Blind Fiddlers, harpers, pipers and fluters

Trad Irish Music
1

I’ve been reading a book about the development of Irish Traditional Music, and there are several references to blind musicians. Turlough O’Carolan is perhaps the most famous blind composer, but there were others.

What this brief book fails to explain is whether they were blind before they started playing. I can imagine that for a blind person, being a musician was one of the few productive career paths still open to an individual. On the other hand, maybe diet, disease and general conditions prevalent at the time led to many people going blind, some of whom were inevitable musicians.

Can anyone shed light on the cause/effect here?

2

Hi!
I can’t give you a general answer, but (as far as I know) O’Carolan was blind when he was taken in by a woman from Roscommon (correct me if I’m wrong…) and taught to play harp as a way for him to earn a living. My understanding is that becoming a travelling musician was one of the only ways for blind people to earn a living.
It makes sense to me anyway! :slight_smile:
Deirdre

3

What Dierdre said. It appears that that was a traditional occupation afforded the blind. Can you imagine…

“All right then, Donncha, you’re blind. Here’s a fiddle.”

…and Donncha may as well be tone deaf? I hope for the sake of music and decency that there were other outlets as well.

4

Yes, it was a traditional occupation of the blind, though if it makes you feel any better Nanohedron, I think blind fiddlers were not as common as their harp and pipe-playing brethren.

There were several noted examples of blind musicians who were really quite virtuosic (O’Carolan, bless him, came up with some mighty fine tunes, but accounts from the period suggest that since he started on the harp a bit late, he wasn’t as nimble a player as some of his peers). William Kennedy, a blind uilleann piper from Armagh, not only played the pipes, he actually MADE the damn things.

I also heard a story of a blind piper from Scotland–I think it was one of the MacCrimmons–who was envied by other inferior (not to mention sighted) pipers for his snappy piobaireachd playing. Several of them took him out for a stroll one day and threw him off a cliff. For better or worse, he apparently survived the incident.

5

I hope that he not only mended well enough but went on to play even better despite their efforts. That would be justice.

6

I would imagine that, for blind people, the lack of sight causes other senses to be heightened. I mean, you and I don’t really think about this… But blind people are constantly listening, for a person to approach, for any movement around them. Someone who listens that carefully could make a great musician. Also, I think of instrument playing as a skill where the sense of touch is MUCH more important than the sense of sight.