This snippet of information came my way, it’s not up on the NPU website so there you have it:
A CD with music by the Co Waterford piper Tommy Kearney will be launched during the Tionol in Ring Co Waterford on saturday 22d of february, 5 O Clock in Mooney’s pub, Ring.
Tommy is now 83 years of age and going as strong as ever. As far as I know there will be new material on the CD as well as tracks taken from an older recording made by Reg Hall of Tommy playing with London based but originally Waterford fiddler Jimmy Power.
Tommy helped along a lot of starting pipers, the above as well as others, ranging from Finbar Furey to Donncha Gough. He has been piping away through times when there was no particular interest in the music among the general public. He himself was taught by Liam Walsh and passing on his craft to the next generation he has insured continuity in the Waterford line of piping. It is nice to see that a group of Waterford or Waterford based pipers including David Power, Macdara ‘ac Donncha, Fionn Mac Giolla Chuda and Billy Brown has taken the initiative to pay him this tribute.
So far there is little of Tommy’s music available, I know of one track [the Waterford Waltz] on a Comhaltas lp but that’s about it.
A lovely person and a real gentleman, and it’s nice to say that while he’s still alive, rather than by way of obituary note which is normally the stage when people start speaking well of each other.
He was an amazing revelation when a group of NPU pipers from Dublin visited him for a weekend which I’d say was around 1973 or 74. My feeling at the time was that he was playing the way Leo Rowsome would have loved to play if he was able - and I hope I’m not being unfair to Leo’s memory. The overall sound was very open and there were all sorts of things going on with the regulators, but he also turned out triplets that were just as tight as Patsy Touhey’s. A few years ago I wondered if he was still alive and rooted out a tape which I had made at the time, thinking that the ITMA might like a copy: but the tape had been unplayed for so long that it broke as soon as I tried to play it. It was after this that I heard he was still hale and hearty, so my good intentions were never fulfilled.
I’m delighted to hear he is still going strong and that so many people have benefited from what he had to share. I presume that there are ample recordings of him in the meantime. At the time when I met him, he was very rarely heard in public (the word was that, just like Willie Clancy, he had a wife that didn’t have much time for traditional music). If anyone can tell me whether it would be worth while rooting out the recording again and trying to patch up the tape I could, but if there are good quality archive or CD recordings, it probably wouldn’t be worth the bother.
[ This Message was edited by: Roger O’Keeffe on 2003-02-13 11:16 ]
There was some rooting around for additional material but not a lot surfaced. I have some stuff of him playing at the 1962 Oireachtas and some stuff I recorded from him during the 80s, as well as stuff some other people including Tommy Keane taped. ITMA has some tv footage. I asked Tom Munnelly who did a lot of archive work for NPU and he did a short session with Tommy but typically he gave the original tape to Breandan Breathnach and it hasn’t been seen since.
It’s worth restoring [relatively] older recordings if you have them, especially if he was in good playing form [he’s terrible for stopping in mid tune if he thinks his regs are out or something].
Contact Terry Moylan at the NPU archive and leave a copy there
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2003-02-13 12:07 ]