Lifetime achievement award for Nicky and Anne McAuliffe
NICKY and Anne McAuliffe, natives of Knocknagoshel and Lixnaw (respectively) and Castleisland residents, were announced as winners of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Lifetime Achievement Award.
The couple has been on the receiving end of many awards down through the years and mainly for all they have given to the music and to generations of musicians everywhere.
Founder members of the 1972 All-Ireland winning Brosna Céilí Band and serious music historians, Nicky has more references on sleeve notes than any other of his contemporaries.
Nicky and Anne were also the recipients of the Dedication to the Music of Sliabh Luachra Award at the Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Festival here in Castleisland in 2011.
As additional strings to Nicky’s artistic bow, he’s also a keen photographer and writer on history and a poet.
Here’s a synopsis of how TG4 made the announcement last week.
Nicky and Anne McAuliffe are two highly respected Kerry people who are held in great regard by musicians across the country.
They are two very humble people who never seek the limelight or publicicty, despite that, they are recognised as two hugely influential people in the traditional music world. Nicky McAuliffe was born in Castleisland and Anne Sheehy-McAuliffe in Lixnaw and they both have their musical heritage seeping through them. They have travelled the world with their music – America, England, Europe and Australia and they were central figures in both the Brosna and Desmond Céilí Bands, as well as being very involved with Siamsa Tíre.
Nicky is a composer as well, with quite an extensive range of compositions, even though he doesn’t say much about this other talent of his either.
He is always in demand to write articles about music and the history of traditional music and it is many the musician who has called on him for help in naming a tune that they were recording. Nicky has an encyclopedic knowledge of music accompanied by an uncanny knack of being able to retain the information and recall it as required.
Anne won the All-Ireland under-18 accordion in 1964 and the senior whistle in 1967. Nicholas won the senior whistle in 1971.
They were both part of the Brosna Céilí Band which won the All-Ireland Céilí Band award in 1972. They were part of the CCÉ touring group to North America in 1975 and feature on the related recording and on a 1978 fundraiser for Dúchas House in Tralee.
They toured extensively with Siamsa Tíre and also toured America and Australia as members of ‘Na Ridirí’ – a group of musicians, singers and dancers organised by Diarmuid Ó Catháin. Nicholas has provided information for many recordings and has taught at ITT in conjunction with Siamsa Tíre since 1995.
Anne learned her first music from her father, Jack Sheehy, who played the fiddle.
She attended the inaugural meeting of Comhaltas in Lixnaw in 1960 and in the same year competed in the first Kerry County Fleadh Cheoil in Ballyheigue, winning the under 14 Accordion competition. Growing up her most admired musicians were Willie Clancy, Paddy Canny, Joe Burke and Paddy Carty.
They were married in 1975. On marriage Anne resigned from her job as a shorthand typist with KCC and started teaching music full time.
The McAuliffes were part of a group invited to Áras an Uachtaráin by President Mary McAleese in 2003 “to a reception to celebrate local traditional musicians throughout Ireland”. They were also part of the Rockchapel-based group, Ceoltóirí Shliabh Luachra who were received in Áras an Uachtaráin by President Michael D.Higgins and his wife Sabina.
In September 2018, Nicky began his 49th year teaching and Anne her 44th. Nicky was awarded ‘Ceann Ródaí’ by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann at Scoil Éigse in Tullamore in 2009.
The Gradam Ceoil presentations will be made in Belfast in February 2019.