Cork choir to sing out in memory of  beloved comrade Seán Ó Sé

Peadar Ó Riada, along with Ceoltóirí Chualann and Cór Cúil Aodha, perform in Dublin at the weekend, a concert given extra poignancy given the recent passing of the choir stalwart Ó Sé 

Peadar Ó Riada leads Ceoltóirí Chualann and Cór Cúil Aodha at the National Concert Hall in Dublin at the weekend. 

A week before his death, Seán Ó Sé was making plans for this weekend’s National Concert Hall performance by Ceoltóirí Chualann and Cór Cúil Aodha.

The Cork tenor, who first sang with Seán Ó Riada’s Ceoltóirí Chualann in 1962, when he recorded An Poc ar Buile told Ó Riada’s son Peadar he hoped to be able to perform with the band again under Peadar’s stewardship this Saturday.

Ó Sé was also to receive a TradFest lifetime achievement award from President Catherine Connolly in January, but could not travel to Dublin for the ceremony, passing away on January 13, three days before his 90th birthday.

Peadar, himself undergoing treatment for bone-marrow cancer, said although Ó Sé knew he would not get to the capital to accept the award in person, he was keen to get back on stage for the concert.

“He was looking forward to it and even the last day I was talking to him, the week before he died, he said ‘whatever about Dublin next week, we’ll definitely do the Concert Hall anyway’. “‘Dublin next week’ was when he was given the award, but he didn’t make it,” said Peadar.

Saturday’s concert will now open with a poignant tribute to Ó Sé and other deceased members of Ceoltóirí Chualann and Cór Cúil Aodha, both founded by composer Seán Ó Riada, who died aged 40 in 1971.

Séan Ó Sé and Cór Cúil Aodha performing at Shane MacGowan's funeral in Nenagh in 2023.

“It’s one of those nights to remember that won’t be repeated very easily,” said Peadar, whose friendship with Ó Sé spanned six decades. “Considering that Seán Ó Sé and myself started out thinking we’d have a whale of a night and now half of [the duo] is gone, with the other one kind of ‘dodge’ — I’m alright, thank God — you know there’s no guarantee that it’ll be repeated.

“Because we’ve lost Seán Ó Sé, in a nod of respect to him we’ve taken his songs and married them to different individual singers in the choir who’d be able to carry his huge [vocal] range.

“Obviously, we’ll do all the numbers that people know, like Mo Ghile Mear, which I started off doing first in 71 and which many people have imitated since. We’ll be doing Do Bhí Bean Uasal, Iníon an Phailitínigh, and Im’ Aonar Seal,” and in Ó Sé’s honour, “ The Banks, of course”.

Peadar says the concert will start with a little tribute to all the deceased members of the band and the choir. "I’ll play Aisling Gheal like my father did, the last piece he played, and we’ll show pictures of the deceased members, finishing with Seán Ó Sé, as a nod of respect to them. There’s going to be an awful lot of nostalgia for people going to that concert who have grown up listening to Ó Riada sa Gaiety,” he added. “It will take them back to the '60s and ''70s.” 

With Michael Tubridy the only surviving member of Seán Ó Riada’s lineup, the band is now in its third regeneration, with 1970s' recruits Peadar Ó Riada, John Kelly, and Éamon McGivney joined by Sorcha Costello, Louise Mulcahy, Jillian O’Malley, Éimhear Flannery, Conor Connolly, and Tommy Hayes.

Though Ceoltóirí Chualann, some of whose original members went on to form the Chieftains, has undergone personnel changes, it retains its sound, said Peadar, author in 2024 of Ceoltóirí Chualann: The Band that Changed the Course of Irish Music. “It’s the arrangements that make the music. They sound like the old band and it will be very emotional.”

Ceoltóirí Chualann share the stage with Cór Cúil Aodha, founded by Seán Ó Riada and an tAthair Donnacha Ó Concubhair in 1963-64 and under Peadar’s direction since his father’s death. The male choir also spans family generations, Peadar being among the few remaining original members, the likes of Danny Maidhcí Ó Súilleabháin and Páidí Ó Lionáird now singing alongside grandsons of former comrades.

Cór Cúil Aodha and Ceoltóirí Chualann with Peadar Ó Riada.  

“We’ve some very young boys in the choir who will be marching out on stage and singing out,” Peadar said. “Family connections are there all the time — that’s the thing about the choir, they bring their kids in and they grow up in the choir, like my grandson, who is nipping in and out, and my grand-nephew.

“I had the most wonderful experience at Christmastime, when Murchadh Morgan’s [Mac Suibhne] grandson young Murchadh came up to me and said ‘An bhfuil cead agam teacht isteach’ and he’s all of six or seven and I said ‘tá, gan dabht’ and he’s manfully singing away ever since and he’ll be soloing up in the National Concert Hall.” 

Songs including Tuirneamh Mhic Finín Dhuibh and Abha an tSuláin have been reintroduced to the repertoire, added Peadar. “We’ve gone back again to the 60s for some of the numbers the choir are doing, to try and span the whole 60 years, so between Ceoltóirí Chualann and the choir it will be a very rich concert.

“The night is in tribute to the generations that are gone. It’s called Múscailt [awakening/stirring] because we have the young generations coming after — we’re not dying out, we’re there forevermore and a day — just with personnel changes.” 

• Múscailt, Ceoltóirí Chualann agus Cór Cúil Aodha, NCH, Dublin March 14, 7.30pm. Tickets via National Concert Hall