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Louis Eamon Quinn was born in 1904 in Newtownhamilton, Co., Armagh. He had a few lessons with a local fiddler, Henry Savage, before emigrating to Canada in 1928. Finding his way to New York in 1931, he quickly became acclimated to the Irish music scene. He became friendly with many of the top musicians of the time, including the legendary fiddlers Michael Coleman, James Morrison, and James “Lad” O’Beirne, with whom he maintained a lifetime association, the two of them forming one of the most accomplished fiddle duos ever.

During the 1930’s, Louis hosted a weekly Irish radio program. With few organized music clubs in existence at the time, the traditional music scene revolved around impromptu sessions and Louis Quinn was a regular participant in most of them in New York. In the 1950’s, with the late Ed Reavy of Philadelphia and the late Frank Thornton of Chicago, both also among the most respected traditional musicians, Louis helped establish the first national organization for Irish music in America, the “Irish Musicians Association,” becoming its first President and National Chairman. This united organization provided a network of clubs that fostered the Irish traditional music so enjoyed by the Irish community and the I.M.A. grew rapidly, with many branches forming in New York, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Long Island. Among them was the Louis E. Quinn Branch, founded in 1959 in Mineola. With Louis instrumental in incorporating the I.M.A.’s branches into Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann in the early 1970’s, that club, still centered in Mineola, became the Mulligan-Quinn Branch of Comhaltas.

Throughout his life, Louis Quinn was a dedicated and able ambassador for Irish music and culture on both sides of the Atlantic. He was singularly responsible for promoting and popularizing the music of his friend Ed Reavy both in America and Ireland, including recording two of Reavy’s reels on a Rounder records tribute album issued in 1979. Countless musicians, both Irish and American born, have been greatly helped in their careers by the tireless efforts of Louis Quinn to keep the spirit and traditions of the Irish alive and well. Louis Quinn died in March 1991, just shy of his 87th birthday.

Louis and Mary Quinn’s five sons, Sean, Brian, Kevin, Louis Jnr, and Pat, and two daughters, Mary Lou and Kathleen, have added to his musical legacy by their own successes playing Irish traditional music and performing and teaching step-dancing.

Roscommon-born Larry Redican (1908–1975) joined flute players John McKenna and Eddie Meehan, and pianist Frank Fallon on a few 1937 recordings by the “Rosaleen Quartet.” Most of Redican’s music making, however, was heard in private sessions, at Gaelic League céilidhe or step dancing feiseanna.

While he enjoyed a brief career as a 78 rpm recording artist before the war, his real heyday was in the 1950s and 1960s. Redican was particularly in demand to play for dancers. The world of New York step dancing was upended in the 1950s with the arrival from Belfast of teachers Peter and Cyril McNiff, who introduced a new style that radically slowed the tempo to allow for more fancy footwork. To play for this kind of dancing required rock-solid tempo and precision, and Larry Redican was the one recruited by the McNiffs (along with Louis and Sean Quinn) to play with them on a 1961 tour of Ireland. He also joined Andy McGann to play for the McNiff dancers on St. Patrick’s Day-themed television programs hosted by Arthur Godfrey or Ed Sullivan. Redican also played the tenor banjo. He delighted in unearthing old tunes from printed collections and composed a few himself that are still popular with today’s traditional players. He passed away doing what he loved best, playing the fiddle, at the Irish American Society in Mineola, Long Island.   

Andy McGann, born in west Harlem in 1928, was the young Yankee in the group of immigrants in Lad O’Beirne’s circle. His parents were good friends of Michael Coleman, who gave the boy a music stand and much encouragement. Andy got more hands-on instruction from Catherine Brennan-Grant, who gave Andy a foundation in classical violin technique, lending a polished elegance to his Sligo-style traditional music repertoire.

