Éamon Ó Donnchadha (Seán Ó Gaora)

Éamonn Ó Donnchadha, singing 2 songs collected by Séamus Ennis in Conamara from Seán Ó Gaora

Seán Ó Gaora, Aill na Brón, Cill Chiaráin. He was born in 1902 in his grandfather’s house in Aill na Brón. His father died when he was a child and his mother and sister went to live in America. Seán learned most of his songs from his grandfather and was around twenty years old when he died. Seán attended school in An Aird Mhóir when he was eight. He worked with seaweed, went seafaring and worked on the land and at home when he left school. When he was about twenty he suffered a bad fall by the shore and spent a year in bed with no movement in his legs. He said, if it had not been for a local doctor and the priest, he would never have put a foot under him again. The priest had visited him one day and asked him if he would like to walk again and he said he would rather that than anything else and the priest told him he would walk again as well as ever. When he could walk again, he started to work as a tailor. Éamon (Liam Éamoin) de Búrca, came at that time from An Aird Mhóir and married Seán’s aunt in the house in which Seán lived. Seán learned the trade and his life’s profession from him. Seán was not regarded as a good singer but played the fiddle, and there was a constant stream of visitors to the house. He died in the 1950s. 

Ennis visited Seán on almost each one of his visits to Conamara between 1942 and 1946. He wrote a great deal and a great variety of material from him. Typical of the diary entries following a visit to Seán are the following: ’31 August 1942,  I spent the afternoon and some of the evening with Seán Geary. I wrote down five tunes from him’, 14. November 1942, Writing songs from John Geary, Aill na Brón, the entire afternoon’ or 20 November 1942: ‘The day and the evening were spent with Seán Geary. I wrote down many words. ‘