Orbiting whistle player’s tribute to Paddy
AN American astronaut who brought Paddy Moloney’s tin whistle up to the International Space Station to record music for The Chieftains has paid tribute to the band’s late founder.
Cady Coleman was the first person to record music for an album in space when she played three songs for the band’s 50th-anniversary album in 2010.
Ms Coleman, a traditional Irish flute player and scientist, befriended Moloney in the late Nineties and was allowed by Nasa to relay her music back to Earth via the onboard satellite phone.
She tweeted: ‘I loved playing Paddy Moloney’s tin whistle on the ISS while floating/watching Earth go by. Paddy had the rare ability to connect with people across the globe and I treasured our time together.
‘My heart is with his family and musical family everywhere – he and his music will forever be missed.’
She recalled previously how, in 1998, she met Paddy Moloney’s son, Pádraig, who is a nanotechnology scientist.
‘Pádraig came to work for Nasa and he used to live with friends of mine and that is how we met,’ she said.
Through Pádraig, Ms Coleman met Paddy and bandmate Matt Molloy when they visited the Nasa facilities in Florida. And they came up with the idea of recording some songs in space.
‘It was marvellous late at night floating around space; by playing music, I kind of made space into my neighbourhood,’ she said.
One of the songs was aptly called The Chieftains in Orbit with two other traditional songs, Fanny Power and The Butterfly, were also recorded in space.
Moloney joked at the time that the tin whistle ‘came back in perfect shape – better shape than it went up!’ after Ms Coleman’s trip.