Andy McGann’s elegant and urbane interpretation of the classic Sligo repertoire and style brought him a deserved reputation as America’s finest home-grown Irish fiddle player. His father Andrew and mother Margaret were immigrants from Marlow, Ballymote and nearby Keash in south County Sligo. When Andy was born, the family lived in west Harlem but moved soon thereafter to 140th Street and Cypress Avenue in the south Bronx, a neighbourhood that in the 1930s and 1940s was home to many of the finest Irish musicians in America, including Sligo fiddle greats Paddy Killoran and James Lad O’Beirne.

With his brother John, Andy took step dancing lessons from Kerry master Seán Murphy. J.P. Cuffe, a family friend, interested the boy in playing the fiddle. His father tried to get another friend, Michael Coleman, to give Andy lessons but Coleman didn’t teach beginners. He did, however, give the seven-year-old Andy a music stand and much encouragement. For hands-on instruction, they turned instead to Catherine Brennan, a classically trained violinist who had been adopted into the Sligo fiddle fraternity in New York. Andy studied Irish and classical music with Brennan for five years and got a further dose of classical education as a teenager in the orchestra at Cardinal Hayes High School. By this time, Andy was sufficiently advanced to be able to play with Coleman during the master’s visits to (and occasional residence in) the McGann home. He maintained a musical friendship with Coleman until the latter’s death in 1945.

Andy was a frequent attendee at sessions in Lad O’Beirne’s apartment in the 1940s, sitting in with the fiddling aristocracy that gravitated to O’Beirne, a coterie that included Louis Quinn and Philadelphia-based composer Ed Reavy. In 1948, he struck up a friendship with Longford immigrant Paddy Reynolds, another follower of O’Beirne. Andy and Paddy formed a musical partnership that lasted for decades, playing at parties, Gaelic League céilidhe and dancing feiseanna, often taking gigs passed to them by Paddy Killoran, who took a small commission for the referrals.

In 1958, Andy was one of the founders of the New York Céilí Band, an all-star ensemble that included button accordionist Paddy O’Brien, then living in New York, as well as fellow fiddlers Paddy Reynolds and Larry Redican. He recorded a couple of unreleased tracks with the band, but family and work commitments prevented him from joining them when, in 1960, they flew to Ireland to compete at the fleadh in Boyle.

Andy’s other lasting musical partnership was with Galway button accordionist Joe Burke, who lived in New York from 1962 to 1965 and was a frequent visitor thereafter. It was Burke who gave Andy, at age 37, his first chance to make a studio recording. A Tribute to Michael Coleman, recorded in a few hours with Burke and pianist Felix Dolan, was issued in 1965 on Burke’s own Shaskeen label. Issued at a time when very few Irish traditional music records were being made, this disc, which includes several outstanding McGann solo tracks, was one of the most influential traditional albums of the 1960s.

When Dan Collins and Rich Nevins founded Shanachie Records in 1975, Andy again got the opportunity to record. His first LP for the label was a duet outing with Paddy Reynolds, backed by a young Paul Brady on guitar. A solo disc, again with Brady, followed in 1977 and The Funny Reel, a reunion with Joe Burke and Felix Dolan, in 1979.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Andy played bar gigs in New York with a series of singer/guitarists who included Corkman Donie Carroll. He was often joined at these engagements by Leitrim button accordionist Gus Murray, Kerrymen Johnny “Fiddle” Cronin and Johnny “Accordion” Cronin or Kilkenny native Joe “Banjo” Burke. Andy made occasional visits to St. Louis in these years to play with Joe Burke at McGurk’s pub and was in demand to play at traditional music festivals and concerts in New York, the Catskills and Philadelphia, occasionally reuniting with Paddy Reynolds at these engagements.

The esteem in which Andy’s music was held in Ireland was seen in 1990, when he was flown across the Atlantic to serve as the honorary president of Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, held that year in Sligo Town. He returned in 1992 to perform at a Sligo fiddlers concert in Tubbercurry.

