PADRAIGIN HONOURED AT GRADAM CEOIL
Local singer and music historian Pádraigín Ni hUllacháin was honoured at the 21st TG4 Gradam Ceoil awards in Belfast recently.
Pádraigín was presented with the Outstanding Contribution Award by actor Stephen Rea at the ceremony and concert which took place before an enthusiastic audience in The Waterfront.
The ceremony was broadcast live on TG4 and featured an interview with Pádraigín in her Mullaghbawn home in which she spoke of lifetime’s love for Irish culture, music and language. She recalled how her parents Pádraig and Eithne nee Devlin had instilled this love in the family and had travelled to the Rannafast Gaeltacht to learn Irish.
She spoke of her life’s work collecting the folk music of the Oirialla region of Louth and Armagh, in her book ‘A Hidden Ulster’, her Oriel Arts website project, and her various records.
Pádraigín said: ‘I was thrilled to have younger south Armagh sean nós singers, Bláithín Mhic Cana and Piaras Ó Lorcáin join me on stage in the Waterfront, for an Oirialla song, and also old friends, Louth singers (and Wicklow!) The Voice Squad for a song, too.’
The night was a real family occasion, as Pádraigín’s nephew, fiddle player and tv producer Donal O’Connor who both performed on stage and presented segments about how much Belfast’s hosting of the awards meant to the city,