Month: May 2016

Jack Connell (1906-1994) took his nickname from his home in Meendurragh, just north of Ballydesmond, known locally as “The Lighthouse”. The village sits at a high point along the Cork/Tralee road, and in days gone by a lantern was indeed kept lit to direct carriages travelling by night. Jack was a celebrated fiddler, teacher, and tune-maker, taught by both Pádraig O’Keeffe and Tom Billy Murphy, as well as a certain “Mrs. Cronin” of Rathmore. His sister Nonie played the melodeon.

Apparently, Pádraig O’Keeffe once told him one should practice daily for 15 minutes, and Jack took it to heart; for nearly his whole life he played, whether at a dance or session or on his own at home. In the 30s and 40s he played for dances in the nearby Clamper dancehall. In later years he took on students and had a lasting influence on the local music community. Dan Herlihy was a pupil, and remembers Jack using O’Keeffe’s accordion tablature with which to teach him. O’Connell provided tunes to Breandán Breathnach who treasured his large and rare repertoire. Along with the usual dance tunes, he was known for his large store of waltzes. Interestingly, though he played and taught the Sliabh Luachra music of O’Keeffe and Murphy, his ideal musician was the legendary East Clare fiddler Paddy Canny. Anytime Canny was heard on the radio conversation with Jack would stop until the tune ran out. “The Lighthouse” is remembered as a good-humored, easy-going man and a patient and thoughtful teacher.

Learned from: Pádraig O’Keeffe, Tom Billy Murphy
Taught: Dan Herlihy

John Linehan (sometimes spelled Lenihan) (1860-1932) was a fiddle teacher of the generation before Pádraig O’Keeffe and Tom Billy Murphy. He was himself a pupil of Corney Drew, although it’s difficult to find any commonality between what little we know of either of their repertoires. He lived in Glounreigh (also spelled Glenreagh or Glounreagh), Co. Cork and is buried in Kiskeam cemetery. His students included fiddlers Sean B. O’Leary and Johnny O’Leary of Kiskeam as well as Maurice O’Keeffe. He would teach out of his home as well as traveling to students’ homes. Sean B. O’Leary described him as “a dignified, serious music teacher, who took pride in his tuition and musical performance.” Whereas Tom Billy and Pádraig had reputations as easygoing and mellow-tempered teachers, Linehan seems to have taken a disciplinarian approach. If a student played out of tune or diverged from the written music, Linehan would berate him, “Where are your ears, you demon? I’ll skin you!”

Maurice O’Keeffe said that he was the last pupil of John Lenihan, who was about 75 years old when Maurice was ten. He lived within easy walking distance. Maurice was “taught the music with scales, lines and spaces at eight pence a tune”. Lenihan could not play himself at that time because his fingers had gone stiff, but though he was near the end of his days, he seems to have lost none of his strictness. O’Keeffe recalled, “As a music master he was very strict and would not accept any sloppy work or half measures. On one particular occasion when I was supposed to visit him I was so afraid that I decided to ‘mitch’. I hid in the glen and when my mother enquired if I had a new tune I told her that I did not because I had not the previous one learnt ‘by heart’. By some chance my secret leaked and Mr. Linehan informed my mother. His message to her read ‘Tell that “barrow fellow” attend me tomorrow!’ My mother escorted me and I never missed another session.”

Dan Herlihy’s book Sliabh Luachra Music Masters contains 42 of his manuscript tunes which date from around 1910. Looking through these tunes gives an interesting glimpse of the music that was played in Sliabh Luachra at that time. There are some polkas and slides, but also a number of tunes that seem to be direct from the Scottish tradition. It also contains around eight nationalistic song airs, perhaps reflecting their popularity in a revolutionary period, and supporting the contention that such songs were beginning to supplant traditional airs. His polkas are interesting in their stage of folk processing. They are two part dance tunes but lack the characteristic house dance ‘swing’ found in the Din Tarrant settings. However, these were teaching manuscripts for his students and do not necessarily represent the way the man himself would have chosen to play them.

Examples of Linehan’s manuscripts:

Daniel “Saucepan” Hartnett was a fiddle player and teacher from Knockanaer, Tournafulla. He was regarded as the best musician of his generation in his locality and taught a number of musicians from the Rockchapel and Tournafulla area.

Taught: Denis O’Callaghan, Tom Carroll

Tadgh Ó Buachalla (anglicized as Timothy Buckley) aka Tadhgín an Asail (little Tadgh of the donkey) aka Tadeen the Fiddler aka Tadeen the Cobbler was a travelling music master from Park, Knocknagree active in the latter half of the 19th century. He also lived at various times in Kiskeam and Scartaglin. It’s likely he got his music from Corney Drew, and he passed that tradition to his pupils, including Din Tarrant and Tom Billy Murphy. He made his living travelling the countryside on the back of a donkey (a noteworthy mode of transport even at that time) and mending shoes when he wasn’t teaching music. His pupil Tom Billy would later adapt the ABC notation he used (as well as the knack for donkey-riding) when he became a renowned teacher himself.

At least one slide is still commonly called Tadhgín an Asail’s, and the polka known as The Cobbler may refer to him as well.

Learned from: Corney Drew
Taught: Din Tarrant, Tom Billy

William Fitzgerald lived in the mid-19th century in the area around Ballydesmond–possibly Glenreagh or Lacka, but information on him is spotty. It seems he was a student of Corney Drew and became a travelling fiddle teacher himself. In 1866 he produced a manuscript of his repertoire which survives to this day. It was printed, in part, in Dan Herlihy’s Sliabh Luachra Music Masters, Vol. 2 (though misattributed to Corney Drew.) The Fitzgerald manuscript represents the repertoire and style of Sliabh Luachra before the craze for polkas and slides as we know them really took hold. It contains a great many waltzes, jigs, and reels, a few English tunes, and a number of polkas in a more “continental” style than what we would now identify as a Sliabh Luachra polka.

It has been said that Pádraig O’Keeffe “studied the music of Fitzgerald,” and by this we might take it to mean that he owned a copy of this manuscript and drew some tunes and settings from it.

Not long after the creation of the manuscript, it seems that Fitzgerald emigrated to America  (perhaps coincidentally, around the same time that Corney Drew himself emigrated) and what happened to him after that is not known.

The standard known as Fitzgerald’s Hornpipe (collected by Breandán Breathnach for the second volume of Ceol Rince na hÉireann from Molly Myers Murphy in 1967) is probably named after him.

Learned from: Corney Drew