpipes were first brought to Ireland in the late 1600s they were introduced at a fairly high social level. Certainly they were often played in their early centuries here by prosperous amateurs, ‘gentlemen pipers’. Professional Irish uilleann pipers were employed by the gentry and were well rewarded by other wealthy patrons, in England even by the monarchs George III and George IV.

But as the instrument grew in popularity, cheap sets were played by low-status and often disabled musicians, performing for poor audiences on the street, and in cottages and taverns, and at fairs. In the 19th century, with changes in musical fashion, the uilleann pipes became generally associated with these indigent street pipers, especially after the Great Famine of the mid-century. Poverty became the hallmark of pipers, and the collective term ‘a poverty of pipers’ was used to describe them.

The images reproduced below are of uilleann pipers from this period of decline in the late 19th and early 20th century. With the growth of the Gaelic League and the establishment of pipers’ clubs in Cork and Dublin in the years around 1900, the decline of uilleann piping and pipers was temporarily arrested. The final image below, a photograph of pipers taken at the Dublin Feis Ceoil of 1901, as well as including amateur pipers of farming stock and piping-club enthusiasts, includes the blind professional Galway city piper Martin Reilly who was forced to have recourse to the poorhouse there at periods in his life.

With thanks to donors of photographs: Breathnach family, Nóirín Leech (Pavee Point), Ted Hickey, & Liam McNulty.

Nicholas Carolan & Ian Lynch, 1 October 2012

Essentially, everyone who learns an Irish traditional tune is a collector of the music, and most interested people will have a memorised collection, even if they don’t sing or play an instrument. But what is normally meant by the term are those dedicated individuals who amass over time large numbers of songs and melodies and preserve them on a variety of paper media or on sound or video recordings. They may partly be motivated by personal or commercial considerations, but most collectors are altruistic, driven by a wish to preserve and share something that they themselves enjoy and value. Some may in time publish items from their collections.

The collectors featured in this gallery from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive range from those of the 18th and 19th centuries who of necessity collected with pen and paper and had the rare skill of being able to jot down melodies at first hearings, to those modern collectors with the no less valuable skill of operating audio and video technology to faithfully convey the reality of live performance. A debt is owed to all of them for enabling people now and in the future to experience the past of the music, and for providing materials for its ongoing re-creation.

Also here while it is still active is a link to a recent RTÉ ‘Nationwide’ programme (this programme is no longer available on the RTÉ Player) which featured the work of the collectors Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie on the occasion of their recordings being made available through the Clare County Library here. An ITMA feature on their Irish collections can be found below.

With thanks to Colette Moloney, Ríonach uí Ógáin, Peter Browne, & Lisa Shields.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 June 2015

The button accordion, found in different tunings and with different numbers of buttons, is of course now one of the main instruments of Irish traditional music. It is also one of the more recent instruments to have been introduced for the playing of the music. While early forms of accordion were being sold in Ireland in the 1830s, it was the later 19th century before they began to come into the hands of traditional musicians, and it was the mid-20th century before they were very widely played by them.

The accordion images presented here from the collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive range in date from the 1930s to the present day, but most are modern publicity photos by photographers unknown to us. Almost all are of two-row boxes, prominent among them instruments manufactured by the Paulo Soprani Company of Italy.

With thanks to photographers Stephen de Paoire, Danny Diamond, Orla Henihan, Tony Kearns, Brian Lawler, Aidan McGovern, Terry Moylan, Máire O’Keeffe, & Tom Sherlock for permission to publish the images. ITMA would welcome further information on any image.

Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 April 2015

The harp is the oldest of the Irish traditional instruments still played, and after teetering on the brink of extinction in the 19th century it entered on a period of revival in the 1890s, a revival that is now over a hundred years old and one that has given rise to its own traditions.

In modern times, the playing of the Irish harp – and its ancient and modern traditions – has been fostered by the Irish harping society Cairde na Cruite, Friends of the Harp, which was founded in 1960 and must be the oldest existing Irish organisation dedicated to a single musical instrument. Cairde na Cruite celebrated in 2010 the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation and also the twenty-fifth anniversary of its annual residential summer school in Termonfeckin, Co Louth; for further information click here.

