Seán Ó Riada
Encyclopedia
Seán Ó Riada was a composer and perhaps the single most influential figure in the revival of Irish traditional music during the 1960s. He became a household figure in Ireland through his participation in Ceoltóirí Chualann
, compositions, writings and broadcasts on the topic.
. In the same year he became assistant director for Radio Éireann. He married Ruth Coughlan in 1953. During the evening he played piano with dance bands. In 1955 Ó Riada left his prestigious job, his wife and his newborn son Peadar, and moved to Italy
and France
, adopting a wild bohemian
lifestyle. While studying composition under Aloys Fleischman he wrote avant-garde music
. He drank heavily, and acquired a passion for expensive fast cars. Over the next ten years Ó Riada wrote several orchestral pieces called "Nomos." The third was left incomplete and some of the others took years to finish. None of them was publicly performed more than once. Ruth went in pursuit of her husband and found him living in poverty in Paris
. She persuaded relatives to give them money and brought him back to Ireland, where he became musical director of the Abbey Theatre
in Dublin for five years. At about this time he changed his name from John Reidy to Seán Ó Riada, after giving the subject much thought. A much more accurate (indeed the above account includes many fallacies) and detailed account of the early years is given in Dr. Tomás Ó Canainn's biography of Ó Riada.
called Mise Éire
(I am Ireland). It is about the founding of the Republic of Ireland
. It has repeatedly been used in other documentaries and is available on CD, together with other film music - Saoirse?(freedom?) (1960) and An Tine Bheo (The Living Fire). The recording is conducted by Ó Riada himself. These works combine traditional Irish tunes and "sean-nós
" (old style) songs with an orchestral arrangement. Ralph Vaughan Williams
had already done this sort of thing with English folk music, but in 1950s Ireland traditional music was still held in low regard by some elements of Irish society. His first attempt to combine Irish song with the classical tradition was in 1958 when an Irish radio station in Cork
commissioned a short work. Mise Éire brought him national acclaim and allowed him to start a series of programmes on Irish radio called Our Musical Heritage. Ó Riada told people that one should listen to sean-nós song
either as a child would listen or as if they were songs from India
.
. Although they played in concert halls dressed in a black suits with white shirts and black bow ties, they played traditional songs and tunes. An ordinary céilidh band or show-band would have musicians who competed with each other to grab the attention of the audience. Ceoltóirí Chualann played sparse lucid arrangements. Ó Riada sat in the middle at front playing bodhrán
, a hand-held frame-drum. This was an instrument that had almost died out, being played only by small boys in street parades. Ceilidh bands generally had jazz-band drum-kits. Ó Riada also wanted to use the clarsach
or wire-strung harp
in the band, but as these were as yet unavailable, he played the harpsichord
instead - the nearest sound to a clarsach. The harpsichord he used on a regular basis was made by Cathal Gannon
. Unknown to Ó Riada, Irish folk music was being played ensemble-style in London
pubs, but for most people of Ireland this was the first time they heard these tunes played by a band. The membership of Ceoltóirí Chualann overlapped with membership of The Chieftains
, so it is surprising that the six albums they recorded are not better known. They recorded the soundtrack of the film "Playboy of the Western World" (original play by John Millington Synge
) in 1963. Their last public performance was in 1969, and issued as the album "Ó Riada Sa Gaiety".
, an Irish-speaking area
. He established Cór Chúil Aodha, a male voice choir. He turned toward church choral music, including "Aifreann 2" (premiered posthumously in 1979). Other works include "Five Greek Epigrams" and "Holdlerin Songs." In 1996 Kate Bush
recorded the Peadar Ó Doirnín lyric "Mná na hÉireann
," set to music and made famous by Sean Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Chualann, for the compilation album "Common Ground." "Mná na hÉireann," as performed by the Chieftains, is used as a romantic overture throughout the Stanley Kubrick
movie Barry Lyndon
and is the basis of The Christians' 1989 single "Words". O'Riada did a setting of the poetry of Thomas Kinsella
, who returned the favour by praising Ó Riada in verse. He became involved in Irish politics and was a friend of several influential leaders. Ó Riada and Ruth both drank regularly at a local pub which still advertises itself as his being his local. He suffered cirrhosis of the liver. He was flown to King's College Hospital
, London
for treatment and died there. He is buried in St Gobnait
's graveyard, Baile Bhuirne, County Cork. Willie Clancy
played at his funeral.
Two schools are named 'Scoil Uí Riada' after him: a Gaelscoil
in Kilcock
, Co. Kildare, and another, in Bishopstown
, Cork City.
On 23 April 2010 Ceoltoiri Chualann reformed under the leadership of Peader O'Riada to play a tribute concert to Sean O'Riada in Dublin's Liberty Hall
.
