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Tom Munnelly, Ireland’s Greatest Song Collector, Dies at Home in County Clare

Tom Munnelly and his wife, Annette, peruse the book of essays written in his honor.

Tom Munnelly and his wife, Annette, peruse the book of essays written in his honor.

Tom Munnelly, called “Ireland’s greatest folksong and folklore collector,” died Thursday, August 30, after a long illness, in Miltown Malbay, County Clare. He was 63.Though a Dubliner by birth, Munnelly moved to this mecca of Irish music with his wife, Annette, in 1978, and became chairman of the Willie Clancy Summer School, the largest gathering of Irish traditional musicians in the world held annually the first week of July.

Referred to as “the last song collector” in a 2006 RTE Radio 1 documentary, Munnelly began collecting and recording traditional music in 1964 and had been a collector and archivist of Irish folk music at the University College of Dublin since 1975. He became well known for recording the music and stories of the travellers, Ireland’s itinerant ethnic minority. (One of the most familiar current traveler musicians is piper Paddy Keenan, who appeared several years ago at the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s annual music festival.)

 Munnelly co-founded The Folk Music Society of Ireland (Cuman Cheoil Tire Eireann) and was the first fulltime collector of the National Traditional Music Collecting Scheme, a project initiated by the Irish Department of Education, later folded into UCD’s Folklore Department.

After his move to Miltown Malbay, he started The Folklore and Folkmusic Society of Clare and was chairman and founder of the Clare Festival of Traditional Singing. He also recorded in excess of 1,500 tapes of folksong and folklore, which is the largest and most comprehensive collection of traditional song ever compiled by any one person. Not only that, he transcribed, indexed, and cataloged every note.

This May, many of the leading lights of Irish studies and music published a collection of essays celebrating in Munnelly, called “Dear Far-voiced Veteran: Essays in Honour of Tom Munnelly.” It was presented to the frail Munnelly at a ceremony, attended by his wife and family, at the Bellbridge House Hotel in Spanish Point, County Clare. This June, Munnelly received the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature (DLitt) from the National University of Ireland at Galway in recognition of his contribution to Irish traditional music.

“He is the best collector of folklore that ever existed,” said musician Fintan Malone of Cheltenham who anchors the Tuesday night session at The Shanachie Pub in Ambler and who is a native of Miltown Malbay. “Tom was a good friend of ours. He was a very witty man, with a dry sense of humor. Very gentle, generous, very intelligent and dedicated to collecting folklore. He was very well-liked.”

Malone, who was in Miltown last July for “Willie Week,” said that he saw Munnelly then at Tom Malone’s, the pub Malone owns with his brother,  and he looked very gaunt. “I was taken aback. He had been ailing for a while,” Malone said.

Paul Keating, artistic director of the Catskills Irish Arts Week  first met Munnelly at the 1976 Festival of American Folklife produced by the Smithsonian Institution for the Bicentennial.

“The world of Irish traditional music lost one of its most dedicated academic voices today when Tom Munnelly left us,” Keating told irishphiladelphia.com. “I was aware of the high regard he had for traditional musicians and they for him because of his work on their behalf.  As a song collector and folklorist, he had the personal touch that separated him from the ordinary collector who thinks their job is to put things down on tape or print and so he will be fondly remembered for years for touching so many lives and helping to keep the traditional way of life alive.  His battles weren’t always easy but he was a fiercely determined Dubliner who wasn’t easily deterred and that was his way until the end. “

Irish studies teacher and traditional Irish singer, Virginia Stevens Blankenhorn co-taught song seminars with Munnelly (an passionate advocate for sean nos singing) at the Willie Clancy School for two years in the mid-80s.

“These weeks are among my happiest memories. Tom was such fun to be with, always looking for a laugh, always ready to skewer silly ideas, but always (at least in class) with tact and kindness,” said the California native, who now lives in Ireland. “It was no mean achievement to win the trust and regard of both the traditional communities in which he worked and the academic world – especially the latter, given his intolerance for hot air. Irish traditional song has been uncommonly blessed in having Tom as its chief champion and advocate, and I am so sad that heaven claimed him before I could see him again.”

