Remembering Willie Clancy

Ireland’s largest traditional music summer school is held each July in Miltown Malbay in memory of the great musician Willie Clancy.
Nearly 1,000 students gather from all quarters of the globe to attend the week-long classes taught by the very best of tutors. The concerts and public lectures also attract people but probably the greatest allure of the week are the impromptu sessions, which continue day and night in the pubs, on the streets and in any corner where musicians can gather.
Most of the great traditional musicians all ensure that they are free for that week in July so that they can make the annual pilgrimage to Milltown. It has been said that if you want to meet the top exponents of Irish traditional music in any instrument, all you have to do is visit Scoil Éigse Willie Clancy.
Willie Clancy was born on Christmas Eve, 1918. Both his parents sang and played and by five years of age, Willie had learned the tin whistle. His father, Gilbert, had been friendly with the great blind piper from Inagh, Garrett Barry, and from him, Willie learned Barry’s music. More than anyone else, Willie Clancy is responsible for having Barry’s music known and played today.
It was only in the 1930s, when he heard Johnny Doran playing at the races in Miltown, that Willie Clancy decided to take up the uilleann pipes. Doran became his teacher. He became a master like his teacher and he developed his own unique style.
He played for a short while with the Tulla Ceili Band but like tens of thousands of others in those years, he was forced to leave home to earn a living. He moved first to Dublin and then to London, where he plied his trade as a carpenter but all the time maintained his contacts with musicians and their music. He sang the songs he had learned from his parents and grandparents and believed that to properly play traditional airs, you had to know and understand the words of the songs in order to phrase the music properly.
Following the death of his father he returned to Miltown in 1957, where he married Doirin Healy. He continued his playing but also explored pipe and reed making. He played in many sessions, on radio and television and his reputation grew. His sudden death at the early age of 55 left a great void. Cór Cúl Aodha sang at his funeral mass, just as Willie had played at Seán Ó Riada’s funeral only a year earlier. Others who took part included Seán Ach Donnchadha, John Kelly and Seamus Ennis. His funeral cortege to Ballard Cemetery was lead by pipers from the Tulla Pipe Band.
Following his death, a committee was established to commemorate his memory. The members of that first committee are testimony themselves to the status of Willie Clancy, containing as it did, people such as Junior Crehan, JC Talty, Peadar O’Lochlainn, Peggy Crotty and Seán Reid. That the Scoil Éigse continues to this day is testament not only to the work of that first group but to the legacy of Willie Clancy.
Willie Clancy, musician extraordinaire, died on January 24, 1973, 37 years ago this week.