The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
The interview conducted by Harry Hughes and Muiris Ó Rocháin with Willie Clancy for the first volume of Dal gCais was hugely important and is now a priceless piece of folk history as the great exponent of the art of piping talked about his music, great pipers of the past and the state of Irish music in the early 1970s. Q: Willie Clancy, you are considered one of the greatest living exponents of the art of piping. Can you give us some idea of the background to your music? A: I come from a very musical family, our family was part of the musical tradition of West Clare and that tradition included Garret Barry the blind paper from Inagh. Garret was a personal friend of my father and he influenced him to a certain degree. My father in time passed this knowledge and appreciation on to me. Apart from this, I came under the direct influence of the Travelling piper …
Read More »