Funeral services for Munnelly will be at St. Joseph Church in Miltown Malbay at 1 pm Saturday,September 1, followed by burial at the Ballard Road Cemetery.

August 29, 2007 by
Music

“Michael Black” (Compass)

To start with, Michael Black’s eponymous first CD is produced by the supremely gifted Celtic guitarist John Doyle. Doyle also plays on several tracks.

Add to Doyle, this supporting cast: Seamus Egan of Solas, Philadelphia bassist and veteran setman Chico Huff, fiddle master Liz Carroll, Kentucky Celtic fiddler Liz Knowles, Solas alum and accordion virtuoso John Williams, and Appalachian fiddler (think “Cold Mountain”) Dirk Powell. Oh, yes, and throw in a few members of the unnaturally gifted Black family, with backing vocals by Mary, Frances, Shay and Martin. Additional backing vocals are by Eoghan Scott, and Danny and Roisin O’Reilly.

So how is the album? Ummmm, OK, I guess … you know, if you like genius and an overabundance of talent and things of that sort.

At the center of it all, of course, is Michael Black. During a week in which we noted the passing of Tom Makem, I found myself listening to this CD and thinking that the tradition truly lives on in the form of so many younger traditional artists—but it is clearly alive and well on Black’s work on this album.

Black’s vocal style compares favorably to that of Makem and the Clancys. (There are times, too, when he sounds vaguely like Harry Chapin.) In any event, Black’s story-songs, a couple with anti-war undercurrents— “The Deserter,” and “When the Boys Are on Parade”—would have fit right in at the old Newport Folk Festival.

It’s not all serious, though. Take, for example, the loopy “My Father Loves Nikita Kruschev,” a tune performed by Makem himself on an old Polydor album, “In the Dark Green Woods.” “Billy O’Shea” is a great sing-along song—and I guarantee that you will sing along to this one in the car.

“Michael Black” might be the best ‘60s Irish folk album released in the early part of the 21st century. Tommy Makem can rest easy. The tradition is in able hands.

August 10, 2007 by
Music

“A Letter Home” – Athena Tergis (Compass)

Fiddler Athena Tergis approaches her task with the ease and delicacy of a glassblower.

It’s probably because of Tergis’s deceptively light style of play that, at first, I was not over the moon about her debut CD on the Compass label, “A Letter Home.”

Tergis, a San Francisco kid, was on track to become a classical violinist when, she says, she was “tricked” into attending Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon fiddle camp. One of the teachers that summer was Altan’s Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh. She went on to study with Ni Mhaonaigh, Alasdair Fraser and Cape Breton master fiddler Buddy MacMaster. She was the Junior National Scottish Fiddling champ three years running.

When it came time to attend college—she was slated to attend Berklee—she decided instead to live in Ireland for three years and soak up the music.

I can only imagine that there were some interesting conversations in the Tergis household at the time. Turning your back on Berklee? Yikes. But judging by her performance on “A Letter Home,” she made the right choice. It was time well spent.

The CD is produced by the gifted guitarist John Doyle, who also plays guitar and bouzouki on several tracks. Tergis is also accompanied by Liz Carroll on fiddle, the ubiquitous Chico Huff on bass, Natalie Haas on cello, Billy McComiskey and Sharon Shannon on accordion, and Ben Wittman on percussion.

My tastes generally run to the so-called “supergroups” like Solas, Flook and Lunasa. Performances by those bands are muscular, even a little macho. It eventually dawned on me that I was listening to Athena Tergis’s performance with the wrong ears. If Solas is Celtic stadium rock, Athena Tergis is cool jazz. Comparing Athena Tergis to Seamus Egan would be like comparing Diana Krall to Roger Daltrey.

There are no trombones or soprano saxophones on “A Letter Home.” No conga drums or timbales. Instead, there is Haas’s lush and luscious cello and some slick, whispery brushwork by Wittman. The accompaniment here never threatens to overwhelm or dominate. Instead, it gently, unobtrusively frames Tergis’s polished performance on a wide variety of traditional tunes, from “Johnny McGreevy’s” (a reel) to “Bi Falbh O’n Uinneig” (“Be Gone from the Window,” a slow air).

