Paddy Fahey (or Fahy, 17 August 1916 – 31 May 2019) was an Irish composer and fiddler who was considered one of the finest living composers of tunes that are in the style of

traditional Irish music Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a Music genre, genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Irela ...

. Fahey was born 17th August 1916 in

Kilconnell Kilconnell () is a small rural village in County Galway, Ireland. The village gives its name to the barony of Kilconnell, formerly held by the Lords de Freyne. In 2006 David Tye purchased the original feudal Barony of Kilconnell created in 1170 ...

East Galway to John (Jack) Fahey & Julia Fahey (née Wolly). His music has a distinctive yearning, magical quality often referred to as "''Draíocht''". His music has been recorded by many of the finest traditional Irish musicians including Martin Hayes,

Planxty Planxty were an Irish folk music band formed in January 1972, consisting initially of Christy Moore (vocals, acoustic guitar, bodhrán), Andy Irvine (vocals, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy, harmonica), Dónal Lunny (bouzouki, gu ...

, John Carty and Kevin Burke. In recent years, a few recordings featured Fahey's music prominently including recordings by Liz and Yvonne Kane and Breda Keville. Fahey was something of an enigma in the traditional Irish music world in that he has never made a commercial recording despite the fact that he is an exceptional fiddler; nor has he published a book of his compositions. There are some privately made recordings of Fahey which have been distributed among musicians since the 1970s, and transcriptions of his tunes are found in many tune collections and on Internet resources such as ''www.thesession.org''. Fahey never gave his compositions names; instead they tend to be simply named "Paddy Fahey's Reel No.1", "Paddy Fahey's Jig No.2", etc. His known compositions number around 60 tunes, all of which are either

jig The jig (, ) is a form of lively folk dance in compound metre, as well as the accompanying dance tune. It first gained popularity in 16th-century England, Ireland, Scotland, and other parts of the British Isles, and was adopted on mainland Eu ...

reel A reel is a tool used to store elongated and flexible objects (e.g. yarns/ cords, ribbons, cables, hoses, etc.) by wrapping the material around a cylindrical core known as a '' spool''. Many reels also have flanges (known as the ''rims'') arou ...

s or

hornpipe The hornpipe is any of several dance forms and their associated tunes, played and danced in Great Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England, with Hugh As ...

s. In 2001 Fahey was named Composer of The Year by Irish Language TV station

TG4 TG4 (; , ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television channel. It launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on-demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond. TG4 was initially known as (TnaG), before bein ...

at their annual award ceremony 'Gradam Ceoil TG4'. The award ceremony incorporated an extremely rare public performance with Paddy appearing alongside fellow fiddler Paddy Canny, harpist

Máire Ní Chathasaigh Máire Ní Chathasaigh (; born 1956) is an Irish harpist, composer and singer. Biography She was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, in a musical family. She learned to playthe harp when she was eleven. She created new harp ornamentation te ...

, the band

Altan Altan may refer to: * Altan (name) * Altan (company), a software company. * Altan (band), a folk music group from Donegal * ''Altan'' (album), a 1987 album by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Frankie Kennedy * Altan Jalab, a village in Afghanistan * A ...

and others. He died in May 2019 at the age of 102.

Literary sources

*Vallely, Fintan (ed.), ''The Companion to Traditional Irish Music.'' Cork University Press, Cork, 1999 *Holohan, Maria. ''The Tune Compositions of Paddy Fahey.'' MA Thesis, University of Limerick, 1995

References

External links

RamblingHouse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fahey, Paddy 1916 births 2019 deaths Composers for fiddle Irish men centenarians Irish male fiddlers Musicians from County Galway 20th-century Irish fiddlers 21st-century Irish fiddlers 20th-century Irish male composers 21st-century Irish male composers