Contemporary Irish harpers, playing wire-strung and gut-strung instruments, form a large and thriving community, with many schools and festivals, competitions and workshops, and there are many such professional harpers to be found world-wide. The following tracks offer an introduction to the Irish harp of the present day; they have been kindly donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive to mark the Cairde na Cruite anniversaries by the players and their record companies as noted

With thanks to the harpers featured and to their record companies.

Nicholas Carolan & Danny Diamond, 1 December 2010

The fifteen tracks in our audio playlist this month are a selected snapshot of newly composed tunes and songs commercially released by Irish traditional musicians and singers between autumn 2015 and spring 2016.  The collection highlights the wide spectrum and diversity present in contemporary Irish traditional music and song.  Performers/composers featured are Irish, Australian, English, Finnish, Polish and American and bring different approaches in terms of style, arrangement, instruments and sources of inspiration. This collection also highlights ITMA’s remit to collect traditional music in a broad and inclusive way reflective of each generation of performers.

Accordion and fiddle player Tom Carmody (1893–1986) from near Listowel, Co Kerry, was a prominent professional musician in New York from the 1920s to the late 1950s. Through his musician father Maurice (‘Moss’) he had inherited music of a local blind fiddle teacher Jeremiah Breen, and had initially learned on fiddle and melodeon. In 1925 he emigrated to New York, and in the 1930s came to prominence as a member of Sligo fiddle player James Morrison’s instrumental quartet, which recorded for the Columbia label. He was a virtuosic exponent of the two-row accordion system in the Irish tradition that is sometimes known among players as the ‘outside-in’ system, a system that is now virtually obsolete. Carmody later played for other dance-bands including the Harp of Erin Irish Radio Orchestra and the Leitrim House Entertainers. In 1959 he retired with his wife to Ballybunnion, Co Kerry, and in his final year, when he was still playing at the age of 92, he was featured on an RTÉ Radio 1 programme in the Irish Phonograph series.

Tom Carmody’s last accordion, a two-row D/C# Iorio New York instrument, is currently played by a relative, Danny O’Mahony. He is speaking on Carmody and playing his accordion at a Na Píobairí Uilleann lecture-recital currently available from NPU. Columbia recordings of the James Morrison Instrumental Quartet in New York in 1935 and 1936 are to be heard on a double cassette The Professor issued by Harry Bradshaw (Viva Voce, Dublin, 1989).

The recordings of Tom Carmody presented here were made at an unknown date, probably in his home in Ballybunnion, by Breandán Breathnach. Carmody was obviously advanced in age at the time, but he played some unusual tunes that may be from his earliest days. Two of the tunes (4 & 8) are his own compositions, and two (6 & 9) are later compositions by a younger accordion player, Martin Mulhaire, an indication that Carmody was continuing to add tunes to his store.

For a selection of tunes from a tutor for Carmody’s accordion system, see Jerry O’Brien’s Accordion Instructor.

With thanks to the Breathnach family, Danny O’Mahony, Charlie Harris, and Na Píobairí Uilleann.

Nicholas Carolan, Jackie Small & Danny Diamond, 1 October 2013

Bhí Séamus ar dhuine de na mórcheoltóirí traidisiúnta agus ámhránaí na linne. Chaith sé a shaol ar fad ina áit dhúchais, i mBaile na bPoc i nGaeltacht Chorca Dhuibhne in Iarthar Chiarraí agus d’iompar sé cultúr, traidisiúin agus teanga na dúiche chun cinn ar fud na cruinne.

Ag fás aníos i dteaghlach mór ceoil, do thosnaig Séamus ag seinnt ar an mbosca mar dhéagóir agus ní fada go raibh sé ag seinnt leis an gclann i halla rince ar an Muiríoch. Ón tús do thuig sé go maith an ceangal tábhachtach atá ann idir an ceol agus an rince agus chuaigh sé i gcion ar rinceoirí seite na háite ina dhiaidh sin.

Mar cheoltóir, chuaigh boscadóraí móra na linne i bhfeidhm air cosúil le Joe Burke, Johnny O’Leary agus Finbar Dwyer. D’eisigh sé taifead iomráiteach le Gael Linn, An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe, lena dheifiúir Máire i 1973. Bhí clú ar mar amhránaí ar fud na tíre chomh maith.

