Music was his life
Mourners told: ‘Paddy will play the pipes in Heaven tonight’
THE BIBLE tells us there will be music in Heaven – and, if that’s the case, Paddy Moloney is up there now playing the pipes, with Ronnie Drew and Luke Kelly on either side of him, his funeral Mass in Co. Wicklow heard yesterday.
As music from The Chieftains filled St Kevin’s Church in Glendalough, Moloney’s family and friends paid tribute to his extraordinary life.
Moloney, who died on Tuesday aged 83, grew up in a musical family and played a variety of instruments, including the tin whistle – or ‘win tistle’ as he fondly called it – and uilleann pipes. Accordingly, a feadóg and a set pipes, alongside photos of Moloney and his grandchildren, were brought to the altar in memory of one of Ireland’s greatest-ever musicians.
‘Music was his life,’ his son Aonghus told mourners at St Kevin’s. ‘He lived for that moment when he would walk out on the stage and say: “I’m Paddy Moloney from Dublin, Ireland, the greatest city in the world.”’
Moloney originally formed The Chieftains in 1962 with Seán Potts on tin whistle, Martin Fay on fiddle, David Fallon on bodhrán and Mick Tubridy on flute.
During their almost six-decade career, they became six-time
Played with stars including Jagger
Grammy Award winners, with 18 nominations, and gained a reputation for reinventing Irish music by introducing it to new audiences.
Over the years Moloney collaborated with some of the world’s biggest stars from Mick Jagger to Dolly Parton and Pavarotti.
‘You opened to a million people for the Pope, you opened for The Rolling Stones. And last Tuesday on RTÉ, you opened for the budget,’ Aonghus said. ‘I’m sure you would have been pleased to think Paschal and Micheál had to wait until your announcement was done before they could stand up and address the house.’
Proud of his roots, the father-ofthree would regularly tell his children stories about growing up in Donnycarney. His son said: ‘He grew up in an area that kindled so much of what we know of Irish traditional music today.’
Aonghus admitted that, as children, they ‘were his toughest critics’. He said: ‘We remember, as children, Paddy’s love of touring around the world playing to new audiences. When he took a break, he’d find himself at home at the dinner table, or Monkeys Tea Party as he called it, where he couldn’t get a word in edgeways.
‘And he would attempt to tell us he just met the Pope or played with superstars around the world, but was quickly drowned out.’
Moloney was a man who would let the music do the talking, his son said, and after becoming a grandfather-of-four, he passed on his musical love to his grandchildren, ‘who he absolutely adored’.
‘The real Paddy could be found crawling around the floor playing with toys, always gently teasing or hiding a dodo, or maybe even a quick impromptu session after dinner, when the accordion would come out, and he would always finish with duet,’ Aonghus said, holding back tears.
Above all, his son said, he was devoted to his wife Rita, with whom he had a ‘60 years-plus love affair’.
During the first reading from the Book of Wisdom, the passage mentioned ‘living among sinners’, with the reader nodding to Rita, sparking laughs.
Fr Eamonn Crosson told mourners ‘the music lives on’. He added: ‘Paddy is still playing the pipes. I wonder what it’s like in heaven. We don’t know much but the Bible tells us that there will be music.
There’ll be music there. Paddy will be there, making music. Maybe Ronnie Drew will be in one corner. Luke Kelly will be in another. He might be singing Raglan Road.’
The HSE ambulance service and St Vincent’s Hospital were thanked by the family for doing ‘everything they could for Paddy and us’. His son gave a ‘special thanks to The Chieftains’, saying Moloney would always have wanted them to ‘have the final note’.
US president Joe Biden had wanted The Chieftains to perform at his inauguration. A lifelong fan of the group, they played for him in 2016 when he visited Matt Molloy’s pub in Westport; however, Covid restrictions got in the way of his plans. Moloney’s son added a note about Covid: ‘For the first time in 70 years Paddy couldn’t play music to an audience. Paddy died last Tuesday, but with the thing he loved most taken away from him, Paddy’s life faded from last March.’ The service was attended by President Michael D Higgins and members of The Chieftains. The chief mourners were Rita, children Aonghus, Aedín and Pádraig and grandchildren. Mick Jagger paid tribute, tweeting: ‘Sad to hear of Paddy Moloney’s passing – the greatest uilleann piper on the planet.’
President Biden a lifelong fan