So what is up with this Blackie O’Connel that all of a sudden my friends who all went to E. Durham this week without me (teaching every feckin’ day this summer, grrr) keep texting me about? Where the heck did this guy come from? Sounds great from what I can tell from myspace…
Who knows this guy and what can ya’ll tell me?
My friends are all girls, incl. john from limerick (you know you are ya big ^%&*!) up there, so maybe that plays into it who knows.
maze
This is great: http://www.discoverireland.com/us/webisode/jsp/
Wait for it to download and click on Clare.
Makes you want to visit the place 
Patrick.
right there, Mr. D’Arcy. Thanks!
Seems nice a nuff guy
Yeah. I don’t know him at all. He played a bit either on the Dunne Brother video or the Travelling musician programme, not sure which.
Patrick.
Blackie playing a Galloway set.
I met Blackie at a session in Belfast last year- really sound guy, nice playing, generous with his time and happy to chat a good while about all things pipes. I remember he was playing a Cillian O’Briain set at that time and really nice on the regs.
R
He plays a Cillian O Brian set . I was there the day he collected them. Galloway makes copies of O´Brian.
Ballygo
Hey, well done Blackie (/Micheál) !
Oh, wow. I get what the girls were talking about!
And awesome piping … oh to be young and gorgeous and talented and charming … (erm) single.
Met Blackie at the IAW last week and attended his classes. He lives in Ennis these days and is only in his 20s. He picked up alot I would say from Micky Dunn as well as others. He started out at around 14 years old I think. He is an awesome piper and a real crowd pleaser (the set he did during a session at McKennas during the week brought the house down). He was dependably at Furlongs through the night - every night - and really is a colorful guy. The only regret I had was the fact that he missed his scheduled gig slot at the Andy McGann festival on saturday and they wouldn’t let him play later on (he was in playingat a session Friday night until 10:30 am saturday morning!). On Saturday night though he was back at Furlongs and at one point he, along with Paul Degrae and Matty Crannich borrowed some bight florencent wigs from some young ladies and the three of them jammed with wigs appropriatly adorned for several sets - I am sure some pictures will find there way around, and as Blackie adorned the pink wig, I vote that his nickname should be changed to “Pinkie”.
In any event, it would be a a grand treat to have him back at IAW and at any Tional as he is a fantastic musician (I hate to say it, but he takes Paddy Keenan’s frolics to another level with so much more material) and a really good teacher, not to mention just a bang up good time to hang out with for some laughs and good criac.
Neil.
the deal with blackie o’c is that as well as being a wonderful piper, he is also a professional session entertainer & session carrier, which is an art & a craft in and of itself. a lot of people who do this in ireland when they’re younger eventually get sick of it, and he’s fresh blood and damn good at it. a hilarious class clown as well as a wonderful player. he’s a doolin/ennis mainstay, seasoned in the subtle arts of all-night session momentum, and the simple fact is that they don’t have much of this at irish arts week. the musicians they bring in to teach & perform are wonderful, but by and and large, they make it tactlessly plain that when it comes to the 10-12 pm (or whatever hours) skedded seshes they are looking at their watches and can’t wait to piss out of the skedded seshes on the dot, which is kind of dismaying for folks who have paid gobs of dough to come there not just to genuflect at the listening altar, but also to do some fine playing themselves—particularly those who have put in a bunch of time and work and CAN play to a very good standard. i mean, this year the skedded sesh i had looked forward to the most featured the delightful experience of having most of them saunter in an hour late, and then very obviously watch the clock and leave as soon as the bell rang. it wasn’t that attendees didn’t play well or that there were session wreckers afoot. it was that they plain & simple do not want to be there one second beyond the skedded deal…and in that particular instance even shorted it by an hour…you just have to shake your head.
i have wondered for a couple of years (this is only a theory, no personal knowledge whatsoever) if furlong’s contracts the jackie daly mobsters to burn the house down all night at least for the final fri/saturday, because indeed they are conspicuously an exception in going all night. it’s usually jackie, matt cranitch, paul de grae & others, this year same crew plus blackie. i didn’t see jackie as much in the wee small hours this year, but blackie & cranitch, de grae, & co., were indeed burning the joint down. they are brilliant players, a class act and gents even if they are contracted in, but if they are doing it voluntarily for the craic and to give craic to attendees…they should be nominated for sainthood…as should as the queen of furlong’s…they gave a lot of delight to a lot of people…
i also thought it was a scream that blackie o’connell put all-night fun with the seshers over a fleeting performance at the andy mcgann egofest the next day…he’s got his priorities straight for sure.
