The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
All sails are aloft for the 26th O’Keeffe Festival
After a bumpy few months on the financial side of things, the Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Music Festival was helped out of the woods by the generosity of friends at home and all over the world.
The committee sends its thanks to all who contributed to the GoFundMe page, set up at the end of September to pull the event out of the fire.
Many public and some anonymous donations have restored the festival coffers near to where they should be. Now we’re heading into the final few days and bracing ourselves for the storm of a great musical weekend.
The event officially opens on Friday at the River Island Hotel at 9pm, and a full programme of events will unfold over the weekend with ‘All Sails Aloft’ – as the late festival chairman, Mike Kenny, would say. The festival committee members are delighted to announce that Seán Tyrrell, the well-known singer from Galway, will join the line-up for the concert in Hartnett’s Bar on Saturday from 4pm, and he will also contribute to the all star concert on Sunday night at the River Island Hotel. Revered as one of the finest interpreters of song, and a native of Ireland’s west, he took his time before committing himself to record his first solo album.
He emigrated to New York in 1968 and put together a band Apples In Winter, recording an album in 1974. He later moved to San Francisco and began a solo career, where he rubbed shoulders with some of the greats of the folk scene.
Eventually he tired of the road now having a young son, and returning to Ireland in the late ‘70s he continued to work at his music, but seldom played professionally. All of his time off the road had led to a huge catalogue of new material that he was now anxious to record.
It was during this time in his hide away in Clare that he encountered, for the first time since his school days, the forward-thinking, 18th century poem for all ages Cúirt An Mheán Oíche / The Midnight Court by Brian Merriman, translated by David Marcus. It fascinated him – all 1,206 lines of it. He set it to music and approached the renowned Druid Theatre Galway with the idea of putting it on as traditional opera with a cast of ten musicians and singers.
Regarded by the critics as the hit of the Galway Arts Festival when Druid staged his opera in 1992, it went on to tour Ireland with more than 100 performances, and in 2008 Seán took a twoman version to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to critical acclaim. In 2012 it was staged for the first time in San Francisco as a solo piece.
Cry of A Dreamer – his first solo project recorded on his own label Longwalk Music, later released by Hannibal records/ Rykodisc worldwide in April 1994 – shared a spotlight review with Bobby Mc Ferran on Billboard, voted Best Folk Album of the Year by both Folk Roots and Hotpress. He has performed at major festivals and concert halls, and TV and radio in Ireland and worldwide. In 1999 he released his much-anticipated second solo effort, The Orchard, and again this met great critical acclaim and was voted Best Overall Folk Act. Readers of Irish Music Magazine voted it Best Folk Album.
It was Michael Hartnett’s poem ‘Belladonna in the Bar’ that gave him the title for his third CD, Belladonna. On the back of this album he provided the music for a documentary on the life and work of Michael Hartnett A Necklace Of Wrens. He was invited by the curator of the Ypres museum, Pete Chielans, to set to music the poetry of Francis Ledwidge, killed in the First World War. He collaborated with international musicians on Songs of Peace and recorded and performed them at concerts over two nights at Passendale cathedral. It was released as a CD.
A decade or so later and three solo CDs, Seán launched in Ireland Rising Tide - The Collection.
Message Of Peace, a double CD on the life of one of Ireland’s unsung heroes, John Boyle O’Reilly, part spoken word, has also toured extensively since around Ireland. It has also toured the USA on two occasions with grant assistance from the Irish Arts Council and Culture Ireland.
Albums were now coming fast and furious with his release in 2011 of ‘And So The story Goes’ with Kevin Glackin renowned fiddler and Ronan Browne Piper of Riverdance and Afro Celts fame.
“Now comes this masterpiece ‘Moonlight On Galway Bay,’ I suspect strongly we are looking at Male Vocal Album of the Year here,” said Bill Margeson Live Ireland. All event and accommodation information at www.patrickokeeffefestival.com.