Do bhain sé cáil amach go forleathan nuair a d’eisíodh an taifead ceannródaíoch Meitheal le Steve Cooney in 1992 agus bhí tóir air mar bhoscadóir agus amhránaí le grúpaí agus ceoltóirí éagsúla ó shin – Jim Murray, Tim Edey, Téada, Mary Black, Mike Scott agus The Chieftains san áireamh.

Do bhronnadh gradam Amhránaí na Bliana air ag Gradaim Cheoil TG4 in 2013.

Bhí tionchar ollmhór ag Séamus ar ré nua ceoltóirí agus éisteoiri ó Chiarraí Thiar agus i bhfad i gcéin. Ní fhéadfaí grá a bhí aige don cheol a shárú agus do roinn sé an grá san le gach uile duine a bhuail sé leis. Fós, ag 73, bhí Séamus amuigh ag seimint sa Daingean gach aon oíche le muintir a chlainne agus ár gcomhghleacaí Kyle Macaulay, ag insint scéalta, ag amhráin agus ag roinnt a stíl álainn bríomhaire ceoil atá aitheanta ar fud an domhain.

Ag labhairt ar bhás Shéamuis, dúirt Liam Ó Conchubhair, Stiúrthóir TCDÉ:

Is mór an chailliúint do phobal an ceoil é. Fear ann féin do bea é, ceoltóir, amhránaí agus fathach mór na Gaeltachta agus táim ana bhuíoch go raibh deis agam bheith i gcuideachta leis go minic agus go deimhin port a sheinnt le chéile. Chuaigh a chuid flaithiúlachta go croí ionam i gcónaí.

Is cúis mhór bróin dúinn go raibh coinne againn le Seámus taifead a dhéanamh sa Taisce i gceann coicíse chun a shaol agus a fhealsúnacht ceoil a léiriú. Go deimhin bhí cuireadh faighte aige seinnt sa Cheoláras Náisiúnta do TCDÉ lena iníon Méabh i Mí Márta.

Born in 1949 and one of nine children in a powerful musical family, Séamus spent his entire life in his native Baile na bPoc in the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht. As a musician he was to transport the unique culture, language and traditions of the area all over the world.

A farmer, he learned the accordion as a young teenager and went on to play regularly in the Begley dance hall in Muiríoch. That connection with dancing from a young age was something very important in his life and he went on to have a profound influence on the set dancers in the area.

In 1973 Gael Linn commissioned the famous recording of Séamus with his sister Máire, An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe.

His pioneering duet with guitarist Steve Cooney and their seminal recording Meitheal in 1992, catapulted Séamus onto the international stage and he went on to perform and collaborate with a host of musicians and groups like Jim Murray, Tim Edey, Téada, Mary Black, Mike Scott and The Chieftains.

Séamus was hugely encouraging to young musicians and his love of music was infectious. Up until his death he was performing nightly in Dingle playing, singing, telling stories and sharing his beautiful, compelling style of music now recognised worldwide.

Speaking about Séamus, ITMA Director Liam O’Connor said:

Seámus is a significant loss for the Irish music community in Ireland and all over the world. He was a unique personality, a wonderful singer and musician. A major figure in the Gaeltacht, the Irish language has sadly lost one of its great native speakers.

Like so many musicians and lovers of our tradition, I am so grateful to have shared his company on many occasions and to have played music with him. I was always humbled by his generosity and sense of fun.

Tragically ITMA had arranged to film and record Séamus before the end of January to capture his life in music and indeed he was booked to perform with his daughter Méabh, our colleague Kyle Macaulay and set-dancers from West Kerry at the ITMA Drawing from the Well Concert in March.

A native of Cahersiveen in Co Kerry, Seán’s outstanding recordings Ón dTalamh Amach and The Bonny Bunch of Roses along with his prolific performances since the 1970s portrayed a beautifully discerning, sensitive Irish artist. A talented, accomplished musician his rich, sonorous voice rightly earned him the TG4 Gradam Ceoil, Amhránaí na Bliana in 2006.