Echoes of Andy McGann’s music are still heard in New York today in the playing of Brian Conway and his students. The 1986 All-Ireland fiddle champion was taught more directly by Martin Mulvihill and Martin Wynne but was strongly influenced by Andy’s playing. Brian, in turn, has passed on McGann’s style and repertoire to Pat Mangan and many other younger fiddlers. Andy’s final studio recording session was a guest appearance on Conway’s 2002 Smithsonian disc First Through the Gate, on which the old master joined Conway and Mangan in seamless fiddle duets and trios.

Andy McGann, who worked as an accountant and bookkeeper, was married twice. With his first wife, Marie, he had four sons. Some years after her death, he married Patricia, with whom he had a daughter, Meghan, a flute player and step dancer. Andy succumbed to cancer in 2004 and was interred, with a fiddle-playing guard of honour at the graveside, in St. Raymond’s cemetery in the Bronx, where his monument stands not far from those of Michael Coleman, Paddy Killoran and James Morrison.

Paddy Reynolds landed in New York from County Longford in 1948 and briefly settled in Brooklyn before moving to the Bronx. He had already led his own dance band back in Ireland, while simultaneously working on the Ballyshannon hydroelectric project, but was awed when he encountered Lad O’Beirne’s fiddling and re-made himself in New York as a Sligo stylist. Paddy formed a firm partnership with Andy McGann, often taking gigs referred to them by Paddy Killoran when the old master had too much on his plate.
Paddy Reynolds was born on 17 December1920 to James and Mary Ann Quinn Reynolds, who farmed 67 acres in townland of Garvary in the parish of Dromard (Lower Killoe) in north County Longford. Paddy had to steal his first tunes on the fiddle, using an instrument reserved for his eldest brother James, but the youngster’s precocious talent could not be denied. His earliest musical influences were his mother, who played the fiddle, and his aunt Ellen, a singer and lilter. By the age of ten he was playing at house parties and dances with a group called “The Moonlight Rovers” and later played at a local concert that featured the great uilleann piper Leo Rowsome.

During World War II, Paddy worked as a farm laborer in Fermanagh. After the war, while working on the Ballyshannon hydroelectric project in Donegal, he led a group called the Four Provinces Céilí Band, playing for dances in south Donegal, north Leitrim and Derry. In 1948, he took a liner to Halifax, Nova Scotia and made his way to New York, where his sisters Helen and Mary had preceded him. He moved to Brooklyn and got his first musical employment in a trio with John and Nancy Ryan. At one of their gigs, he met Elizabeth “Lilly” Roughneen from Mayo. They married in 1951 and settled at Cypress Avenue and 149th Street in the south Bronx, a neighbourhood already crowded with traditional musicians, including Sligo fiddle great James Lad O’Beirne.

Paddy became a regular attendee at Lad’s Friday night house sessions, where he played with Paddy Killoran, Larry Redican, Martin Wynne, Louis Quinn, and other members of the city’s Irish music aristocracy. Paddy formed a duet partnership with fiddling neighbour Andy McGann. Over the next three decades they would play together at countless parties, weddings, céilidhe and step dancing feiseanna .In 1958, Paddy was a founding member of the New York Céilí Band, joining a fiddle section that included Andy McGann and Larry Redican. He was with the band when they travelled to Boyle, County Roscommon in 1960 to compete at the All-Ireland fleadh.

In the 1960s Paddy and Lily moved to Brooklyn, where they raised their daughter Mary and two sons Stephen and James. Paddy struck up a music teaching partnership with accordionist John Glynn. There were few opportunities for Irish traditional musicians to perform in public in those years, but live television offered an occasional outlet, especially around the time of St Patrick’s Day, and Paddy appeared on the Ed Sullivan and Merv Griffin shows.

