Description
Paddy O’Brien and Seamus Connolly, – These are names that are known wherever Irish music is loved. It is now a score or more years since a young man from Newtown established himself, firstly in Ireland and later across the Atlantic, as one of the really great masters of the accordion. Now, happily back home again, Paddy O’Brien is playing regularly and well, and he is at his brilliant best when he teams up in a session with Seamus Connolly.
Seamus is remembered as a teenage lad, sweeping all before him at those memorable Fleadhanna in the late fifties and early sixties. Now, ten years on, he is still a young man, but with a long – established reputation as one of our finest traditional fiddlers. With Paddy and Seamus on accordion and fiddle, backed by the fine musical instinct and scholarly discipline of Charlie Lennon, a great session of Irish music is assured.
The tunes are rare, and in most cases not previously recorded. In fact, the two slip jigs, “The Arra Mountains” and “Fr. Burke’s”, the reels, “Youghal Quay” and “The Rambling Sailor”, and the hornpipe “The Banks of the Shannon” were all composed by Paddy O’Brien himself. The hornpipe “The Munster Grass” is also a fairly recent composition, being from the Edward Reavy collection “Where the River Shannon Flows”. Rugadh agus tógadh an bheirt ar bhruachaibh Sionna. Pádraig sa Baile Nua i gCondae Tiobraid Árann, agus Séamus i gCill Dá Lua i gCondae and Chláir. Mar sin, nuair a bhíomar ag iarraidh teideal a cheapadh don gcéirnín seo, níor fhéadamar dul thar Bruach na Sionna, ainm an chornphíopa a chum Pádraig fhéin. Mo cheol sibh, a cheoltóirí.
