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Authority record

McConnell, Cathal

  • IE ITMA P00106
  • Person
  • b. 1944
Cathal McConnell, flute player, whistle player and singer, was born in Bellanaleck, Co Fermanagh, in 1944, and has been immersed in traditional music all his life. He is from a musical family, being a fourth-generation flute player. His father Sandy, a well known traditional singer and musician, recorded for the BBC in the 1950s. An All-Ireland champion on whistle and flute at 18, Cathal has been a virtuoso professional musician for over forty years, constantly touring the world since 1967 with the Edinburgh-based traditional group The Boys of the Lough, of which he was a founder-member with Robin Morton and Tommy Gunn. Having absorbed the music and song of his native region from musicians and singers such as Big John McManus, John Joe Maguire, Eddie Duffy and Mick Hoy, Cathal has spread a knowledge and awareness of this local repertory widely through his own performances, and has added items from it to the national repertory. Cathal has lived in Edinburgh for many years now.

Grier, Stephen, 1824-1894

  • IE ITMA P00004
  • Person
  • 1824-1894
Piper, fiddle player and collector. A native of Abbeylara, Granard, Co. Longford, he lived at Bohey, Gortletteragh, Co. Leitrim. His collection of over 1,000 tunes was compiled in 1883; sixty-four of these appear in Ceol Rince na hÉireann 4. Grier’s work was passed on to his protégé William Mulvey, who, with his son Edward and Michael McGuinness of Bornacoola, appears in a picture of pipers at the 1912 Dublin Feis Cheoil. A notable feature of Grier’s collection is the wide variety of tune types and range of modes. The prominence of dance music and the absence of a bass clef both indicate a musician of the ‘folk’ tradition. The work includes c. 300 reels, 200 jigs, fifty hornpipes and forty slip jigs. Other dance pieces include eighty waltzes and some 160 tunes in other rhythms – primarily quicksteps and polkas. There are more than forty marches, seventy and more instrumental pieces. As yet unpublished, it was brought to public attention by Fr John Quinn, parish priest of Gortletteragh, Co. Leitrim who is also responsible for highlighting the unpublished manuscripts of Alex Sutherland. [CITM]

Levey, Richard Michael, 1811-1899

  • IE ITMA P00001
  • Person
  • 1811-1899
Levey, R.M. (1811–99). Violin, collector. Born R.M. O’Shaughnessy, he changed to his mother’s name for stage reasons. He studied music with James Barton prior to entering the Theatre Royal Orchestra at age fifteen, and later became its director. He toured Ireland with Balfe’s opera company in 1839, and was professor of violin at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, of which he was one of the founders. Two of his sons went on to be noted violinists, one of them becoming conductor at Drury Lane and Covent Garden theaters in London. Levey composed fifty overtures and arranged music for 44 pantomimes in his time, but in traditional music is remembered for his collection of Irish dance music noted in Dublin and London from Irish players and published in London in 1858 and 1873 as volumes 1 and 2 of The Dance Music of Ireland. Regarded by O’Neill as the first printing of Irish dance music as such, the material was republished in 2003 as The Levey Collection. [CITM]
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