I particularly liked (as determined by the number of times I left my car CD player setting on “Repeat”) “In Memory of Coleman/Paddy Fahy’s)”, a lovely set of reels – not pounded out at the usual breakneck tempo but instead played at a leisurely pace. Tergis seems to be not so much playing the tunes as savoring them. (You will, too.) “Coleman” was written by Philly’s own Ed Reavy. (One other local tie: Many of the tracks were recorded at Morning Star Studios in Springhouse, outside of Philadelphia.)

I also gave the “Repeat” button a workout on another set, which began with a strathspey, “Miss Lyall”—I love the jerky percussiveness of strathspeys—which smoothly morphed into a set of reels, including “Paddy Ryan’s Dream,” “Con Cassidy’s Highland” and an unknown Donegal reel.

The concluding slow air, “Be Gone from the Window” is heartbreakingly lovely.

 I suspect “A Letter Home” will earn your own stamp of approval.

August 10, 2007 by
Music, People

Farewell to “The Bard of Armagh”

In Ireland in 2003. From the Makem Web site.

In Ireland in 2003. From the Makem Web site.

“Tommy Makem was my hero and the reason I wanted to perform,” says Tyrone-born musician Gerry Timlin, co-owner of Ambler’s Shanachie Pub and Restaurant, who in June visited the man known as “The Godfather of Irish Music” and “the Bard of Armagh” for the last time at his home in Dover, NH.  Makem, 74, died Wednesday, August 1 and, after a three-day wake, was buried August 9 in Dover. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer in May 2006.

Timlin has shared the stage with Makem and The Clancy Brothers many times and Makem became his mentor when Timlin arrived in the US with his guitar, a beautiful singing voice, and irreverent humor in the 1970s.

“I loved his wit, his commitment, and his bravery. He came to the US and made a path for the rest of us and with the Clancy’s carved out a course for us to follow,” says TImlin, who was in Ireland when Makem died. “He created new venues for us and helped us all make a living doing the one thing we all loved. Without him the world of music will never be the same.”

Makem was “the consummate performer,” says Timlin. In fact, Makem died with gigs on his schedule stretching into November.  Though a solo performer, for much of his career, this banjo-playing baritone performed with friends Liam, Tom, and Paddy Clancy. He’d come to New York from Ireland with Liam, and  they initially both embarked on acting careers until fate and their love for music drew them together for the magic that was the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.

Many people were introduced to Irish music by Makem and the Clancys and, at least among the listening public, they are perhaps known best for what every Irish performer thinks of as the crowd-pleasers, the drinking songs like The Jug of Punch, Irish Rover, and Finnigan’s Wake. But Makem was a trad musician at heart. “He sang all kinds of folk music,” says Timlin. His mother, Sarah, was a renowned folk singer who collected traditional Irish folk tunes that might have otherwise been lost.

Traditional purists have tended to be dismissive of the way The Clancys and Tommy Makem popularized Irish roots tunes, but in recent years, many have come to recognize that their rise and that of the Chieftains–during the nascent folk era in the US–helped create a resurgence in popular interest in Ireland’s own musical history which, at the time, seemed to be heading the way of the thatched roof.

As one trad musician wrote on a message board after Makem’s death, “I listened to Tommy, and the Clancy Brothers — kinda hard to separate them, even though he hasn’t played with the band for years — for a lot of my childhood, dismissed them in my late teens as hokey and cliche, then ultimately realized how much they’ve all meant to the music.”

Makem meant everything to Timlin’s music–and his life. ” I was proud to say he was my friend and I will miss him sadly every day,” he says. ” ‘Onward and upward’ he would say and so ‘Onward and Upward Tommy.'”

Here’s what others have to say about Makem. First, Liam Clancy, who first made note of Tommy’s passing on his message board:

“He was a friend and partner-in-song for over fifty years. We shared a great hunk of our lives together. We were a hell of a team. Tommy was a man of high integrity, honesty, and, at the end, courage. Our paths diverged at times but our friendship never waned. He was my brother every bit as much as my blood brothers.”