The famous Sliabh Luachra fiddle player and travelling fiddle-master Pádraig O’Keeffe (1887–1963) from Glountane, near Castleisland, Co Kerry, at first followed in his father’s footsteps as the principal teacher in the local national school, but in 1920 abandoned conventional school-teaching for a more bohemian lifestyle.

He had inherited music from his O’Callaghan mother’s side of the family, and over the next four decades he taught hundreds of pupils, fiddle especially but also accordion and other instruments, moving in a wide circuit within striking distance of his home. An eccentric and notably witty character with a gift for musical variation, he left an indelible stamp on the music and folklore of the region, and is an example of how an individual musician may almost create a local music style.

In his teacher-training, O’Keeffe would have learned the rudiments of staff notation and tonic solfa, but for his own teaching purposes he devised more intuitive tablature systems. For the fiddle he employed the four spaces of the music staff to correspond with the strings of the instrument, and with numerals indicating which fingers were to be pressed down. For the accordion he used numerals for the keys to be pressed and in- and out-symbols to indicate the direction of the bellows. Hundreds of the notations he left with pupils have been preserved in private hands, and two volumes of facsimiles have been published (Dan Herlihy, Sliabh Luachra Music Masters vols 1 & 2, Herlihy, Killarney, 2003 & 2007). But his music has not yet been comprehensively collected.

The O’Keeffe fiddle and accordion manuscripts presented here below as scans have been kindly donated to the Irish Traditional Music Archive by accordion player Paud Collins from Knockacur, Knocknagoshel, Co Kerry. The manuscripts belonged
to Paud’s brother Jerh a former fiddle pupil of O’Keeffe’s. Their brother Dan
was an accordion pupil of O’Keeffe’s.

The fiddle manuscripts are in Pádraig O’Keeffe’s own hand, while the accordion manuscripts were copied for her brothers from O’Keeffe’s originals by Paud Collins’s sister Tess Drudy (who did not herself read the tablature).

Interactive music scores of the fiddle & accordion manuscripts are available below.

The four sets of ITMA-Collins O’Keeffe facsimile manuscripts and the interactive music scores derived from them constitute the largest body of O’Keeffe’s music that is publicly available to date.

With thanks to Paud Collins, and to his son Denis Collins who was instrumental in the making of the donation.

Nicholas Carolan & Maeve Gebruers, 1 October 2013

Grace Toland, 2 April 2020: Provenance information updated by Paud and Denis Collins.

Aoife Granville explores the musical contribution and impact of the First Ladies of Traditional Flute: Teresa Gardiner, Deirdre Collis, Peig Ryan, Peg McGrath and Anne McAuliffe.

Pádraig O’Keeffe, traditional musician, was born 8 October 1887 at Glountane (Gleanntán), Knockdown townland, near Castleisland, Co. Kerry, eldest of four sons and four daughters of John Leahy O’Keeffe, teacher, and Margaret O’Keeffe (née O’Callaghan), of a musical family from Doonasleen (Doon), Kiskeam, Co. Cork. In accord with prevailing local custom, as the firstborn son he was fostered at an early age to the home of his maternal grandparents in Doon, and attended the nearby Ummeraboy national school. Showing a ready aptitude for music – he could tune the fiddle at age four, and also learned the accordion and concertina – he was deeply influenced by his uncle Callaghan ‘Cal’ O’Callaghan, an accomplished fiddler recently returned after twenty years in the USA. He completed his primary schooling on returning to his parents’ home in Glountane, then attended secondary school in Ballydesmond, Co. Cork. Bowing to parental expectations, he qualified as a teacher at a Dublin training college; after occupying two substitute posts, he was assigned to Glountane national school during his father’s illness, and was appointed principal teacher in May 1915 within a month of his father’s death.

In contrast to his father, a severe classroom (and household) disciplinarian known to his pupils as ‘the roaster’, Pádraig was kind-hearted and easygoing. Though a gifted teacher, as his life’s work would attest, he was restless within the confines of professional responsibility and classroom routine. A heavy drinker from an early age, playing music in public and private houses late into the nights, he was frequently absent from his duties, reliant on his sister Norah, the other teacher in the one-room school, to cover his classes. After several reprimands and repeated unsatisfactory inspectors’ reports, O’Keeffe walked out of the job on the day that a newly assigned co-master arrived (June 1920). After trying his hand at cattle dealing, and working for a year as a civil servant in Tralee, he adopted the precarious but self-regulated trade of a full-time travelling music teacher. Ranging throughout Sliabh Luachra – a remote upland region of indeterminate extent straddling the Kerry – Cork border eastwards of Castleisland – he walked up to thirty miles (48 km) daily in all weathers, calling at the houses of pupils.