In 2011, A festival, Féile na Laoch, was organised in his honour by his son, Peadar, between 30th September and 3rd October in the honour of heroes (laochra) from the seven 'Muses': Storytelling, Sport, Singing, Poetry, Music, Dancing and Acting centering around Ó Riada.
Ceoltóirí Chualann
Ceoltóirí Chualann was an Irish traditional band, led by Seán Ó Riada, which included many of the founding members of The Chieftains. Ceoltóirí is the Irish word for musicians, and Cualann is the name of an area just outside Dublin where Ó Riada lived...
, compositions, writings and broadcasts on the topic.
Early life
Born John Reidy in Cork City, he was educated at St Finbarr's College, Farranferris. He played the violin, piano and organ and studied the Greek and Latin classics at University College Cork, graduating in 1952. While at College, Ó Riada was the auditor of the UCC Philosophical SocietyUCC Philosophical Society
The UCC Philosophical Society, Commonly known as the Philosoph, is the largest debating society at University College Cork, Ireland. The Philosoph was founded in 1850, making it the oldest society at UCC...
. In the same year he became assistant director for Radio Éireann. He married Ruth Coughlan in 1953. During the evening he played piano with dance bands. In 1955 Ó Riada left his prestigious job, his wife and his newborn son Peadar, and moved to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, adopting a wild bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
lifestyle. While studying composition under Aloys Fleischman he wrote avant-garde music
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
. He drank heavily, and acquired a passion for expensive fast cars. Over the next ten years Ó Riada wrote several orchestral pieces called "Nomos." The third was left incomplete and some of the others took years to finish. None of them was publicly performed more than once. Ruth went in pursuit of her husband and found him living in poverty in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. She persuaded relatives to give them money and brought him back to Ireland, where he became musical director of the Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...
in Dublin for five years. At about this time he changed his name from John Reidy to Seán Ó Riada, after giving the subject much thought. A much more accurate (indeed the above account includes many fallacies) and detailed account of the early years is given in Dr. Tomás Ó Canainn's biography of Ó Riada.
Mise Éire
As a classical composer Ó Riada's real strength was for music of the theatre and film. In 1959 he scored a documentary film by George MorrisonGeorge Morrison (documentary maker)
George Morrison is an Irish director of film documentaries. His works include Mise Éire and Saoirse?.Morrison was born in Tramore, Co. Waterford. His mother was an actress at Dublin's Gate Theatre, while his father worked as a neurological anaesthetist...
called Mise Éire
Mise Éire
Mise Éire is a 1912 Irish-language poem by the Irish poet and Republican revolutionary leader Patrick Pearse. In the poem, Pearse personifies Ireland as an old woman whose glory is past and who has been sold by her children. The poem inspired a 1959 film of the same name by George Morrison and a...
(I am Ireland). It is about the founding of the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
. It has repeatedly been used in other documentaries and is available on CD, together with other film music - Saoirse?(freedom?) (1960) and An Tine Bheo (The Living Fire). The recording is conducted by Ó Riada himself. These works combine traditional Irish tunes and "sean-nós
Sean-nós song
Sean-nós is a highly ornamented style of unaccompanied traditional Irish singing. It is a sean-nós activity, which also includes sean-nós dancing...
" (old style) songs with an orchestral arrangement. Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
had already done this sort of thing with English folk music, but in 1950s Ireland traditional music was still held in low regard by some elements of Irish society. His first attempt to combine Irish song with the classical tradition was in 1958 when an Irish radio station in Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
commissioned a short work. Mise Éire brought him national acclaim and allowed him to start a series of programmes on Irish radio called Our Musical Heritage. Ó Riada told people that one should listen to sean-nós song
Sean-nós song
Sean-nós is a highly ornamented style of unaccompanied traditional Irish singing. It is a sean-nós activity, which also includes sean-nós dancing...
either as a child would listen or as if they were songs from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Ceoltóirí Chualann
Between 1961 and 1969 Ó Riada was leader of a group called Ceoltóirí ChualannCeoltóirí Chualann
Ceoltóirí Chualann was an Irish traditional band, led by Seán Ó Riada, which included many of the founding members of The Chieftains. Ceoltóirí is the Irish word for musicians, and Cualann is the name of an area just outside Dublin where Ó Riada lived...
. Although they played in concert halls dressed in a black suits with white shirts and black bow ties, they played traditional songs and tunes. An ordinary céilidh band or show-band would have musicians who competed with each other to grab the attention of the audience. Ceoltóirí Chualann played sparse lucid arrangements. Ó Riada sat in the middle at front playing bodhrán
Bodhrán
The bodhrán is an Irish frame drum ranging from 25 to 65 cm in diameter, with most drums measuring 35 to 45 cm . The sides of the drum are 9 to 20 cm deep. A goatskin head is tacked to one side...
