Co Clare fiddle player Joe Ryan (1928–2008), from Inagh, lived for most of his life in Dublin and in Co Meath, and also spent time in London. A regular session player, he was a prizewinner from the early 1950s at the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil and the Oireachtas cultural festival, and a member of several ceili bands, notably the Fiach Roe in Clare and the Castle in Dublin. His regular playing companion was fellow-Clareman, fiddle and concertina player John Kelly.
A personal friend of Willie Clancy’s, Joe taught at the Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, since its inception in 1973. Beginning in 1999 he was one of the older players whom Kerry fiddle player Máire O’Keeffe brought in every year to play for fiddle students at the School and to talk to them about their music and their life in music. For five years Irish Traditional Music Archive staff filmed these musical and oral history occasions, as unobtrusively as possible in the midst of the other ongoing music classes and all the hubbub of the School. A selection of music and talk is presented here from Joe Ryan’s contributions to these unique events.
With thanks to Joe Ryan, to the organisers of the Willie Clancy Summer School, & to Dr Máire O’Keeffe (who presented an illustrated lecture on this aspect of her work to the 2013 WCSS).
Nicholas Carolan & Treasa Harkin, 1 August 2013
6 July 2004
8 July 2000
8 July 2000
These ITMA audio recordings feature four Clare musicians who performed for and spoke to students at the 1999 Willie Clancy Summer School, and who have sadly since died
Since the late 1990s Kerry fiddle player Máire O’Keeffe has organised morning recitals and question-and-answer sessions with older source fiddle players and other musicians at the Willie Clancy Summer School. This is done for the enrichment of the fiddle players attending the School’s classes in St Joseph’s Secondary School, Spanish Point, Miltown Malbay, Co Clare. With the generous agreement of the performers, Máire and the School have facilitated the Irish Traditional Music Archive in recording many of these sessions, at first in audio and later in video.
ITMA audio recordings from its 1999 recording session are reproduced here. They feature four Clare musicians who performed for and spoke to the students that year, and who have sadly since died. They are the east Clare fiddle player Paddy Canny from Tulla, and, from west Clare, Bobby Casey from Miltown Malbay and London on fiddle, Tommy McCarthy from Kilmihil and London on concertina, and Joe Ryan from Inagh and Meath on fiddle.
With thanks to the performers, Máire O’Keeffe, the McCarthy family, and the organisers of the Willie Clancy Summer School.
Nicholas Caloran, Ian Lynch & Danny Diamond, 1 June 2012