Ó Súilleabháin to perform musical salute to Cork's Captain O' Neill

One of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians, Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, will perform for one night, October 3, at The University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, in the US, in commemoration of the works of Cork-born Captain Francis O’Neill.

“Captain O’Neill is the single most important collector of Irish traditional dance music in our history,” says Ó Súilleabháin “His work is set apart in that it is directed at, and for, performing musicians themselves, rather than towards academic research, as we normally think of it. Traditional musicians have always referred to his primary collection, The Dance Music of Ireland (1907), as ‘The Book’.

“Many traditional musicians do not have musical notation, but O’Neill wrote down the tunes in a simple, but skilful way, allowing direct access by that musical community to his tune settings.”

O’Neill (1848-1936) was born near Bantry, in Co Cork. At an early age, his family moved to Chicago, where he served as chief of police, from 1901 to 1905.

In his spare time, however, he also collected the musical scores of many traditional Irish tunes, and later donated them to Notre Dame University.

Ó Súilleabháin was appointed Patrick B. O’Donnell visiting professor in Irish studies, at the Keough-Naughton Institute of Irish Studies, at Notre Dame University, in 2012.

“The Keough-Naughton Institute is the most developed Irish studies centre in the world,” he says. “Along with other faculty members, it has no less than six full-time faculty specialists in the Irish language.

“Indeed, it is the largest Irish-language faculty in the world outside of Ireland. My connection with the place is ongoing and is to advise on the potential integration of Irish music into their curriculum.

“This is the first concentrated effort to include Irish music in an Irish studies programme anywhere — although there are, and have been, incursions into this type of thing, previously, in locations such as Boston College, where I set up the Irish music programme in 1990.”

Ó Súilleabháin was born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, and studied for a B.Mus at University College Cork (UCC), in 1972, later reading for an MA there, in 1973.

He lectured in music at UCC from 1975, before completing a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast, in 1987.

In 1994, he was appointed the first chair of music at the University of Limerick (UL), successfully founding the Irish World Music Centre, later renamed the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. In 1990, he was appointed a visiting professor of music at Boston University.

Ó Súilleabháin’s greatest musical influences, while at UCC, were Professor Aloys Fleischmann and Séan Ó’Riada. To date, his back-catalogue includes some ten CDs of compositions. These include Dolphin’s Way (1987), Oilean (1989) and Between Worlds (1995). Although his first album, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, debuted in 1975, on the Gael Linn label, his schedule remains as busy as ever.

On April 24, the Irish World Academy he founded at UL will celebrate its 20th anniversary and, on May 19, he will produce a CD of medieval Irish chant by the female ensemble, Cantoral, at Ballintubber Abbey, Co Mayo.

Notably, Professor Ó Súilleabháin will visit Burma on June 9, to participate in a series of charity concerts organised by Mick Moloney. There will also be a further concert in Lorient, Brittany, with Liam O’Flynn, Paddy Glackin, and Neil Martin, to honour the late Séamus Heaney, on August 2.

* Further information: www.mosmusic.ie and www.irishworldacademy.ie