Micheal O'Domhnaill RIP

[scottielvr]

The life so short,
the craft so long to learn,
Th’ assay so hard,
so sharp the conquering.
(Chaucer)

His music meant a great deal to me, too; it will live on, but that does not diminish our loss.

[Cathy Wilde]

The celestial sessions will be rocking now!

God bless his family, too.

[SteveShaw]

The life so short,
the craft so long to learn,
Th’ assay so hard,
so sharp the conquering.
(Chaucer)

What a lovely and inspiring quote. Thanks for that.

[bcpipes]

I heard the news a few days ago. I am only getting around to comment now, that I will certainly miss the Guitar genius of Micheal O'Dohmnaill. Even more I will miss that brilliantly controlled voice on "The Death of Queen Jane" and "Casiagh an t'Gaighn" May he rest in peace.

Interesting update at: http://nightnoise.org/General/8/micheal-odomhnaill-rip

[SteveShaw]

I heard the news a few days ago. I am only getting around to comment now, that I will certainly miss the Guitar genius of Micheal O'Dohmnaill. Even more I will miss that brilliantly controlled voice on "The Death of Queen Jane" and "Casiagh an t'Gaighn" May he rest in peace.

Interesting update at: http://nightnoise.org/General/8/micheal-odomhnaill-rip

Ah, those two songs. Wonderful. A friend of mine saw the Bothy Band once (lucky sod!) and he said that Micheal was very good at keeping Kevin Burke under control, as Kevin was getting rather over-enthusiastic at agreeing to play enough audience requests to keep the band playing into the wee small hours! Those were the days - and I missed 'em...

[Roger O'Keeffe]

A great loss.

It would be impossible to gauge his influence, because it extended beyond his own playing to include the extent to which he made traditional music accessible and exciting to new generations, particularly through Skara Brae and The Bothy Band. He then fed our habit with The Long Note, which again was a programme which appealed to people like myself who would not have found the Céilí-band-based programmes at all appealing. For those who were young in the early 1970s Skara Brae, and even, dare I say it, Clannad (also a Donegal band) were gateways to trad music even before the likes of the Chieftains, the Bothy Band and Planxty blew us away.

Some months after I became a regular attender at The Pavees Club, which was a weekly session organised by John Keenan senior in Slattery's in Capel Street, I began to notice Mícheál turning up as another regular listener. I don't think he ever played there, but he was presumably establishing a rapport with Paddy.

While Craig's Wikipedia article (excellent and appropriate initiative!) says that he was born in Dublin, he grew up in County Meath, but his real roots were in Donegal. His parents were one of several families which moved to Meath under a government initiative to create a Gaeltacht closer to Dublin and on more viable agricultural land than the natural Gaeltachtaí, which were all on at best marginal land. But the links to Donegal were strong, and reflected in his accent and that of his sisters, as well as in the music which they picked up through summer holidays staying with relatives.

When I hear songs like "Sé mo Laoch, mo Ghille mear" or "Slán le Maigh", I always remember him criticising the way Irish poetry was taught in school. As he pointed out on an early Long Note broadcast, generations of school kids learnt the words as dreary poems and hated every bit of them, without even being made aware that they were songs to be sung for enjoyment.

[Craig Stuntz]

While Craig's Wikipedia article (excellent and appropriate initiative!) says that he was born in Dublin, he grew up in County Meath, but his real roots were in Donegal.

I did a double-take when I read your post since that's not what I wrote. But it is, indeed, what the article now says; another user changed it. Based on some record company biographies of him I wrote that he was born in Kells, but those aren't quite authoritative. The other user didn't provide a citation for Dublin, and he also changed his age at death from 54, as cited in The Irish Times and The Herald, to 53.

It could be that all of those sources are wrong and the other user is right, but if so I'd like to find an authoritative source for the correct info. I've left a message for that user asking for a verifiable source for his info.

Thanks for mentioning this, and if you know of a verifiable source regarding his Donegal roots I'd like to use it.

-Craig

[Roger O'Keeffe]

The sleeve notes on the Skara Brae LP are probably the best starting-point. There may be some additional information in the notes to Maighréad's solo CD.

It is possible that he was born in Dublin, but the reference to Dublin is misleading, as his cultural filiation is undoubtedly Donegal via the Meath Gaeltacht.