Irish President Mary McAleese:

‘In life, Tommy brought happiness and joy to hundreds of thousands of fans the world over. Always the consummate musician, he was also a superb ambassador for the country, and one of whom we will always be proud.”

Singer-songwriter Eugene Byrne, quoted in the Dover newspaper Foster’s Daily Democrat:

“Not one of us who play a note of Irish music on a guitar today would be playing if it wasn’t for Tommy Makem, along with the Clancys. He gave us pride in our country and our culture. Bono (U2’s lead singer) was influenced by him. Michael Flatley’s new show, Celtic Tiger, has Four Green Fields in it.”

From Marianne MacDonald, host of the local radio show, “Come West Along the Road” (Sundays from noon to 1 p.m. on WTMR-800 AM):

“One of the bright twinkling stars from the constellation of Irish music faded today.  We’ve lost the great Tommy Makem.  I was fortunate to have seen him at Appel Farms, the Guinness Fleadh and, years ago, at the Holmdel Arts Center when my mother dragged me to my first Irish Festival.”

From Ed Ward of the Milwaukee Irish Fest:

“I spoke to him about two weeks ago, the day after he returned from Ireland. We talked for about a half an hour about his trip, how wonderful it was to see the parade of people who came to visit him in the hotel, relatives, old friends, the archbishop. He said he was very sad when he boarded a plane to leave Ireland, clearly knowing he would not see it again.”

“He desperately wanted to make it to Milwaukee this year so we discussed plans on what we would do as it was evident he would not be able to perform. But he planned to be there anyway. We are going ahead with these plans and Tommy’s slots will be billed as “Remembering Tommy Makem” and will be led by his nephews Tom and Jimmy Sweeney, Brian Doherty, Kevin Evans and Eugene Byrne and other close friends. The Makem and Spain Brothers will also be in Milwaukee so it should be a special celebration of Tommy’s life and love for the music of Ireland.”

From Ira Goldman, editor and publisher of the Trad Music News:

“Just about anything and everything that can, and should, be said about Tommy Makem’s music has been said since his death last Wednesday evening. The great and the not so great have been crowding the Tasker Funeral Home in Dover NH for his wake since yesterday and Thursday morning we will fill to overflowing St, Mary’s Church in that lovely New England village Tommy called home for decades.

Most people know Tommy as a balladeer and partner of the Clancy Brothers and especially of Liam Clancy. Many know him as the composer of fine songs, some of which have become standards of Irish music. Some of us have had the joy of knowing him as a fine ‘sean nos” singer and traditional musician on the banjo and whistle. His musicology as well as his music made him a true treasure of Irish Traditional Music.

Some of us have been blessed to have the invaluable, immeasurable, and lasting delight of knowing Tommy Makem as a person and as a friend. In the some 25 years I knew Tommy I never heard an unkind or angry word pass his lips. His countless acts of warmth and kindness will never be forgotten. For example, Tommy recorded a wonderful song, as delightful for “grownups” as for children, called “Waltzing with Bears.” When he was told two wee boys in Co. Carlow (aged 5 and 6) were learning the song from his cassette tape so they could entertain their Yank friend at Christmas, Tommy wrote each of them a note congratulating them for learning the song and thanking them for learning it from him.

And there was once a quiet, sunny afternoon in the empty bar of the hotel by the Sligo railroad station when Tommy played piano and let a Yank friend sing with him (much to the dismay of Liam Clancy who had to listen).

There are not enough tears to truly mark your passing, Tommy. There will always be the memories and the music and the love.

Slan, old friend.

Ar dheis De go raibh a anam uasal.”

August 2, 2007 by
Music

Love Songs Among the Stacks

Patrick Hughes introduces a tune.

Patrick Hughes introduces a tune.

It’s a muggy Thursday afternoon in Center City. Inside the refrigerated Borders at Broad and Chestnut, some of the patrons are casually picking their way through the stacks and trying to pretend that an angel, crowned with blonde curls and dressed in long flowing robes, has not just stepped inside from the superheated sidewalk.

