Céilí band founder remembered

IT was with sadness that people in East Clare and the wider music community learned this week of the death of the last remaining founder of the original Tulla Céilí Band that formed in 1946.
Paddy O’Donoghue (84) came from a musical family in Ballinahinch, Bodyke and grew up opposite well-known piper Martin Rochford. His father, Mickey, was a well-known concertina player.
Paddy was a multi-instrumentalist and composer. His primary instrument was the concert flute but he also played the fiddle and uilleann pipes.
While he was one of the founding members of the Tulla Céilí Band, Paddy also played with a number of other bands, since he began playing at the age of 12, including Sean Donohue’s Céilí Band and the Golden Star Céilí band.
He played regularly with East Clare accordion player Seamus Bugler, as well as Pat Mullins and he released a CD with them, Pat Costello and Geraldine Cotter for ClareCare in 2011, known as Life in the Slow Lane. He also released a CD with his son, Cyril, entitled The Rose Killagh in 2008.
Speaking about Paddy, Seamus recalls the numerous sessions they played together.
“I knew him all my life. I know him since I was very little and in the early years I used to meet him with his father, Mickey, who was a concertina player. He used to come to sessions with his father wherever we would play locally around the area and I suppose we started to play together fairly regularly about 27 or 28 years ago. We used to play a lot in Shortt’s in Feakle,” he said.
As well as being a very talented musician, Paddy was also highly regarded as a composer and released his own book of tunes entitled Ceol an Chláir.
He settled with his late wife, Bridie, in Ballycunneen, Newmarket-on-Fergus, where they raised their three sons and two daughters.
“He composed a lot of lovely tunes, reels, jigs and hornpipes. On a personal level, I would say he was one of the finest flute players in traditional Irish music. He was always a great character in a session. He was a great man to tell a joke or a yarn. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him in the trad music circle,” Seamus added.
Also speaking about Paddy was singer and musician Pat Costello, who said the flute player had a very distinctive style unique to him.
“He was a big fan of the musician Paddy O’Brien and also his daughter, Eileen O’Brien. He played the silver flute and had a very distinctive style. He played the fiddle as well. His wife, Bridie, was the most devoted follower of traditional music – a woman of the most amazing curiosity and an extraordinary collector of music. She was incredibly supportive of him,” Pat concluded.
Paddy’s funeral mass was held on Sunday at 1pm in Newmarket-on-Fergus Church with burial afterwards in Fenloe Cemetery.