As most of his pupils, unlike himself, were musically illiterate, he devised a simple system of notation in which he wrote out tunes for the pupil to practise until his next visit: the four spaces of the standard five-line staff represented the four strings of the fiddle, with the digits 0 to 4 placed in the appropriate spaces to indicate the fingering required to play each note (0 representing an open string). He contrived a similar ‘code’ for the accordion, and could adapt the system to other instruments. O’Keeffe commanded a vast repertory of tunes, some of his own composition, some learned by ear from other musicians, or radio, or recordings, or read in printed collections; it was said that he knew every tune of Neill’s 1,001. Performing at house dances, informal gatherings, and in the many pubs that punctuated his daily rounds, he routinely astonished fellow musicians with entire evenings of previously unheard tunes, which he would write out on request on odd scraps of paper that came to hand. Never terribly keen to play for dancers, he preferred to play for listening, and rendered dance tunes in a stately, deliberate tempo, caressing every note. He had a remarkable sensitivity for slow airs, his favourites including ‘The banks of the Danube’ and ‘O’Rahilly’s grave’. In performing ‘The old man rocking the cradle’ he would use a large metal door key held in his teeth against the fiddle bridge to mute the tone and mimic an infant’s crying. O’Keeffe’s treatment of a piece was classical in temper, a self-effacing concentration on the integrity of the music – the performer’s purpose being to express the beauty, the depth, the shape of the tune – not a self-aggrandising display of virtuosity. He disdained elaborate flourishes or gratuitous ornamentation; skill in technique and imagination in variation were subservient to the meaning of the music, embellishing the piece, not the player.

A colourful character, O’Keeffe was a celebrated wit and conversationalist with a rich fund of anecdote; his stories and sayings, and accounts of his exploits, endure in local folklore. After abandoning in early manhood his courtship of a local girl, under pressure from his mother who disapproved the match, he never married, but led a confirmed bachelor’s life based in the family’s substantial two-storey house across from the school at Glountane crossroads. The fiddle was ‘the missus’, his ‘only wife’. He told of once leaving a fiddle – ‘the first wife’ – outside during a night of heavy rain; she got the rheumatics, and was no good to him thereafter. Asked by the lender of a bicycle about the vehicle’s whereabouts, he pointed to his throat: ‘Look down and see if the handlebars are sticking up.’ Hearing a pub discussion about the mileage performance of various automobiles, he remarked that he himself that day had done thirty miles to the pint. He described having a dream in which a publican notorious for his meanness stood him a whiskey, asking whether he preferred it hot or cold. ‘Hot,’ Padraig replied, only to awaken before the kettle had boiled; ‘if I’d had it cold, I’d have been right.’ Short of funds, he would enter a pub with ‘the entrance fee’ – the price of the first pint – confident that his music and conversation would induce others to buy him drinks. When music and drink were flowing, he was ‘purring’; on nights of rare conviviality he was ‘purring high’.

