Mostrar 277 resultados

Dermot Francis Roche, known to his friends and family as “Derm,” was born on 11 April 1928 and lived his life in the community of Branch—the place he called “a piece of heaven.” It was there that he met and married his wife, Rita. It was also where they built their home and raised their eight children. He worked as a truck driver, which meant that he often was away from home.
Dermot was involved in local politics, serving as the mayor of Branch on a number of occasions, as well as on the town council. He was an avid advocate for his community, and played a major role in advocating for the road that now connects Branch and North Harbour—an essential link to the rest of Newfoundland for the people of Branch.
In his free time, Derm enjoyed fly fishing in Branch’s salmon river. Over the years, he patiently taught family and strangers alike the art of casting.
Three of Dermot’s children—Karen, John, and Paula—shared this description of Derm’s musical life:
"Dermot developed his love of traditional music while growing up in Branch, an isolated community along the Cape Shore. Kitchen parties were a regular part of life in Branch, and songs, music, and dance were handed down from generation to generation. Derm’s mother, Mary Ellen Roche, was considered a great accordion player. She played for the local dances and events, and it was said that she could make the accordion talk! As children, Dermot and his siblings sang songs at bedtime, and people from the local community would sometimes stop to listen.
As an adult, Dermot learned new songs in the camps while working away from home. People from all over also stayed at these camps and during their down time, they would sing and swap songs, as well as have step-dancing competitions!
Dermot, along with his sisters-in-law Lucy Nash and Mary Power, and with Mary’s husband, Anthony, formed the traditional Newfoundland dance team called ‘The Branch Crowd.’ They performed the Lancers and the Square Set—set dances associated with Newfoundland and particularly with Branch—at events such as the St John’s Folk Festival; they even travelled to the Mariposa Festival in Toronto.
When he was at home, Dermot especially loved ‘the time’—the Newfoundland name for a kitchen party—held at his house or other homes along the Cape Shore. These events were about sharing the kinship of having friends and family together; they captured the old times by reviving songs, music, and dance. ‘The time’ was a way for us kids to hear about the past in a fun way, but also to learn the songs, music, and dances, so that we could keep the traditions alive.
‘The drunken captain’ was a staple of Dermot’s repertoire of songs, along with ‘The alphabet song,’ and ‘The soldier’s letter,’ to name a few. Although the origins of ‘The drunken captain’ are unknown, it became a signature song for Keith (Derm’s eldest son); after Keith passed, Dermot would sing it as tribute to him."
Dermot died on 7 June 2007.

MacMahon, Tony. (1939– 2021). Accordion player, television producer, commentator; born at the Turnpike, Ennis, Co. Clare. His father P.J. was a builder, of Irish-speaking parents from Kilmaley. His mother Kitty (née Murphy), from Connolly, was a first cousin to concertina player Paddy Murphy and a neighbour of fiddler Hughdie Mac Mathúna, Ciarán 420 Doohan. Hugely influenced by Joe Cooley (who was a regular visitor to the family home) from age ten, it was ‘the master’ who gave him his first accordion (a small piano model), and later piper Seán Reid provided a button instrument. His brothers Brendan and Christy played accordion too, and sister Ita (mother of Mary and Andrew McNamara) danced. Training as a teacher in Dublin from 1957 introduced him to Sonny Brogan, Bill Harte, John Kelly and Breandán Breathnach. Sharing Séamus Ennis’s apartment in Bleecker Street, New York in 1963, he was coached by him in air-playing. He played sessions at O’Donoghue’s in Merrion Row, met Seán Ó Riada and singers from Coolea at An tOireachtas in the RDS, and played for the BBC sound recording of The Playboy of the Western World. In 1966 MacMahon played with Bobby Casey, recording with him and others on the Topic record Paddy in the Smoke. Busking in France and Morocco led him back to Dublin where he ran a weekly session of traditional music and poetry at Slattery’s of Capel Street in aid of the ANC. From 1969 he was a freelance TV presenter with RTÉ for traditional music programmes Aisling Geal, then Ag Déanamh Ceoil; in 1974 he joined the RTÉ staff as radio producer, and initiated The Long Note.
values. An exceptional performer on accordion – particularly in his interpretation of airs – he nevertheless considers that instrument inappropriate to the ethos of traditional music, is unimpressed by modern trends in traditional music, and strongly believes that the art of the older traditional musicians is dying. This is refl ected in the choice of musicians for his later television series The Pure Drop. The flashback series Come West along the Road, drawing on television archive material, is his most recent traditional music media work. His earlier presentation of music and his later production complemented an intense rigour in music expression and a personality which created and maintained an active consciousness of the artistic understatement involved in traditional music. His work demonstrated this, and his articulate intelligence was a vital sound-post through the fi nal three decades of the twentieth century. music. MacMahon’s first solo recording was, in the manner of the times, self-titled: Tony MacMahon (1972), reissued two decades after as Traditional Irish Accordion. He played on Cry of the Mountain (1981) with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, and with concertina player Noel Hill on I gCnoc na Graí (1985), an outstanding production of thrillingly interwoven, balanced music, social dance, rural artistic ethos and technology that stands timelessly as universally appreciable collaborative art. Also with Hill is Aislingí Ceoil (1993), with singer Iarla Ó Lionaird. MacMahon recorded with the Boys of the Lough on Good Friends (1978) and his 2001 solo MacMahon from Clare brings production skills to the fore again as a quite dramatic reworking of solid old tunes. His retirement from RTÉ in 1998 marked only a transfer to reflective performance. His music-making has involved work of varying intensity with poetry, prose and music integrating the past with the present: The Well, a theatrical/ music production, experiment and performance with Kronos, 2009 visual work with Dermot Bolger – all challenging, inventive productions with spoken word and authoritative musicianship. In 2004 he was given TG4’s Gradam Saoil for his contribution as a broadcaster and a musician.