You might also like to include a reference to the WP articles on Rath Cairn and the Gaeltachtaí in general, as both are relevant to his life in cultural terms : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A1th_Cairn and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaeltacht .

See also especially the WP articles on Rannafast/Rann na Feirste and Gweedore/ Gaoth Dóbhair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gweedore and follow the link there to Skara Brae, which makes it clear that the family origins were in Rann na Feirste, although the group also perfrmed regularly in Gaoth Dóbhair.

It would also be worth while referencing RTE (Irish national Radio) if you can find any more about The Long Note on their website: it really was his programme, though I don't know who else was involved on the production side when he was presenting it. Peter Browne and Donal Lunny would be obvious suspects.

Memory may be playing tricks, but I think Mícheál may also have been involved in two short-lived bands, 1690 and General Humbert. I mention these as leads worth exploring, not as quotable information.

[Wombat]

Memory may be playing tricks, but I think Mícheál may also have been involved in two short-lived bands, 1690 and General Humbert. I mention these as leads worth exploring, not as quotable information.

My understanding is that after Skara Brae, Triona was in 1691 with Tommy Peoples, Peter Browne and Liam Weldon and that would be at the time Micheal was recording Celtic Folkweave with Mick Hanly. I have no recollection of General Humbert nor any information on them.

Triona and Micheal joined forces shortly after that in Seachtar. This would be the very early 70s I think.

I'm pleased to see you clear up the confusion over the Donegal connection, Roger. Micheal's father and aunt were legends in Donegal singing and the family went there each summer when Micheal and his sisters were growing up I believe. My guess is that the Meath connection was musically relatively superficial in their development.

[bradhurley]

I have no recollection of General Humbert nor any information on them.

He didn't play on the General Humbert LP I had, though I suppose he could have played with them before or after that recording. But from my memory of that album they weren't a very strong group of musicians apart from the singer Mary Black. I believe that was her first band.

[Wombat]

I have no recollection of General Humbert nor any information on them.

He didn't play on the General Humbert LP I had, though I suppose he could have played with them before or after that recording. But from my memory of that album they weren't a very strong group of musicians apart from the singer Mary Black. I believe that was her first band.

I dug up something on General Humbert. Mary Black joined them in 1977, that would be before her first solo album I think, and made two albums. That's all I came up with. No mention of other bandmembers. I don't have any of their albums.

[bradhurley]

Here are links to info on those two albums, including the musicians who played on them:

http://house-of-music.com/recordings/ghumbert1.shtml

and

http://house-of-music.com/recordings/ghumbert2.shtml

I had the second one.

[The Sporting Pitchfork]

He was indeed 54, as I understand it.

I played at a wake for Mícheál at the Moon & Sixpence pub in Portland, OR on Monday night. He lived here in Portland from 1980 until about the mid-nineties or so, and just about every accompanist here who can play well owes their skill to him. There was a huge turnout of people--the pub was absolutely jammed. Lots of great photographs of him and a lot of people talking about their memories of him. He seemed like a really wonderful guy and he loved to play--even if you could only play a few tunes, he was very encouraging. The obituary for him in the Irish Times was quite nice, I thought. It's often forgotten that in addition to playing on a number of albums, he produced some fantastic albums. I had no idea he had produced Noel Hill & Tony Linnane's album!

Friends at the wake were saying that they had heard the cause of death was from taking a fall down a large flight of stairs and not from anything related to the harsh and unhealthy life of the touring musician. He was quite healthy and active in his later years and was an avid golfer.

It really is quite a tragic loss, but he did leave a very distinguished legacy.

[Craig Stuntz]

Most sources have him as 54 years old, but the birthdate of 7 October 1952 (which would of course have made him 53) apparently came from a recent Irish Times obituary this past Saturday. Unfortunately, I can only get the daily Irish Times (which has his age as 54) via ProQuest, so I can't see the article to cite it properly.

On the more substantive concern of his style, I found this RTÉ interview informative and added a quote to the article. I also cited his trips to Rannafast, as suggested here and mentioned some of the other instruments he played.

I'd like to do more, but I can only add material which I can cite. The standard for Wikipedia is not just truth, it's verifiability. I can only include things which other people could look up the sources on, not just anything I personally believe to be true. So I'll continue looking for good sources.

-Craig