Joe O’Donnell bringing it all back home

Joe O’Donnell is coming home. Forty years after his last gig in Ireland, which was also the year he released his landmark album, Gaodhal’s Vision, the Limerick violinist and composer will perform with Shkayla as part of this year’s Cork Folk Festival.

Born in 1948, O’Donnell picked up a violin for the first time as a child. His uncle Pat had brought the instrument home from the US. O’Donnell was transfixed. “The first time I put it under my chin, it felt as if it belonged,” he says. “Even though you’d wonder what sort of a fool would wander around all day with a violin under his chin.”

O’Donnell bounced around with different groups in Limerick and Dublin in the early days, including Granny’s Intentions and Sweet Street. Then Orange Machine asked him to jump on board their train. The band was originally a pop band with a couple of hit singles in the charts. They morphed into an improvising band playing extended solos, which was unheard of at the time around the Dublin music scene. This was the late 1960s. The Irish public was bemused.