Just received the news that one of the stalwarts of Clare fluteplaying, Paddy O Donoghue, has left us.
Paddy was originally from Ballinahinch, Bodyke in East Clare. During the nineteen forties he and his brother were the fluteplayers in the band that was formed in the house of a friend and neighbour of theirs, fiddler and piper Martin Rochford. They called it the Ballinahinch Ceiliband but it was soon to become the Tulla Ceili Band because, as Rochford used to say, somebody told them that name would fit easier on the bass drum.
Like Rochford, young Paddy took up the pipes and by all accounts he was a fine piper. For some time he played a set on loan, the pipes Leo Rowsome made for Séan Reid, later to be lent to Willie Clancy and now in the hands of Liam O Flynn. Paddy never got his own set and stayed with the flute.
Wooden flutes were hard to come by and at some point he turned to the Boehm flute and that’s what he played the rest of his life, never loosing the traditional flute aesthetic in his playing.
He was an avid maker of tunes and a collection of his compositions, Ceol an Cháir, was published by Clare Comhaltas.
At many times I have enjoyed Paddy’s music, especially his duets with fiddler Vincent Griffin and the recording Life in the Slow Lane he made with Seamus Bugler, Pat Mullins & Pat Costello a few years ago.
May he rest well.
