RIP to an Irish guitar hero

Sep 24, 2006 21:30

It was July 8, but I just got the word.

The Herald (UK): Obit for Míchéal Ó Domhnaill

I always told people Míchéal Ó Domhnaill was one of the first musicians I ever heard, the one responsible for my attraction to Irish music. My parents saw him when I was a month shy of birth and he was touring with Kevin Burke. As a small child, I danced to the "Old Pigeon on the Gate" set and "Lord Franklin" from Promenade. When I began playing Irish guitar as a teenager, The Bothy Band's records - then two decades old - were nothing short of a Beatles-like revelation to me. Whenever I felt disheartened as an accompanist, I would return to 1975: The First Album, work out some of Míchéal's chords, and watch the seisiun players marvel at my "original", "fresh"-sounding accompaniment.


It was in the chilly Berlin November of 2001 that I heard about the "Celtic Festival" in a Kreuzberg church. It was a rare chance: Míchéal was touring with Paddy Glackin (the first of the Bothy Band's three fiddlers, who never recorded with them), and they were to share the bill with Míchéal's sister and ex-Bothy/Nightnoise/Relativity-bandmate Triona, who was touring with their other sister Maighread. I sat in the front row. There I was, feet away from some of the musicians who'd had the biggest influence on my artistic life. It hardly mattered that Triona was playing an electric piano instead of a clavinet, or that her voice had mellowed from the 1970s' salty harshness, or that Míchéal's voice was quieter, even gentler, more introspective than haunting. They were professionals. In the end, they joined each other onstage - almost half the Bothy Band, which hadn't reunited since 1979 - and thrilled us all through a classic, fiery Bothy reel set. They sang "Mo Ghile Mear" together and I rocked and wept for the sheer beauty of it. Those siblings, those bandmates, those visiting prophets of music: they charged the whole air with craic and put fire in the bellies of all of us.

One of the posters to TheSession.org aptly caught the sentiment of so many of us Irish musicians:One of the wonders of the man was how much impact his backing had but without ever over powering, never out of balance ~ so much so that you'd find yourself taking it for granted ~ but as much of what made you want to dance or sing as any single element of a track ~ it just seemed right, moss under trees in a forest...
He was 54 years old. It was sudden. But Liam O'Flynn played him an air on the pipes, and the Bothy Band itself sent him on his way. We should all be so lucky.

The Irish say a man don't die while his name's still spoken. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam, Big Guy.

irish music/seisiun

Previous post Next post
Up