- IE ITMA P00048
- Person
Showing 277 results
Authority recordO’Brien, Arthur Patrick, 1872-1949
- IE ITMA P00049
- Person
- 1872-1949
Art O'Brien was born in London to a prosperous and established family, his father John Francis O’Brien being a native of Cork. He studied civil and electrical engineering and after working abroad returned to London in c. 1899. Late-Victorian London was the home of a variety of Irish cultural revivalist organisations such as the Southwark Irish Literary Club (founded 1883), the Irish Literary Society (1892), the Irish Texts Society (1896) and the Gaelic League of London (1896). Art O’Brien joined the Gaelic League of London in 1899, and gaelicised his name to Art Ó Briain… ‘thenceforth becoming a regular attendant at the classes and other gatherings’.
Art O’Brien was to play a substantial role in nationalist politics following the outbreak of the First World War as a member of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood in London, and in founding the Irish Self-Determination League of Great Britain (1920–21). His political career was however marred by financial controversy and he removed himself from political life until 1933, but remained President of the Gaelic League of London until 1935. Under Sean T. O’Kelly he was appointed Irish Minister to France and Belgium 1935–1938. He died in Dublin in 1949.
O’Keeffe, James George, 1865-1937
- IE ITMA P00050
- Person
- 1865-1937
Seamus O’Keeffe (James George O’Keeffe) was an exhibition dancer for the Gaelic League of London. A native of Kanturk, Co Cork, Seamus was steeped in the language, literature and dance of his native area. He was educated in Blackrock College, Dublin, and moved to London in 1885 to work as a civil servant in the War Office. As a member of the Irish Literary Society and the Gaelic League of London, he taught Irish-language classes. With the League, he and Kathleen O’Brien of Limerick taught step dancing classes in Madame Geree's Ballet Dance Parlours in Leicester Square, and with Liam O’Looney of Cork performed exhibition dances. London-based dance master Patrick Reidy introduced a repertory of group dances or ‘ceili’ dances such as 'The Siege of Ennis' and 'The Walls of Limerick' which were easier to learn. O’Keeffe and O’Brien visited Kerry following the Ballyvourney Feis in 1899 to add to their social dances and meet an increased demand for such dances. The Gaelic League of London played an important role in introducing the concept of Irish ceili dancing to London in the 1890s. The popularity of such social dancing within the Gaelic League movement may well have provided the impetus to share and publish a description of the dances in 1902.
James George O’Keeffe was a respected and prolific editor of Irish-language texts as a member of the Irish Texts Society and Scoil Ard-Léinn na Gaeilge, publishing for example Táin Bó Cuailgne from the Yellow Book of Lecan with John Strachan and Buile Suibhne. In 1914 he was appointed a financial advisor for the British War Office in the United States and was awarded an OBE. in 1918. He died in Richmond, Surrey in 1937.
- IE ITMA P00052
- Person
Alen MacWeeney is a Dublin-born photographer. He began his career in Paris at the age of twenty, as Richard Avedon’s assistant. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker and LIFE magazine and his photographs are in the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman House, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and others. As well as taking photographic portraits of the Irish travelling community he also recorded their music, songs and stories.
- IE ITMA P00053
- Person
- b. 1957-
O’Brien-Moran, Jimmy. (1957-). Uilleann pipes, saxophone. Born at Tramore, Co. Waterford, his interest in Irish music, and piping especially, was awakened through Planxty, whose sleeve notes prompted his listening to Séamus Ennis and Willie Clancy. At age seventeen he began playing on a Matt Kiernan chanter and homemade bag and bellows. Lessons from Tommy Kearney, tips from Donncha Ó Maidín and Pat Mitchell’s classes at the Willie Clancy Summer School in 1975 and 1976, at Liam O’Flynn’s in 1977, all developed his playing, placing him on The Piper’s Rock showcase album of young pipers in 1977. He played pipes, whistle and saxophone with Scullion 1979–80 and also played saxophone in a ten-piece dance band for several years. Having worked in the jewellery trade for a number of years he took a music degree in 1992 and now lectures at WIT. His PhD research at UL concerned Galway piper Paddy Conneely; he was Fulbright visiting professor at Boston College in 2008. He plays a pre-1825 Colgan B set, this ‘loaned for life’ by the late Seán Reid. He played at the Sense of Ireland festival in London in 1980 and at the French 1996 l’Imaginaire Irlandais festival, has toured Europe, and USA and New Zealand. He gives workshops, lectures and writes in the field of piping. His solo cd entitled Seán Reid’s Favourite was released in 1996.
- IE ITMA P00054
- Person
- 1939-2021
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.
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.