, a hand-held frame-drum. This was an instrument that had almost died out, being played only by small boys in street parades. Ceilidh bands generally had jazz-band drum-kits. Ó Riada also wanted to use the clarsach
Clàrsach
Clàrsach or Cláirseach , is the generic Gaelic word for 'a harp', as derived from Middle Irish...
or wire-strung harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
in the band, but as these were as yet unavailable, he played the harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
instead - the nearest sound to a clarsach. The harpsichord he used on a regular basis was made by Cathal Gannon
Cathal Gannon
Cathal Gannon , was an Irish harpsichord maker, a fortepiano restorer and an amateur horologist.-Beginnings and education:...
. Unknown to Ó Riada, Irish folk music was being played ensemble-style in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
pubs, but for most people of Ireland this was the first time they heard these tunes played by a band. The membership of Ceoltóirí Chualann overlapped with membership of The Chieftains
The Chieftains
The Chieftains are a Grammy-winning Irish musical group founded in 1962, best known for being one of the first bands to make Irish traditional music popular around the world.-Name:...
, so it is surprising that the six albums they recorded are not better known. They recorded the soundtrack of the film "Playboy of the Western World" (original play by John Millington Synge
John Millington Synge
Edmund John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre...
) in 1963. Their last public performance was in 1969, and issued as the album "Ó Riada Sa Gaiety".
Final years
In 1964 Ó Riada moved to Cúil Aodha in West CorkCounty Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, an Irish-speaking area
Gaeltacht
is the Irish language word meaning an Irish-speaking region. In Ireland, the Gaeltacht, or an Ghaeltacht, refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant language, that is, the vernacular spoken at home...
. He established Cór Chúil Aodha, a male voice choir. He turned toward church choral music, including "Aifreann 2" (premiered posthumously in 1979). Other works include "Five Greek Epigrams" and "Holdlerin Songs." In 1996 Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
recorded the Peadar Ó Doirnín lyric "Mná na hÉireann
Women of Ireland
"Women of Ireland", or "Mná na hÉireann" in Irish, is a song composed by Seán Ó Riada . The poem, on which the music is based, was written by Peadar Ó Dornín . Usually it falls under the category of Irish rebel music...
," set to music and made famous by Sean Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Chualann, for the compilation album "Common Ground." "Mná na hÉireann," as performed by the Chieftains, is used as a romantic overture throughout the Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
movie Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period romantic war film produced, written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...
and is the basis of The Christians' 1989 single "Words". O'Riada did a setting of the poetry of Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella
Thomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Lucan, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian...
, who returned the favour by praising Ó Riada in verse. He became involved in Irish politics and was a friend of several influential leaders. Ó Riada and Ruth both drank regularly at a local pub which still advertises itself as his being his local. He suffered cirrhosis of the liver. He was flown to King's College Hospital
King's College Hospital
King's College Hospital is an acute care facility in the London Borough of Lambeth, referred to locally and by staff simply as "King's" or abbreviated internally to "KCH"...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
for treatment and died there. He is buried in St Gobnait
Gobnait
Saint Gobnait , also known as Gobnat or Mo Gobnat, is the name of a local female Irish saint whose church was Móin Mór, now Bairnech, in the village of Baile Bhuirne , County Cork in Ireland...
's graveyard, Baile Bhuirne, County Cork. Willie Clancy
Willie Clancy
Willie Clancy was an Irish uilleann piper.Clancy was born into a musical family at Islandbawn near Miltown Malbay, County Clare. His parents both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute...
played at his funeral.
Two schools are named 'Scoil Uí Riada' after him: a Gaelscoil
Gaelscoil
A gaelscoil is an Irish-medium primary school in Ireland, of a sort found outside the traditionally Irish-speaking regions, especially in urban areas....
in Kilcock
Kilcock
Kilcock or Killcock is a town and townland in the north of County Kildare, Ireland, on the border with County Meath. Kilcock is a dormitory town for many of those who work in Dublin...
, Co. Kildare, and another, in Bishopstown
Bishopstown
Bishopstown is a southwestern suburb of Cork, Ireland with a population of 24,136 people. Baile an Easpaig, anglicised Bishopstown, consists of two townlands which are Ballineaspigmore and Ballineaspigbeg...
, Cork City.
Commemorating Ó Riada
In 2008, a life-sized statue was erected in the grounds of Sépéil Naomh Gobnait, Cúil Aodha.On 23 April 2010 Ceoltoiri Chualann reformed under the leadership of Peader O'Riada to play a tribute concert to Sean O'Riada in Dublin's Liberty Hall
Liberty Hall
Liberty Hall , in Dublin, Ireland is the headquarters of the Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union...
.
In 2011, A festival, Féile na Laoch, was organised in his honour by his son, Peadar, between 30th September and 3rd October in the honour of heroes (laochra) from the seven 'Muses': Storytelling, Sport, Singing, Poetry, Music, Dancing and Acting centering around Ó Riada.