In the 1970s, Paddy finally got a chance to put his fiddling on record. In 1971 he collaborated with button accordionist Charlie Mulvihill and pianist Felix Dolan to record eight solo and duet tracks for Sweet and Traditional Music of Ireland, a Rego Irish Records LP that also included cuts from button accordionist James Keane. Paddy and Charlie’s contributions to that disc were later reissued on the Kells Music CD The Atlantic Wave. In 1977 Paddy and Andy went into the studio with a then-obscure guitarist named Paul Brady to make an LP for Shanachie Records, a disc widely regarded as one of the greatest Irish fiddle duet recordings of all time. Paddy can also be heard on the 1990 Green Linnet CD My Love is in America recorded at an all-star fiddle concert at Boston College. He featured prominently in From Shore to Shore, a 1993 video documentary on Irish music in New York City, and played for a dance scene featuring Brad Pitt in the 1997 Columbia Pictures film The Devil’s Own. Paddy passed away in Staten Island in 2005 at the age of 84. Paddy Reynolds: Classic Recordings of the Irish Fiddle Legend, a collection of privately made and unreleased tracks, was issued shortly after his death.

Of the four fiddling 'greenhorns' who arrived in New York in 1928, just in time for the Great Depression - James Lad O'Beirne, Donegal native Hugh Gillespie, Roscommon man Larry Redican and Mayo-born John McGrath, Lad O’Beirne has perhaps the greatest reputation among traditional musicians.

Born in 1911 in the townland of Bellanalack near Ballymote, County Sligo, ''Lad'' was only 16 when he disembarked in New York. But as a son of fiddle master Philip O’Beirne, one of Michael Coleman’s chief influences, he was soon welcomed into elite musical circles. The connection to Coleman was strengthened when he married the older fiddler’s niece Mary in 1942. O’Beirne never made a solo commercial disc of his own, though he did cut a handful of 78 rpm sides, including one fantastic hornpipe duet with a band led by Louis Quinn. Cassette copies of some of Lad’s privately made home disc recordings circulated for years, and some of those discs have now been added to ITMA’s collection. Lad’s reputation as one of the greatest of Irish fiddlers is largely based on the impression he made on fellow musicians at house parties, private sessions and on trips back to Ireland.

Perhaps the greatest collection of Irish fiddle players ever assembled in one neighbourhood lived and played in the south Bronx in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Lad O’Beirne was the dean of this college of fiddle masters. Reels and jigs echoed from O’Beirne’s apartment every Friday night, windows thrown open to ventilate parties that drew the likes of Paddy Killoran, Paddy Sweeney, Tim Harte, Tom Connolly, Larry Redican, Louis Quinn, Vincent Harrison, Martin Wynne, Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds. Cavan-born Philadelphia resident Ed Reavy was a frequent visitor, bringing his latest compositions to New York for the delectation of his musical peers.

Paddy Reynolds, Andy McGann, Vincent Harrison, Louis Quinn, Ed Reavy and Sligo brothers Séamus and Manus McGuire are among the many musical associates who attested to Lad’s genius as fiddler and composer. Several of Lad’s unnamed compositions are now in general circulation among traditional players the world over. When he passed away in 1980, Lad, like Coleman, Morrison and Killoran, was laid to rest in St. Raymond’s cemetery in the Bronx. 

Aggie Whyte was born in Ballinakill, Co. Galway, in 1920. Her father Tommy was a well known musician and a founder member of the Ballinakill Dance Players, later the Ballinakill Ceilidhe Band. Ballinakill was an area renowned for its musical tradition and at that time, every house boasted a fiddle or flute in the chimney corner.

Aggie's first teacher was, undoubtedly, her father Tommy, and then arrived on the scene one of those rare, dedicated teachers of traditional music, Jack Mulkere. Aggie was one of his first pupils in Ballinakill old school. From an early age, she showed great promise and it wasn't long before she was in demand at concerts, feiseanna and particularly in her own house in Ballinakill which, at that time, was a mecca for musicians from far and near. Her earliest successes included trophies won at feiseanna in Creggs, Roscommon, Ardrahan, Gort and Ballinakill itself. All along the way, she was encouraged by her parish priest Fr. Tom Larkin, himself a fiddler and a founder member of the Ballinakill Dance Players. In 1938, Aggie travelled to England with the band. On returning from London, they made recordings in Dublin under His Master's Voice label. From then on she was a regular member of the band and they travelled extensively. Incidentally, one of their engagements was playing at the 21st Birthday party of Lord Killanin, later to be President of the Olympic Council.