They go on pretending as she begins to sing. They are a study in “seen-it-all-before” coolness as the singer is joined by yet another striking singer in flowing robes, and then two more, and, finally, by three handsome men in high-collared green vests and bright, white turtlenecks.

Soon, the store echoes with delicate, crystalline harmonies as the singers weave in and out of the aisles and eventually make their way back to audiobooks, where a few chairs have been set up in front of a little stage area.

And soon, I start to wonder which is weirder: The fact that members of the world-class Irish choral group Anúna are singing in a bookstore, or that a few pointedly blasé patrons are still trying to pretend that nothing out of the usual is going on.

On second thought, maybe after a week of Harry Potter-mania and grown men dressing like Dumbledore and Hagrid, it’s easy to be jaded.

Believe it or not, this was Anúna’s Philadelphia debut. The seven singers—a smaller subset of the larger choir that has thrilled audiences worldwide since 1987—were in town to promote their new CD, “Sensations,” and a September special to be aired locally on WHYY. (They’re also going to appear Oct. 12 at Penn’s Annenberg Theatre.)

“This is our seventh (Borders appearance),” said singer Patrick Hughes. “We started out in Boston.” From now through August 21, the troupe will sing in 31 Borders stores across the country.

Although Anúna hasn’t made a career of bookstore appearances, Hughes said it really wasn’t so unusual. “It marries well with our performance style,” he said. “It’s about interacting with the audience. That’s when music can touch people.”

For about 20 minutes, in the frenzied heart of the city on a miserably sticky day, Anúna provided a few precious moments of peace and cool, ethereal beauty. There was time for just a few pieces, unfortunately. There were two standout performances, though: “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls,” by founding member and chorus master Miriam Blennerhassett, and an old Bothy Band hit, the tongue-twisting “Fionnghuala,” by John McGlynn, leader of the touring group, featured soloist and production designer. (John’s brother Michael founded the group.)

If you couldn’t be there … no worries. We have a bit of video from the Center City Borders event. It will have to do until the September special (no firm date as yet) on WHYY.

August 2, 2007 by
Music

The Kane Sisters in Concert at the Philadelphia Irish Center

The sisters share a laugh.

The sisters share a laugh.

The first time somebody told me the Kane Sisters were coming to the Irish Center, my 56-year-old hearing failed me.

“You mean the Haynes Sisters, from ‘White Christmas?’ The ones with the brother known as ‘Freckle-Faced Haynes, the Dog-Faced Boy?”

I was incredulous. (I didn’t believe it, either.)

It didn’t take me long to sort things out. OK, maybe a day or two. And of course, I went to their recent concert at the Philadelphia Irish Center.  Why? Let’s just say I did it for an old friend in the Army.

Seriously? I went because Liz and Yvonne Kane are outstanding practitioners of the light, ornamented South Sligo style, and they were all but guaranteed to put on a superb show. I wasn’t disappointed.

Drummer that I am, I couldn’t help but love the light-speed reels. But I was more or less equally entranced by just about everything else they played.

What’s most notable about a Kane Sisters performance, though, is the smooth and seamless synchronicity of their playing. They race through complex triplets and rolls, bows sawing up and down the strings in precise, virtually identical patterns. One is the virtual mirror image of the other. To have one fiddler who plays so masterfully is one thing; to have two, side by side, so evenly matched in every respect, can be breath-taking.

The traditional music fans who weren’t down the Shore on the night of the show also received a pretty cool bonus. Jon and Nathan Pilatzke, the crazy-legged Ottawa Valley step dancers who have toured with the Chieftains, among others, made an unexpected guest appearance.

The concert took place in the Irish Center’s Fireside Room. There’s no stage there, as such, and therefore, no off-stage. So when it was time for them to make their appearance, the boys popped out of the nearby ladies room. They wasted no time or effort in pounding what I imagine were huge dents in the floor, drawing whoops and hollers from the appreciative fans in the room and at the bar.

