Seán Ó Sé: The real voice of Ireland

ASKING Cork tenor Seán Ó Sé whether, in his 79th year, he has any plans to decelerate his singing career, would be a tricky question for any journalist to pose.
Whatever about having the temerity to suggest such a notion or the possibility of causing offence to a man recently recovered from colon cancer treatment; there’s a far more tangible difficulty facing the writer — and that’s how to catch up with Seán Ó Sé.
Jetting back to Ireland between US gigs to launch his new CD, the stamina of the ‘Pocar’ — as he is affectionately known by reference to his ’60s ‘pop’ hit ‘An Poc ar Buile’ — is evidently not at issue.
He takes in his stride another transatlantic flight following his performances with the Brú Ború traditional group at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann’s North American convention in New Jersey, plunging straight into preparations for the launch of Through Banks of Mist, his second collaborative album with multi-instrumentalist composer Peadar Ó Riada on piano.
This partnership is itself a marker of the longevity of Ó Sé’s career, which was launched in earnest at the start of the 1960s with Ceoltóirí Chualann, the iconic traditional music collective of Peadar’s father, the composer Seán Ó Riada.
More than half a century later, and Ó Sé’s enthusiasm for musical performance is as keen with a second Ó Riada generation as it was with the first, the recording of Through Banks of Mist in the relaxed setting of the Ionad Cultúrtha in Baile Mhúirne offering the pair the freedom to explore shared and individual musical memories.
“For this CD we did four or five tracks at a time and the sessions were extremely enjoyable,” explains Ó Sé. “What I like about recording with Peadar is that he is a very sensitive accompanist. Every chord and note he strikes is there to support the lyrics of the song and to assist the singer in presenting the song, and he does that so very well that you tend to forget he is accompanying you.
“You forget that this is for a CD and it’s the sheer enjoyment of the thing that’s important. You get a wonderful feeling, of almost ecstasy.” The same emotion was evoked, he recalls, when as a young man he first performed on stage with Peadar’s father.
“I remember feeling this the first time I sang with Seán Ó Riada in public, at the Fox Hall hotel in Raheny. These crashing chords came in behind me and it was an almost supernatural feeling.”
He will brook no comparisons though, between father and son. “They are both peerless, but different,” he insists.
“Peadar’s biggest achievement is the most difficult thing, and that’s to follow roughly the same path as your father; to live not in his shadow but in his light, and carve out your own place, and he’s done that magnificently.
“I love recording with him for the reason that he’s not looking for perfection, and neither am I. We’re human beings. A lot of CDs are produced with too much reverence for modern technology, and I know there might be one or two things when you’re recording where you’d say, ‘I’d like another go at that’, but if you’re doing a concert you’re going to make little slips and the recording should reflect that. You can get too immersed in the technology and you lose a lot of the soul of the music.”
The new CD, with or without blemishes, picks up where Ó Sé and Ó Riada left off in their 2006 album, whose title Dir Cúm Thóla is Cúil Aodha linked their respective home-places in Coomhola, near Bantry, and Cúil Aodha, in Cork’s Múscraí Gaeltacht.
The familial influences on both artists emerge once more in Through Banks of Mist. Tracks such as ‘The Enniskillen Dragoon’ and ‘Galway Bay’ are from the repertoire of Ó Sé’s father, while ‘Willie Dear’ was learned by Ó Sé from Seán Ó Riada, along with the album’s title track, a previously unpublished translation into English by Seán Ó Riada of Sliabh Luachra poet Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin’s ‘Im’ Aonar Seal’.
For retired schoolteacher Ó Sé, the journey to Through Banks of Mist has been a forward-looking as well as a retrospective process, however.
Diagnosed three years ago with cancer, he returned to recording this year following chemotherapy and takes a philosophical view of his illness. “If I look at the cancer episode I had, it was pretty positive. I had three doctors who were vital to my survival and I had tremendous love and support from family and friends.
“I wouldn’t be around at all, but for my GP Séamus Looney, who spotted the cancer very early on. It was 2011 and I had just come back from performing in Cuba and when he saw me he said ‘I don’t like your colour’, and he organised tests.
“Once you’re diagnosed, the enemy is identified and you have a battle to fight and you can confront it. I was fortunate that the growth was removed and that it hadn’t spread. I was operated on by a wonderful surgeon called Colm O’Brien, who did keyhole surgery, and because of his skills the operation was relatively minor.
“I’m still under the care of my oncologist Brian Bird and will continue to be so. He has been mainly responsible for preserving my voice and some people say it even has a quality it didn’t have before.”
And so it is that, as well as their own imminent CD launch, Ó Sé and Ó Riada are adding to their hectic schedules a fundraising concert for cancer charities, planned for Cork in the near future.
“At 78 it’s remarkable that my voice is lasting. I don’t know how long that’s going to continue but as long as I have a voice that will last, I will keep singing,” confirms Ó Sé.
As to the question of whether more albums may follow, he admits there were one or two songs left out of their last recording and… “as a singer it doesn’t matter how many albums you’ve done; you always think there’s another you’d like to do.”
nThrough Banks of Mist: Amhráin Fódhla will be launched at the Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork at 8pm on May 12 and at the Boston Beara Society annual dinner in The Phillips House, Dorchester, MA on May 18. See: www.peadaroriada.ie/ www.bostonbearasociety.com