Liam O’flynn
Member of the Irish folk group Planxty who helped revive the popularity of the uilleann pipes
LIAM O’FLYNN, who has died aged 72, was a virtuoso uilleann (elbow) piper who first came to fame with the folk group Planxty, but went on to play with rock stars as well as classical composers, symphony orchestras and even the poet Seamus Heaney.
Elegant, stylish and soulful, he was acclaimed as a master of a notoriously complex and difficult instrument, lifting its profile after a period of steep decline.
Partly due to the “untamed” nature of their instrument, uilleann pipers were traditionally perceived as wild, unpredictable characters; but even at the height of Planxty’s fame, when they revolutionised Irish traditional music, O’flynn remained an unassuming character who saw his role as continuing a noble and ancient tradition.
Liam O’flynn was born on April 15 1945 into a musical family in Kill, Co Kildare, where his father, Liam, was a teacher and fiddle player. As a child he had piano lessons and learnt to play the fiddle and tin whistle, but it was the sight of uilleann pipes played by one of his father’s friends that stirred something within him. Given his first set of practice pipes as a Christmas present at the age of 10, his obsession intensified under the tutelage of Leo Rowsome, a brilliant piper and pipemaker.
Liam won prizes at various “fleadh cheoil” festival competitions, while on visits to Co Clare he met, befriended and was inspired further by Willie Clancy, another of Ireland’s great pipers. He then became a regular at the informal “trad” music sessions at Dowlings bar in the small Kildare town of Prosperous. It was there that he first encountered Séamus Ennis, another famous piper. who took Liam under his wing, When Ennis died in 1982, he left his Coyne pipes to his young protégé.
The informal sessions in Prosperous had a profound impact on O’flynn’s career. Among other musicians who congregated in the pub were Christy Moore and Donal Lunny, along with Andy Irvine, and when Moore returned to Ireland to record a new LP after a stint working the British folk club scene, he enlisted Lunny, Irvine and O’flynn to help him. The subsequent album, Prosperous, effectively launched Planxty, with O’flynn’s piping proving a key ingredient of a totally original style.
The flowing purity of his playing lent Planxty (“three hippies and a civil servant,” as they were once described) credibility, and O’flynn’s respect for tradition was a critical part of their success. Audiences roared each time he launched into a jig or a reel and his reputation soared with each of the five studio albums the group released between 1973 and 1980.
After Planxty split in 1983, O’flynn diversified, recording with artists from Kate Bush and Enya to Emmylou Harris, Nigel Kennedy, Sinéad O’connor and the Everly Brothers, as well as the avant-garde composer John Cage.
He played on a symphonic tribute album to Led Zeppelin and worked on the film soundtracks Kidnapped (1979) and A River Runs Through It (1992). One of his most brilliant performances, however, was The Brendan Voyage (1980), Shaun Davey’s orchestral suite for pipes based on the explorer Tim Severin’s re-creation of St Brendan’s sixth-century crossing to America. Seamus Heaney observed of his performance: “Behind these tunes you can hear freedom as well as discipline, elegy as well as elation, a longing for solitude as well as a love of the seisiun.” Heaney and O’flynn were good friends and when Heaney died in 2013, O’flynn played at his funeral.
O’flynn’s The Poet & The Piper show with Heaney (and 2002 album) had been a hit with audiences, while he returned regularly to Shaun Davey’s compositions, notably with material from RSC productions of The Winter’s Tale on the album Out to an Other Side (1993) and Romeo and Juliet on The Given Note (1995).
He made five solo albums between 1988 and 1999, the most ambitious of which, The Piper’s Call (1999), involved collaborations with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, the Galician piper Carlos Núñez, the flautist Matt Molloy, the guitarist Arty Mcglynn – and arrangements by Micheál O’súilleabháin with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
After a brief reunion of Planxty, O’flynn linked up again with Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine, alongside the fiddle player Paddy Glackin, in another new band, LAPD, before the rigours of touring started to take their toll and he effectively retired. He lived quietly, tending horses in Kildare with his wife Jane, who survives him.
Liam O’flynn, born April 15 1945, died March 14 2018