- IE ITMA P00055
- Person
- 1900-1991
- IE ITMA P00056
- Person
- 1936-
Michael McNamara was born in 1936 to parents Patrick McNamara and Bridget Reilly. Second eldest in a family of five living children, Michael’s mother died when he was five years old. Subsequent to his mother’s untimely death, Michael was reared by his father in their homestead in Carrickavoher, Aughavas, Co. Leitrim.
Though life was not easy on a subsistence farm, Michael and his siblings grew up in a house which constantly received visitors, particularly local farmers who visited on a Sunday night to ‘ceili’ and keep company with Michael’s father Patrick. Though not musicians or singers, these neighbours were influential in developing Michael’s great interest in storytelling.
Michael’s dad also had songs that he would sing around the fireplace to his young children to entertain them after the chores for the day were completed. This had a particular influence on Michael’s sister Josephine.
Of particular significance in Michael's life were the visits from local flute player, singer and storyteller, John Blessing. Witnessing this master player an early age, progressed to lessons on the whistle in 1951 and eventually the flute.
Michael met his wife Mary (nee [?]) at a dance in Belturbet, Co. Cavan in the early 1960s where she was dancing and he was playing as a member of the Eugene Leddy Ceili Band. They married in 19[??] and raised a family of five children all of whom play traditional music. While reluctant to be in the musical limelight Mary was the 'nucleus' of the McNamara Family. Mary died in August 2015.
Michael’s passion for the music, and desire to hear and learn good music, motivated him to acquire a Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder in 1959. Few such devices existed in the Irish traditional music community at that time. It was on this tape recorder that Michael captured the Ceili Mór in Aughavas in 1959, and the local crowning of his sister Josephine as the Ballad Queen of Ireland, following her successive wins at All Ireland Fleadh Cheoil in 1958 and 1959.
As more advanced technology came to the market, Michael invested in Toshi and Sony tape recorders. The Sony tape recorder is shown below. The expense and availability of new tapes meant that many of the reel-to-reel tapes were re-used for recording. But in total 83 reel-to-reels still exist capturing multiple hours of material from 1959 to the early 1970s.
From the early 1970s Michael moved to the more convenient cassette tape recorder.
- IE ITMA P00057
- Person
- 1945-2018
Born Kill, Co. Kildare. His father, also Liam, plays fiddle; his mother, Maisie Scanlan, had links to Co. Clare music through her cousin, Junior Crehan. He was introduced to uilleann pipes by Garda Tom Armstrong who had won prizes at Oireachtas and Fleadh Cheoil in his early teens. O’Flynn studied initially under Leo Rowsome, and later was influenced by Willie Clancy and Séamus Ennis (who bequeathed his pipes to him). A solidly traditional player, he has also been involved in many imaginative projects. He was a founder member of Planxty in 1972, with Christy Moore, Dónal Lunny and Andy Irvine, and played on all their recordings. In 1980 he recorded The Brendan Voyage, a work for solo uilleann pipes and orchestra, written by Shaun Davey. He also worked with Davey on Granuaile, The Relief of Derry Symphony and The Pilgrim. His fi lm score credits include collaborations with Mark Knopfl er and Elmer Bernstein. He has appeared and recorded with John Cage, and with popular musicians Kate Bush, Enya and The Everley Brothers, and has also performed with Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney. He took part in the first concert of Irish music to take place in the BBC Proms at the Albert Hall in London in 1999, played in Celtique Nuit at Stade de France in Paris and Shaun Davey’s Dublin Special Olympics performance in 2003. Among his c. 50 recordings are The Poet and the Piper (2003, with Seamus Heaney) and Voices from the Merry Cemetery (2009, with Davey, Rita Connolly and Seán Keane and others). In 2004 he was part of the Planxty regrouping, and in 2007 he was awarded TG4’s Gradam Ceoil.
- IE ITMA P00058
- Person
Hannan, Robbie. (1961– ). Uilleann pipes. Born in Belfast and raised in the nearby town of Hollywood, Co. Down, he took an interest in traditional music in his early teens and started to learn the pipes at the age of fifteen. The Fermanagh piper Seán McAloon was a great source of encouragement and the piping of Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy and Tommy Reck were influential in his playing. Other influences have been his interest in Co. Donegal fiddle playing and the Irish-language song tradition. His recordings include two solo albums and a duet album with the fiddler Paddy Glackin. A graduate of QUB, where he studied Celtic languages and literature and Law, he presented The Long Note on RTÉ Radio 1984–5 and has presented a number of traditional music series on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and BBC Radio Ulster. He was appointed curator of musicology in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in 1995 and since 2008 has held the position of head of folk life and agriculture in the same institution. He has been chair of Na Píobairí Uilleann since 2006.
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