If you didn’t make it, check out our photos.

July 29, 2007 by
Music

Old Blind Dogs Still Putting the Pedal to the Metal

The CD features three new live tracks.

The CD features three new live tracks.

The Old Blind Dogs have been around, in one form or another, since 1990. With “Four on the Floor” (Compass), the band loses nothing of the creative energy that has made it one of the most popular traditional ensembles.

Of course, no traditional band blessed with so much inventiveness can play it straight all the time. On “Four on the Floor,” probably the best example of this spirit of invention is the band’s updated treatment of the old Scottish standard “Braw Sailin’.” Lots of artists and bands have performed the tune—including Kris Drever, on his recent CD (also from Compass), “Black Water.”

The Dogs take the old tune (first recorded around 1930, according to the Traditional Ballad Index) and teach it some new tricks, sailing it a few thousand miles southwest of Scotland to Jamaica. It works, mon.

I’m also a big fan of the CD’s second track, “Harris Dance,” which features some finger-twisting playing by Rory Campbell on the Scottish border pipes, propelled along with some furious percussion by Fraser Stone.

The band also provides a rare treat in the form of three live tracks, featuring tunes and sets previously recorded by the Dogs in previous incarnations.

The hottest track of the three is Aird Tanters/Branle, a strathspey that gives way to a Middle Eastern-tinged Scots folks dance tune—again, a tightly contained (but only just) ball of energy.

You can catch the band at the Tin Angel on Sept. 27, and Sept. 28, 29 and 30 at the Bethlehem Celtic Classic.

July 28, 2007 by
Music

Support Your Local Trad Musician

Caitlin Finley, center, with friends Emma Hinesly and Sean Earnest.

Caitlin Finley, center, with friends Emma Hinesly and Sean Earnest.

What do you do when your fiddle teachers are heading out of town a few weeks before you’re scheduled to compete in the all-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the largest Irish music competition in the world, attracting more than 11,000 musicians?

If you’re Caitlin Finley, you get nervous. “Yeeessss, I’m really nervous right now,” says Caitlin, an incoming junior at Lower Merion High School. “I just picked my tunes and now I’ll have to do all the preparation on my own.”

Imagine Rocky without Mickey, Helen Keller without Annie Sullivan, the Notre Dame team without Knute Rockne. Caitlin is losing her teachers and coaches, New York fiddler Brian Conway, considered one of the best fiddlers in the US and an All-Ireland fiddle winner, and his sister, Rose Flanagan, a former member of the popular group, Cherish the Ladies. You’d be nervous too.

But there will be one thing she won’t need to worry about after Sunday–whether her fellow competitors in New York will be able to afford the trip. Electrifying fiddler Eileen Ivers and singer-instrumentalist Gabe Donohue will be headlining an all-star benefit on Sunday, August 5, from 1 PM to midnight at Rory Dolan’s,
890 Mclean Avenue, in Yonkers, NY.

“Last year everyone got a huge amount of money toward the trip which paid for a lot of the kids’ airfare,” says Caitlin, who will be traveling to Ireland with her parents. (This is her second trip to the Fleadh; last year, her ceili band, The Pride of Moyvane, earned the right to compete, which requires that you come in either first or second in the local Fleadh, held each year in Pearl River, NY.)

Caitlin and her current group (including flutist Emma Hinesly and guitarist Sean Earnest) have been burning up the local trad scene for more than a year: playing for the Irish ambassador Noel Fahy; entertaining at the Philadelphia Flower Show and at Kildare’s; sitting in with Mick Moloney and Tommy Sands at St. Malachy’s annual fundraising concert, and opening for premier button accordionist James Keane. You can also find Caitlin at sessions from here to Reading: Fergie’s, The Plough and the Stars; The Shanachie; Tir na NOg, and the Irish Center, where she often leads. 

Though she’s been playing fiddle for 8 years, she doesn’t think it will become a career. Most Irish trad musicians don’t make enough to quit their day jobs. “And I don’t want it to be my job,” she says. “I want it to be something that I love forever.”

July 27, 2007 by