They are all going! (from the belfastfolk website)
Bob
A few friends of mine have died recently and, while each loss leaves
an ache, one of them was an extra-special individual - Tom Munnelly, a
friend of 40 years. Tom just loved - and I cannot stress that verb
strongly enough - he LOVED Irish traditional music and song. So much
so that he devoted most of his life into its collection, collation
and, most important of all, its preservation. No boreen was too small,
no hill too high - if Tom thought that there was a song to be heard
(or pint to be drunk or crack to be had!) at its bottom or top, he was
there with his battered recorder. The amount he collected, from some
of the most unlikely sources imaginable, was both phenomenal and
prodigious. According to Fintan Vallelly's mighty tome 'A Companion to
Irish Traditional Music, Cork University Press, 1999', Tom was
responsible for around 18,000 catalogued entries in (mainly) folk song
but also in poetry and folklore, including some 1500 recorded tapes
from 1971 onwards which is now considered to be the single largest and
most comprehensive collection by any one individual in the history of
the genre.
I have copied below an obit from The Guardian listing his achievements
and while it is factually correct and sincere, it slightly misses out
on the humanity of the lad himself. Yes, he was fastidious in his
research; yes, he was precise in the way he honed his eye and ear for
the nuances of the performed music. But Tom was fundamentally one of
the most entertaining individuals you could ever come across in a
country full of blarney-kissers. While the piece below lists his
academic (or not!) achievements, Tom himself hated the pomposity of
the platform where some scholars of late have tried to elevate and
diagnose to death the simple music of the peasant. For him, music/song
was about crack and crack was 'life' and 'death' and everything in
between. Warts and all, no prisoners taken. And, from this base, he
gloried, as we all did, in his put-downs of the more anally retentive
of the folk 'academics' as described above. An observation Tom made a
few years ago is a case in point. There is this extremely opinionated,
but gifted, accordion player whom everyone knows and both respects for
his music and despises for his arrogance, with the latter taking
precedence. He was rumoured to have a tumour but thankfully it proved
not to be life-threatening. Tom's comment, when asked about the
aforementioned's state of health, was, 'Well, there's good news and
bad news. The good news is that the tumour's not malignant, the bad
news is that the rest of the f***ker is'.
Brenda and I called to see Tom and Annette towards the end of the
Willy Clancy week in mid July when he was quite ill but still seeing
visitors. Typically, he was in the best of form while my good lady and
I were somewhat restrained due to the seriousness of his condition.
Nonetheless he kept us entertained for the while we were there until
the next bunch of callers, of which there were hundreds. I can't even
imagine where he got his energy from to welcome the myriads of well-
wishers who called to see him. His courage, in the face of death, was
awesome. The funeral which was, several months previously, preceded by
a live 'wake' during which Tom himself officiated at his own impending
interment, remarking at one point in the proceedings that 'the only
thing missing was the 'box' in the corner'(!!), was sensitive,
beautiful and the most brilliant crack - just as he would have wished.
He will be sorely missed. Hugs and handshakes to Annette, his wife, to
his sons, Colm and Tara, and to Eadhaoin his daughter.
Anyway, the Guardian's piece is worth reading if even to get a clue as
to the depth and breadth of Tom's achievements. Perhaps Finbar Boyle,
one of BelfastFolk's contributors, who worked on the collating end of
Tom's fieldwork for many years, would be kind enough to give us a few
words on his knowledge of, and his collaboration with, Tom in their
seminal work in the Irish Folklore Commission.
================
"Tom Munnelly
A leading authority on traditional Irish songs sung in English
Derek Schofield
Thursday September 6, 2007
The Guardian
Over the last 200 years, Irish traditional music and song have been
noted and published by dedicated collectors, working mainly among
ordinary people in rural areas of Ireland - and, in the case of
Francis O'Neill, with Irish immigrants to America. A major focus of
the collecting was instrumental music, and there has also been a
fascination with the songs sung in the Irish language. Many people
might assume that, by the late 20th century, there would have been
little folk music left to collect from the oral tradition. Yet the
largest collection of traditional Irish songs sung in English was made
in this period, by Tom Munnelly, who has died of cancer, aged 63.
For more than 30 years, Tom was employed as a folk song collector, but
arguably one of his most important singers, John Reilly, was recorded
before this, when Tom was still collecting privately, in his spare
time. Reilly was an Irish Traveller living in poverty in County
Roscommon when Tom first met and recorded him in 1965. It was the
first time that the ballad The Maid and the Palmer had been collected
from oral tradition for 150 years, and never in Ireland. Reilly called
it The Well Below the Valley, and thanks to Tom's collecting, the song
was given international exposure when it was recorded by the Irish
band Planxty, whose singer, Christy Moore, also recorded several other
Reilly songs, such as his version of The Raggle Taggle Gypsy.
