Sliabh Luachra fiddler John Walsh: 'I’d much prefer to learn a tune by ear'
John Walsh will be presented with a ‘Dedication to the Music of Sliabh Luachra Award’ during a concert at the Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Music Festival in Castleisland on October 26. Picture: Eddie O’Hare
If Sliabh Luachra defies precise geographical definition and exists rather as a “state of mind”, as the late Castleisland journalist Con Houlihan famously described it, then shrouded in those rushy mountain mists is the equally enigmatic music of John Walsh.
A native of Derrygallen, Derrygallon, Doire Ghealbhan, or perhaps Derrygalun, near Kanturk in North Cork, Walsh’s tunes have no names and many names, yet are among the most popular in the Sliabh Luachra repertoire, from its Cork-Kerry-Limerick heartlands to its furthest Japanese and Russian outposts.