By now, Aggie had become a household name. This was due to her success in 'Newcomer's Hour' on Raidió Éireann and her participation on many radio programmes in Ireland, England and Scotland. During post war years, Aggie featured in reciprocal folk music programmes with Irish, Dutch and Italian radio stations. She paid many visits to Dublin and the 'Calling House' was of course 'The Pipers Club'. Here she partnered the Rowsomes, Searys, Recks and many others.

In January 1951 Alan Lomax and Robin Roberts undertook the work of systematically mapping by recordings, the folk or oral music tradition of Ireland. Recordings had already been made by Brian George of B.B.C. in 1947. Accompanied by Séamus Ennis, they travelled to places in Ireland where Irish was spoken and music played. With the co-operation of Séamus Ó Duilearga and Séan O'Sullivan of the Irish Folklore Commission, Raidió Éireann and the B.B.C., a collection of recordings was issued. Solo recordings of Aggie are featured in this collection, as well as with the band and a duet with her sister, Bridie, entitled, 'The Mason’s Apron', adjudged by Séamus Ennis as being a perfect fiddle duet.

In 1952 Aggie married Séamus Ryan, a Cork man with a great love of the Irish language and culture. In 1953, their twin daughters Kathleen and Maureen were born. The following year in 1954, Aggie won the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle Competition in Cavan, a win she prized all her life. She also won All-Ireland honours in duets with Joe Burke, and with bands, notably the Leitrim Céilí Band. She also played and toured with the Tulla Céilí Band. In 1958, Aggie won the Oireachtas Gold Medal for Fiddle, and the Oireachtas Duet competition with Peadar O'Loughlin – another great feat.

Along with competing, Aggie and Séamus became popular and most competent adjudicators at county, provincial and All-Ireland level. Of Aggie, her co-adjudicator Fr. P.J. Kelly once said:
Along with her artistic accomplishments, was also her ability at fleadhanna to adjudicate with real skill. I could face my audience with complete self assurance once I had talked it over with Aggie.
In the Whyte family the music was not confined to Aggie alone. Her sister Bridie, an accomplished fiddler, joined her in recordings and radio and television appearances and also in a later grouping of the Céilí Band. Eva, a versatile ballad singer featured also on radio and was nationally known for her renderings of 'The Little Thatched Cabin'.

There was a constant stream of musicians to Aggie's home in Ballinakill. Joe Burke was a regular visitor; so was Peadar O'Loughlin, Séamus Connolly, Eddie Moloney, Mickey Hanrahan, Willie Clancy, Paddy O'Brien, Paddy Carty and many more. Fr. J. Solon, C.C. Portumna, recorded a wealth of this music. There was always one who got into the act at the most inopportune time - Pudsy, the black and white terrier, who barked in the middle of the recording!

Aggie's help to aspiring fiddlers was always forthcoming. Although she never taught the fiddle, yet she shared her expertise with young musicians. She was ready to show them correct positioning and intricate triplets or correct phrasing. Aggie's musical life continued throughout the 1970s. In 1971 the family journeyed to East Durham, a holiday centre in the Catskills, in Upstate New York. There, Andy McGann, Mike Rafferty, Tom Comiskey, Jack Coen, Pat Mulvihill, and the Kehoe family came and joined in the sessions.

Also during the '70s, Séamus and Aggie really enjoyed performing in the local Seisiún productions. In February 1978, Aggie was invited to University College Cork, where a seminar on fiddling styles was held. Aggie represented the East Galway style.

Nature hushed on the 16th August 1979 when Aggie Whyte Ryan said her final goodbye to Ballinakill and the country she loved so well. This wonderful musician who had so often recorded at His Master's Voice, now responded to her heavenly Master's Call and the appointment she had to fill at the Seisiún in Birr, was kept in Heaven.

By Michael Harrison