Sad news, Con Durham has passed away. Con was a great piper and a very nice man. We usually had a few tunes with Con in some session or other when we went down to Dingle and Ballyferriter. Con was always made us feel welcome, I shall miss him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw-lnwRsBPQ
Hi Thomas
Very sad news indeed. Con was from Lucan in Dublin (the next parish to mine). I got on very well with him. He lived in Galway for a while and played a lot with the Lewis family.
Whenever I went to Dingle I made it a point of going to Brics’ pub on a friday night just to meet Con. He played there for years. Even though he played paid gigs in Dingle he never took money for playing in Brics. He lived very near Brics and old Mrs Bric was very good to him when he first moved down there.
I’ll spread the word around here in Dublin.
Many thanks
John
Aye Seanie, An Bric was where I first heard Con in 1996. My daughters and I were camped near the pub and we looked in one night when Con was piping. My pipes were not going well at all, the bag was leaking, and I’d just had my first ever week of piping classes at Miltown with Al Purcell. It was great to hear Con piping. We were back again at Ballyferriter in 2002 and played in a nice session with Con until this angry Kerry box player turned up and started playing some mad polkas at turbo speed. He really didn’t like us being there, but Con was friendly, even so we left after a while as the vibe wasn’t good. Another time we played in a session with Con in the Marina, Dingle. It was packed as the world cup final was going to start so we had to finish playing when they put the telly on. Paddy Keenan was there I remember and we met Con’s wife who’d come over from Americay after visiting there. She was nice and if I remember right was also playing an O’Briain set. Both Con and his wife were laid back gentle people playing. We were down in Dinlge again last year and heard from Mazz that Con had been ill, but had recovered. He was playing in a big session in the Marina, so we just listened.
It’s very sad to hear about this. I never really had a formal lesson with Con, but when I spent a summer in Dingle and had just gotten my practice set, I would go to sessions every night and watch him play for three or four hours and then go back to my flat and try to figure out what he was doing the next day. He was always friendly and generous with his time, and he gave me a lot of helpful advice and encouragement when I was starting out. I’ll always be grateful to him.
I don’t think the few bits of things that he recorded quite do him justice. Back when I knew him, he had an album that had recently come out on some sketchy, fly-by-night label called “Champions of Ireland: Uilleann Pipes.” Con had recorded it some years before–he just went into a recording studio, someone pressed record, and he played a whole bunch of tunes in one take. The tapes sat around for years before someone dumped a bunch of electric and acoustic guitar and keyboards all over them and released it as the above album. If you can get past the awful backing, there’s actually some nice music on it.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.
Theres just a kind of numbness around Dingle at the moment.
RORY
Some nice Piping from Con Durham about half way down the page.
Nice to hear him talking and playing, thanks for that.
"What tune are you going to play? I dont know yet ". Priceless.
RORY
I just heard this news sadly enough from a good mate of his here in NY, Brendan O’Shea…it tis sad news, rest in peace
I remember a nice session with him in the Marina in Dingle on a Sunday afternoon, that was 6 or 7 years ago. A nice man. R.I.P.