Irish Examiner View: Joe Burke's life was lived to the full 

Joe Burke 1939 — 2021

Galway accordionist Joe Burke, who has passed away.

Every art form, every cultural idiom has its own pantheon, a tier of practitioners that epitomises the soul, the craft, and value of whatever form they grace.

Irish music, and some of the energy and positive passion that celebrates what it is to be Irish, lost one of those figures this weekend when Galway accordionist Joe Burke died at the age of 82.

It's more than 60 years since Burke twice won the All-Ireland Senior Accordion Championship, first in Thurles in 1959 and again in 1960 in Boyle. It's more than 50 since he was named RTÉ's Traditional Musician of the Year. He first toured America in 1961 and lived mainly in New York from 1962 to 1965, when he made what are now seen as recordings that bridged generations and secured the tradition's legacy for those who followed.

Like most who die at this time, Burke will not get the funeral celebration he deserves. And what an occasion it would have been, what a testimony to him and others of his generation that did so much to renew fading traditions.