Some really good points there – and great travelogue (not to mention stuff to add to my Blackie Moon Room), too. Thanks!
I’m willing to bet that a few years of doing the “teaching and playing and being lovely” circuit year in and year out can get to be a grind, esp. if one’s been on a plane or driving 8 hours or was up too late last night or has to be up and reasonably cheerful/coherent by 10 the next morning (thank god I don’t have to do that at my job), but yeah, as far as those teaching camps go … the classes are helpful, but it’s been the times I’ve been lucky enough to be around the big dogs “burning it down” that really make me go home and work harder.
Met him a few months back in the Irish Rover Pub in Hamburg, Germany, together with Desi Kelliher and some other lads and lasses from Ireland. Hat a nice chat and liked his piping. His friends/colleagues were by far not as communicative as him and mostly did their own thing, ignoring the local musicians.
I had the pleasure of taking my first couple formal piping lessons from him at his home in Ennis a few years ago. Wish I would’ve been around longer to take in more learning from him. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to pick things up again at some later point. Class piper, and class gent, just as all those above have said.
Kathy made some good points. Plus, unless your a teacher over the age of 35 ( or more), you have zero clue on how completely and utterly taxing that job can be. So, to faulting teachers for leaving a sessiun, many of which become makeshift orchestras due to the sheer amount of participants, is unfair.
Blackie excels at his many crafts, no doubt! More power to him!
amen florida brotha,
as a well-over 35 year old teacher, i absolutely agree… i certainly do not hang out in my design studios or lecture halls into the wee hours for the hell of it even though my students do.
maze
Having attended both Irish Arts Week and Willie Clancy Week, I can confidently say that I much prefer the sheer chaos of the latter. I thought the scheduled sessions set-up of IAW created way too much structure and severely limited a lot of the spontaneity which makes festivals so much fun. At Willie Week you never know who will be playing where (although sometimes you can make an educated guess). I also haven’t found the “orchestra effect” so prevalent. A lot of people tend to wander from pub to pub and move on if a session is awkwardly huge. Something about the “named players” and the scheduled session seems to stop people from doing that – a kind of social psychology thing going on there. I remember some massive sessions at IAW, upwards of 50-60 people. Don’t know how the teachers feel about it – many folks do both festivals – but if I were in their position I’d much rather the freedom play with whomever and wherever suited me than be tied down to one place and time surrounded by an orchestra.
I have not been to Willie week unfortunately (yet), and have been to the last seven IAWs. Your points are well taken for sure about some of the large sessions. But it is also fair to point out that there are several scheduled “open” sessions, and after many of the sheduled sessions breakup, a healthy handful of musicians hang around and continue a more comfortable session. I participated in about four or five of these last week, not to mention spontaneous sessions in back yards of pubs, in the tent at furlongs, on porches, under trees, and in rooms at various motels there. Those are great fun because of the great craic which is harder to come by with 50 people playing in a session. Also, if you stay out passed midnight, you begin to see the migration of people from place to place looking for right spot, and the crowds thin to more reasonabble levels (from my experience and IMO, the playing and excitment is at its peak between 2 and 5 am).
Neil
Well spoken, SilverSpear. Spontaneity is exactly what makes the Sunday and Saturday night sessions so much fun at CIAW. Just ask anyone who was wearing a brightly colored wig at Furlong’s around 3 or 4 am last Sunday. And Neil is right about the smaller impromptu sessions. Some great craic there.
I’d say the instructors work pretty darn hard at CIAW – imagine having to be “on” from your morning class at 10 am until your scheduled session ends at 12 midnight, and then having to get up and do it all over again the next day, for five days in a row. Small wonder if they want to go off and get some rest at the end of the night. And then, when you’re completely exhausted from that, having to play two concert gigs on Saturday. My hat is off to the folks who routinely stay up to play tunes until 5 or 6 in the morning in addition to that schedule – don’t know how they do it!!!
KAD
… And depending on how the schedules fall, a lot of them have just come from Willie Week or Meitheal or Augusta or Swannanoa … or are just taking a side trip from a tour.
So yeah, I totally understand. Nonetheless, it’s the times when my heroes do spontaneously combust into musical flame that keep me warm in those cold, lonely practice sessions … even if I don’t play along (and I’m ALMOST mature enough to have the restraint when applicable, but only ALMOST), just sitting in the thick of it can be enough.
Speaking of keeping warm 
, there’s a pic of Michael/aka Blackie in this quarter’s An Piobhaire. Lovely shot of Maire ni Grada too; both are in the NPU Tionol photo spread. I think I’m going to have to add those to my pipe-case shrine.