Such affability notwithstanding, O’Keeffe was deeply private and enigmatic, by personality and mode of life set apart from the crowd. One of the major figures in the history of Irish traditional music, O’Keeffe left an indelible mark on the distinctive regional style of Sliabh Luachra, an important centre of the mid-twentieth-century revival of the genre. His teaching and playing were central to the preservation and evolution of the style through a period of minimal interest in traditional music. Indifferent to reputation, and travelling little outside Sliabh Luachra, O’Keeffe was not recorded until the late 1940s, when he was nearly 60 and past his prime. The finest examples are those made by Séamus Ennis (qv), with whom his relationship was mutually empathetic; some of these have been commercially released. Kerry fiddles (1977), comprising Ennis’s 1952 recordings for the BBC, includes solos by O’Keeffe, and duets and trios with the brother and sister Denis Murphy (1910–74) and Julia Clifford (1914–97), his most illustrious students. The Sliabh Luachra fiddle master (1993), issued to accompany a series of four RTÉ radio programmes by Peter Browne, includes music from Radio Éireann recordings of 1948–9. A third set of recordings, made by Ennis for the folklore commission (1947), is in UCD. A celebrated photograph of O’Keeffe wielding fiddle, bow, and glass of stout was taken by Liam Clancy during recording sessions in 1955 with the American folklorist Diane Hamilton, who included a track by O’Keeffe on the LP The lark in the morning. During the severe winter of 1962–3, O’Keeffe was periodically isolated in his home, and stranded for a week in a Castleisland pub. Falling seriously ill, he was admitted to St Catherine’s hospital, Tralee, where he died on 22 February 1963. Burial was in the family plot in Kilananama graveyard, Cordal. A portrait bust in Scartaglen overlooks Lyons’s pub, his favourite haunt.

Canon James Goodman, clergyman, Irish-language scholar, and music collector, was born 22 September 1828 at Ballyameen near Dingle, Co. Kerry, second son among five sons and four daughters of Thomas Chute Goodman, clergyman, and Mary Goodman (née Gorham). Brought up on a farm where his family had a good relationship with their catholic neighbours, James grew up bilingual and developed a love of traditional music and song. He entered TCD in July 1846, won awards in Irish and Hebrew, and graduated BA (1851) and MA (1871). He was ordained a deacon in Limerick (12 October 1851) and a priest in Cork (22 May 1853). His first curacy was in the parish of Creagh, Co. Cork, where he began working in 1852 under the Irish Church Missionary Society. He seems to have stayed there until 1858, though he may have also spent some time during this period working in Dunurlin parish, Co. Kerry, where his father was rector. Between 1858 and 1867 he was a curate in Killaconenagh parish on the Beara peninsula, Co. Cork, residing in Ardgroom. In February 1867 he was made vicar of Abbeystrewry parish in Skibbereen, Co. Cork. In 1875 he was made a canon and prebend of Island in the diocese of Ross. He was appointed professor of Irish in TCD in 1879 but was able to continue as vicar in Abbeystrewry as his residency in Dublin was required only part of the year. He retained both positions until his death. He was also a member of the university’s senate during his tenure at Trinity.

Elected to the council of the Ossianic Society in 1853, he had planned to publish an edition of ‘Cath Fionntrágha’, but the demise of the society prevented this and, perhaps having lost some of his enthusiasm for the old literature, he devoted most of his energy to traditional music thereafter. In 1854 he published An duanaire Diadha, a selection of psalms and hymns for the use of Irish-speaking congregations, containing eight pieces he had composed himself. He wrote some original verse in Irish and translated the Old Irish poem ‘St Patrick’s Breastplate’ into the modern language. He also collaborated with James E. H. Murphy, his successor as professor of Irish in TCD, in translating St Luke’s gospel into Irish. This resulted in An soisgéal do réir Naoimh Lúcais (1886). By 1866 he had compiled an impressive manuscript collection of some 2,000 melodies, mostly traditional Irish in content. It comprised both tunes taken down by himself and also music drawn from other manuscripts and printed sources. His principal source was a piper, Tom Kennedy. The collection has been housed in TCD since his death. The work of editing it was undertaken by Hugh Shields, the first portion being published in 1998 as Tunes of the Munster pipers.

Goodman was also an accomplished player of the flute and uilleann pipes, and entertained, among others, John Pentland Mahaffy (qv) in his rooms in TCD. He died at his residence in Skibbereen, 18 January 1896, and was buried in the family vault at nearby Creagh. He married (1852) Charlotte, daughter of Joseph King, who lived in Ventry parish; they had three sons. An arched gateway bearing an inscription to his memory was erected by parishioners at Abbeystrewry church, which he had helped rebuild a few years earlier.

Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography  https://www.dib.ie/

Cormac is concertina player from the west Kerry Gaeltacht and plays 13 concertinas ranging from bass to piccolo register.. The music on his acclaimed debut album and his latest solo work, entitled ‘B’ are central to the award winning show Mám (directed by Micheál Keegan Dolan) and to Pat Collins’ film, ‘The Dance’. He performs with musicians Liam O Connor, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Martin Hayes and Liam Ó Maonlaí, Rushad Eggleston (cello), Lisa O Neill and Ye Vagabonds and has recorded with artists including Lankum, Stephen James Smith, Ré, Jack Talty, Ye Vagabonds and Lisa O’Neill. He is the founder of Airt, a residential school in West-Kerry, the award winning Tunes in the Church live series in Galway, and an outdoor concert series from his campervan, the ‘Beauty’. Cormac trawled through the archives to explore and learn more about the Jew’s harp as part of his Drawing from the Well.

Aoife is a flute/fiddle player and singer from Dingle who holds a PhD in Folklore/Ethnomusicology (Dingle Wren & European Carnival Cultures).. She lectures in Folklore/Béaloideas at the
Folklore Department, UCC and is currently working on her third solo album. A regular contributor to radio and television, Aoife works and publishes in both Irish and English and was appointed
to the Board of the Arts Council of Ireland by Minister Martin in February 2022.

Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich is a singer, songwriter and musician whose musical expression and stylings are deeply rooted within the Irish music, language and song tradition of her homeplace of Corca Dhuibhne, the Gaeltacht of West Kerry, Ireland.. A native Irish speaker, Méabh was born into the renowned musical family of the Begleys whose undeniable influence has helped in shaping her energetic instrumental playing, emotive and sensitive singing style as well as inspired her development of, and transition into her passion for composing and songwriting.

Méabh has enjoyed a full time career in traditional Irish music thus far and has performed both nationally and internationally in countries such as Japan, Taiwan, America, Canada, Russia and across Europe with groups such as acclaimed Irish band Téada, The Pure Irish Drops (The Women of Ireland- The Next Generation), Cuas, Catherine Young Dance, Irish Christmas in America and “Aisling? – An Ród Romhainn” directed by Darach Mac an Iomaire.

She has also performed and given workshops in accordion and song at various international festivals including the Brittany Winter School in France, the Minnesota Irish Music Weekend, the Timmy McCarthy set dancing festival in Tonder, Denmark, as well as at Féile Séamus Creagh in Newfoundland, to name but a few.

She is a member of the 9 piece group, The Síbín Orchestra and often performs alongside her father Séamus Begley. They were invited to perform in Áras an Uachtaráin for the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins as part of a special welcoming reception for the King and Queen of Holland in June 2019.

She has made many radio and television appearances including on RTÉ’s “ The Late Late Show”, BBC Alba’s “Port”, “Sruth na Maoile celebrating 25 years” and more recently on TG4’s “Fleadh 2020″ and “Slán le 2020” on New Year’s Eve.

Compositions

1. The Dawn Chorus [comp. Nickie McAuliffe], polka
2. Port an Ghradam 2019 [comp. Nickie McAuliffe], jig
3. Stroke of midnight [comp. Nickie McAuliffe], jig
4. Athnuachan Dónal [comp. Nickie McAuliffe], reel
5. Memories of Parlour 5, 1971 [comp. Nickie McAuliffe], hornpipe
6. Saint Cecilia’s Reel [comp. Nickie McAuliffe]
7. Tribute to Paddy Fahy [comp. Nickie McAuliffe], reel

Compositions

1. An Cailín bán [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich], jig
2. Beimid ag ithe [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich], jig
3. Deanfaimid waltz [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich]
4. Amhrán na nGael [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich], song
5. Polca Mhary Keane [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich], polka
6. Port Ghavin [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich], jig
7. Ríl Mhary Ellen [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich], reel
8. The cremore road jig [comp. Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich]

Composer

1. The Copper Mines of Killarney [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], jig
2. Deoraíocht an t-Saighdiúra [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], lament
3. The Rogues’ Gallery [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], polka
4. Cúil Uí Chorrbuí [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], reel
5. The Devil’s Ladder [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], reel
6. Flush of Success [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], slide
7. Rhubarb and Ginger [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], slip jig
8. The Fairy Step [comp. Niamh Ní Charra], slip jig
9. Waltz for Rosie [comp. Niamh Ní Charra]