John, the leader of the band

2009 was some year for the Kilfenora Céilí Band. In their centenary year, they travelled to the US, France, Glastonbury, London, as well as cruising the Mediterranean. They sold out concerts in Glór, the National Concert Hall Dublin and attended a weekend in their honour in Kilfenora, Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy, performed on The Late Late Show, Céilíhouse as well as having a documentary, In the Blood, made in their honour.
It’s been prosperous, if not a little hectic, for the members of the Kilfenora Céilí Band, all of whom work full-time outside of their céilí exploits.
But John Lynch, leader of the Kilfenora Céilí Band for over 15 years, isn’t about to get carried away with success.  
“They all have been highlights, they all have been honouring the band. But I say to the band, look it, we’ve had a great year but remember, it’s the music that counts,” he reflects.
Last month, John received an honorary masters degree in music from University College Galway on behalf of the band and just recently, the Clare Association in Dublin announced him as their recipient of the Clareman of the Year accolade, which he will formally receive on February 5.
“You’d feel that there are an awful lot more people more deserving than you. You have to be careful that you don’t offend anybody by saying you don’t deserve it but you just feel humbled by it,” he says almost at pains to emphasise that while he personally is privileged to receive the award, he feels it belongs to Kilfenora members, past and present.
“When I see some of the people who have been there before me, I don’t know how I fit into it. I’m accepting it on behalf of the band and the bands that went before us and people that went before us. The Kilfenora Céilí Band has been there for the last 100 years. It’s really a tremendous honour because as a Clare person, it’s great to be honoured and accepted by your own people. But it’s the band really – it’s all to do with the band. We enjoy playing and we enjoy going around and if it brings pleasure to people, so much the better,” he says.
Of course, the Lynch name is synonymous with the Kilfenora – John’s grandfather John Joe was part of the band from the very beginning right through to the 1950s. His father, PJ, aunt Noreen and uncle Gerry were part of the set-up of the 1950s. Kitty Linnane, the band leader from the early 1950s up to her death in 1993, was also cousin of John’s father. And now his brother, Pat is part of the present outfit while Gerry, another brother sometimes sings with the band, so there’s a solid thread running down through three generations of the Kilfenora. It’s no wonder then that John was eager to return to his native county after his years away at college in Cork followed by a teaching stint in County Kildare.
Even though he counts his teaching days in Kildare as some of his happiest, he says the music, football and his friends were constantly pulling him back to Clare. For many years, John – along with wife Noreen and their small children – would commute from Clane to Clare so that he could line out with the Kilfenora football team at weekends. On Sunday evenings, he and the family would take off again in their Toyota Starlet to be back in Kildare for work on Monday mornings – a huge commitment to his native parish.
It was inevitable when John and Noreen made the decision to move back permanently in 1995. By that time, he had become more involved as a leader of the Kilfenora Céilí Band following the death of Kitty Linnane. John says that at that stage, he put the band in for competition simply because he wanted to keep the tradition alive, or in his own words, “I said it would be a pity to let it all go”.
“In 1995, I felt I needed to come back closer to home because the band was really starting to play a big part. Noreen, my wife, is from Ballyea, Tiermaclane, so both of us were from Clare. 1995 was great year because Clare won the All-Ireland and the year we got back home and the band won the third of three in-a-row. My uncle, my aunt and my father were part of the three in-a-row previously and then we were part of the present one,” he says.
It’s his strong sense of belonging to Kilfenora and a duty to uphold a long-held and deeply precious tradition that inspires John Lynch.
“I have a passion for what I do and a passion for the people who went before me and a passion for the people who are with me and a passion for the people who are outside there listening to it and you respect that always. It’s a respect for what is there for so long – that is so Irish and so us,” he says.
Even though the band is constantly introducing different aspects to their live shows – they regularly have guest musicians, singers and dancers as well as embracing technology, John explains that the essence of the band is still their unique ‘Kilfenora’ sound, which they have always maintained throughout the band’s 100-year history, beginning with the founding members.
“Our style would come from three people mainly and they would be John Joe Lynch, Mrs McGrath and Jim Ward and they played in the house dances. Those three had the Kilfenora style and then my father and Aunty Noreen brought it from them and we brought it from them again,” he says.
”No two bands are going to be the same but when we’re playing our reels and jigs, we stick to the style that was there before us and try to protect it as best we can. We have such a broad range of music in Kilfenora from the point of view  that from the 1870s right up to 1910, you had a brass and reed band and lots of nice pieces that they played came into the traditional repertoire even though they may not have been traditional tunes and we even play them today. Even on our last album, we played three military two-steps and they’re beautiful tunes. And of course, they harmonised a lot in Kilfenora and we like doing harmonies as well. We like the challenge and you respond to the challenge and sometimes it works out very well and sometimes we get reprimanded from the older people who’d say ‘I don’t know about that, like’. But you take it and that’s the way it goes,” he explains.
“We change the music to keep it interesting and you might incorporate some of the modern trends as well, just so long as it doesn’t interfere with the music,” he says, adding that the band have a youth policy in place whereby younger musicians are constantly being “blooded” for future band membership. While keeping the music of the past alive, they’ve a definite eye on the future.
Although the Kilfenora Céilí Band are coming to the end of their centenary celebrations, the band members won’t get the opportunity to rest any time soon. With the band already booked right through until May, John says he is struggling to fit bookings in. There are, however, two Glór dates, January 8 and 9, etched firmly in the band’s calendar. “We’re looking forward to two great nights of just celebrating with the people of Clare so that we can give back what they have given to us all year. They’re going to be two flaking nights. Here’s to 100 years,” concludes the keeper of the Kilfenora tradition and Clareman of the year, John Lynch.