Tom was born in Rathmines in Dublin and educated at Clochar Road
technical school, before starting work in a knitwear factory at the
age of 15. His interest in folk song started at scout camp and then in
the hostelling organisation, An Óige. He started collecting songs to
enlarge his repertoire - there were precious few published collections
of songs available at the time - and acquired a tape recorder. Soon,
he came to prefer the tradition, rather than revival singers such as
the Dubliners.
In 1969, Tom's enthusiasm and rapidly expanding knowledge led to him
becoming research assistant to DK Wilgus, professor of Anglo-American
folk song at the University of California, Los Angeles. The following
year Tom founded - with his mentor, Breandán Breathnach, an authority
on Irish dance music - the Folk Music Society of Ireland, and he
served on the committee until his death.
In 1971, Breathnach persuaded Ireland's department of education to
establish a national traditional music scheme, and Tom became its
first full-time collector of folk song. Four years later, the scheme
was merged with the department of Irish folklore at University
College, Dublin (now known as the UCD Delargy Centre for Irish
Folklore and the National Folklore Collection), and, in spite of his
lack of formal academic qualifications, Tom became the department's
folk song collector and lecturer.
In 1978, he moved to County Clare to devote more time to his
fieldwork. Still employed by UCD, he based himself in Miltown Malbay,
where the great uilleann piper Willie Clancy had lived until his death
five years previously. The Willie Clancy school - a week-long
celebration of Irish music, dance and song with concerts, workshops,
lectures and pub sessions - was already established in the town, and
in 1978 Tom became its chairman. He founded the Folklore and Folk
Music Society of Clare in 1982, and for its first nine years organised
all the lectures, and later started the Clare Festival of Traditional
Singing.
In the mid-1980s he was a member of the Arts Council of Ireland,
during which time it established the Irish traditional music archive.
Tom served as the first chairman of the archive's board, and continued
as a board member until recently.
All the while, he continued to travel Ireland collecting folk songs.
One of the most prolific singers he recorded, Tom Lenihan, lived just
a few miles outside Miltown Malbay, and Tom Munnelly also recorded his
wealth of lore and custom. A double album of songs, with an
accompanying book written by Munnelly, was released in 1995, entitled
The Mount Callan Garland: the Songs of Tom Lenihan.
A typical tactic in a new village was for Tom to ask in the pub about
local singers. But not all pubgoers were interested in old songs, and
increasingly he found and recorded singers in their own homes. For
example, one of his best, Michael "Straighty" Flanagan, was almost
missed after inquiries at the pub drew a blank.
John Reilly was not the only Traveller whom Tom recorded. "Singers are
so easy to find among travelling folk," Tom once wrote, and an album
of his field recordings, Songs of the Irish Travellers, was released
in 1983.
In all, Tom recorded, indexed and transcribed more than 20,000 songs
as well as a considerable amount of folklore - a lasting testament to
his tenacity, as well as to the continuing tradition. He was generous
with his time and knowledge, a recognised authority and staunch
advocate of unaccompanied traditional singing. His enthusiasm for his
subject - and his humour - shone through whenever he was invited to
lecture.
Tom contributed to a range of periodicals including Dál gCais (the
Journal of Clare), Béaloideas (the Journal of the Folklore of Ireland
Society) and the relatively new Journal of Music in Ireland. He did
not confine his writing to Irish publications, but also contributed to
England's Folk Music Journal, the publications of the International
Ballad Commission and the internet magazine Musical Traditions.
Last June, Tom received an honorary doctorate from the National
University of Ireland at Galway for his services to Irish traditional
music. A festschrift, Dear Far-Voiced Veteran: Essays in Honour of Tom
Munnelly, was published just a few months before his death, with a
distinguished list of contributors. In the introduction, the director
of the Irish traditional music archive, Nicholas Carolan, described
Tom as "an iconic figure in the world of traditional music".
Tom leaves a wife, Annette, who supported him in all his work, two
sons, Colm and Tara, and a daughter Éadaoin.
· Tom Munnelly, folk song collector and archivist, born May 25 1944;
died August 30 2007
(Posted at 12:27 on 23 September 2007)
fid...@irelandmail.com Ernie Swain
Paul Phillips, bodhran player extrodinaire from Downpatrick died
suddenly ...
(Posted at 13:17 on 21 September 2007)
fid...@irelandmail.com Ernie Swain
Paul Phillips, bodhran player extrodinaire from Downpatrick died
suddenly last Saturday night aged 48. Paul was a great guy to be with
in a session and we were happy to have him guesting from time to time
with "Keep 'Er Lit" a number of years ago. Paul was All-Ireland
bodhran champion, and also World bodhran champion. He had travelled,
played music and taught widely and also played with Darragh Folk from
the Crossgar / Downpatrick area (see the Darragh Folk web site. Their
new CD was just released recently). Paul was always a pleasure to play
music with (despite my wariness of bodhran players - Paul was the
best!) and he had a great sense of humour. He will be very sadly
missed, not only by his immediate family circle but by all musicians
who were lucky enough to know him.