Most of my tunes I tend to name after people and so I named this jig after the great fiddle player and composer Séamus Connolly whose compositions I greatly admire. I hope this tune captures his style of playing to some extent.
When I lived Cork Gary Cronin (fiddle), Des McCabe (pipes) and Pádraig McCarthy (guitar) had a session in the Corner House which I would go to. Gary likes tunes in flat keys, especially hornpipes, and after playing one of these rarer tunes he would joke that it was called ‘Chancery of the Armoury/Armery’. So, I thought that it would be a good name for a hornpipe in B flat.
This jig is featured on my album called ‘Twill Do which was released in 2019. At the time I was living in Cork and trips back to Leitrim were a bit of a trek, but there is no place like home.
Josephine Keegan was not only a great composer but also a great piano accompanist and her duet with fiddle player Seán Maguire was a great source of inspiration. I learnt a lot from listening to their duet recordings and they seemed to perfectly compliment each other.
I named this tune after Michael O’Brien who passed away last year before Christmas. He was a frequent visitor at the sessions in Cryan’s and played far and wide and was a well known and regarded box player. He always had a welcoming smile and was full of energy. If someone decided to dance a few sporadic steps at a session, Michael would often leave down the box and jump up and join in for the craic.
I recorded this reel on my album on the opening track with Kevin Brehony (piano) and Macdara Ó’Faolain (bouzouki). The title comes from the heavy snow fall in 2018 which I spent most of the time couped up inside and boredom was a great means of writing tunes.
I named this tune after a great night of music in Kinvarra with a friend of mine Ger Chambers from Mayo. This tune is also on my album.
This tune is named after a good friend of mine Mike Walsh who is a flute player from Kerry who I used to do sessions with in Cork. I decided to follow the tradition of tune titles such as Paddy Ryan’s Dream, Sgt. Early’s Dream, Sweeney’s Dream, and Conlon’s Dream.
I grew up in Carrick-on-Shannon in Co. Leitrim and started learning the tin whistle at about 7 years of age and then progressed onto the fiddle a couple of years later.. My grandfather John Meehan was my first fiddle tutor and taught me how to read music. In fact, in the beginning I could not learn by ear but only from reading staff notation and after a couple of years I decided to bite the bullet and taught myself how to learn by ear. Because my grandfather mainly learned by reading music, he would ask me to write out any new tune that he did not know whether it was a tune from an album or one that was heard at a session. He particularly liked Paddy Fahy tunes or any tune that was a bit quirky and most of my repertoire was picked up at sessions in Cryan’s in Carrick-on-Shannon. The sessions at Cryan’s with musicians such as Oliver Loughlin, Damian O’Brien, Michael O’Brien (RIP), Dave Sheridan, the McGovern Family, Mick Mulvey, Sean Gilrane and many more frequent visitors were a big part of my musical development. I also attended workshops at the Joe Mooney each year in Drumshanbo where I learnt from great tutors such as Ben Lennon, Bríd Harper, Brendan McGlinchey, and the Kane sisters. Another major influence on my musical development in particular were the recordings of Michael Coleman and his fellow Sligo contemporaries James Morrison, Paddy Killoran, and James ‘Lad’ O’Beirne. My interest in 78rpm recordings was enriched by getting to know Alan Morrisroe who has an extensive collection of 78s and Gregory Daly who has a great knowledge of Sligo music and its history.
In terms of composition, Finbarr Dwyer, Paddy Fahy, Joe Liddy, Brendan McGlinchey, Josephine Keegan, Larry Redican, Charlie Lennon, Ed Reavy and many more are some of the composers whose tunes and imagination have provided me with inspiration.
