'There's great satisfaction in hearing your own tunes played': Jackie Daly turns 80
Jackie Daly, accordion legend, composer, Gradam Ceoil recipient, and renowned joke-teller, may already have the honour of putting the Lucrative into Sliabh Luachra, if only as one of his vast collection of puns.
But as the Kanturk native celebrates his 80th birthday this weekend, now ranked among his proudest achievements is the title of the Man who put the Planxty into the Sliabh Luachra tradition.
Steeped in the music of the Cork-Kerry border, whose tunes he first learned from fiddle master Pádraig O'Keeffe's past pupil Jim O'Keeffe, Daly has long made his own mark on the area's tradition as one of the finest purveyors of its polkas and slides, airs, reels, hornpipes, and jigs.
In a career playing and recording with Dé Danann, Buttons & Bows, Arcady, and Patrick Street, and with duet partners including Séamus Creagh, Kevin Burke, Máire O'Keeffe, and Matt Cranitch, Daly's broader musical credentials on both accordion and concertina are impeccable.
When public performances were curtailed during covid lockdown, his talents as a composer flourished and a trickle of new tunes became a torrent, culminating in the 2022 publication of The Jackie Daly Collection of 227 original works.
Between the jigs and the reels are four planxties, reflective of the Irish harp melodies associated with Turlough O'Carolan, described by Daly as 'a little bit classical'.
'They never seemed to be part of the Sliabh Luachra tradition, so in my collection there's four of them and one of them is getting popular now – it's called Planxty Luachra,' he says.
Among his musical accomplishments thus far, he adds: 'At the moment the one I'm most proud of is the planxty because it wasn't done before.' Considering the possibility that in another 80 years academics might pontificate on the origins of this Sliabh Luachra 'planxty tradition', he quips: 'I don't know if they will or not. We'll harp on that later.
'But I love the slides and polkas. There's three [self-composed] polkas - The Cat on the Half-Door, Pauline's Panache, and Joe Burke's – that have got popular now and a lot of people are playing them together. There's great satisfaction in hearing your own tunes played.'
Beyond his new compositions, Daly has been helping to shape traditional music for decades through his arrangements, ornamentation, and reinterpretations of existing tunes, many becoming so well known that they are now themselves the standards.
'I should bring out another collection,' he says. 'There's lots of tunes that are not in the book because of the fact that I put extra parts to established tunes. They've become popularised as well, so in the future maybe I'll do something about that.'
Already mulling the title of such a volume, he tells a tale of how a Sligo-Leitrim version of the tune The Bucks of Oranmore once earned the disapproval of musician John Kelly. 'Connie Connell was playing it in Dublin and John Kelly said to me 'what's that?'. He said 'Jackie, The Bucks should not be interfered with.' So I'm thinking of calling my book 'Jackie Daly and the ones he interfered with'.' All joking aside, in interpretations of tunes Daly respects the tradition and if he adds anything to the tune it's always in context, according to his long-time collaborator, fiddle player Matt Cranitch.
'On the recording that he did with Dé Danann on The Mist Covered Mountain, the set of reels The Cameronian and The Doon - and The Doon is a well-known Sliabh Luachra tune - every single note on that is a workshop in musical integrity,' says Cranitch.
'When an ornament is put in, they have incredible effect and meaning and this kind of thing doesn't happen by accident. It happens from his lifetime of music and the genius of the man himself.'
Daly's lifetime in music is a world tour of festivals, concerts, and sessions from America to Japan, from Kanturk to his current home in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, and of friendships and acquaintances, famous names, and fond memories.
In four 'fantastic' years from 1978 with Dé Danann 'we played a lot in America and bluegrass festivals where they'd never heard Irish traditional music before and it went down a bomb,' he recalls.
He went on to perform at 'a big festival in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, in Boston, lots of them, and the Catskills I did 13 years on the trot. I've even done a few tours of Japan.' Of all his collaborations, however, Daly acknowledges accordion-fiddle duets are his 'favourite kind of music' as the instruments 'go so well together'.
Influential in popularising C#D, rather than B/C accordion tuning, he says: 'I was the first person to start tuning my box 'dry', as they call it; not using an awful lot of tremolo on it, so it fits in better with the fiddle - and some people even find it hard to differentiate between the fiddle and the box with that kind of tuning.'
Eavesdropper, his 1981 duet album with Kevin Burke, earned great critical acclaim and his eponymous 1977 album with Séamus Creagh is for many people one of the seminal recordings of Sliabh Luachra music.
Though a native of Westmeath and a former showband electric guitarist, he and Daly were both into the same things – 'music and music and music' – and Creagh fell in love with the Sliabh Luachra style.
Séamus Creagh and Jackie Daly provided one of the seminal recordings of Sliabh Luachra music. Picture: Domhnall Ó Mairtín
Daly, a fitter by trade, had joined the Dutch merchant navy at 18. 'I was also in Denmark in the late '60s and unfortunately I had a bad experience,' he says. 'I met my wife in Denmark when I was doing a training course and we got married but she passed away a year after. And that's when I packed up my work as a fitter and sold my house in Little Island.
'I started busking on the street and shortly after that I met Séamus Creagh and we took off together, which was great.'
Regular fixtures together at The Gables and The Phoenix in Cork, Daly also recalls other gigs in far-flung corners. 'Lovely weekends when we'd play in Dingle on Saturday nights and Sundays we'd do Sherkin Island.' Creagh had taken on the job as the local postman on the Co Cork island.
Though profoundly affected by the loss of his wife, her death also 'made me see that you should be doing the things that you love - and I loved music since I was a child', says Daly.
Still doing what he loves, between gigs with Cranitch in Beara, Kenmare, and Ballydehob, Daly was back in Miltown Malbay last week, where he plays Friday sessions with fiddle player Eileen O'Brien.
In Kerry, what Cranitch terms Daly's 'fiddle sensibility' derived from his early O'Keeffe influences, ensures 'when World Fiddle Day happens in Scartaglin every year he has a position of honour among all the fiddle players in the sense that he's considered to be part of that tradition'.
This year, that connection was celebrated in Scartaglin with a tribute to Daly in advance of his 80th birthday this Sunday, his tunes taking centre stage with a new generation.
'They had a concert in my honour,' he says. 'All the musicians went up - a lot of them were young people - and played tunes of mine. It was beautiful to sit there and listen to them.'
Jackie Daly is joined by Matt Cranitch, Eileen O'Brien, and Paul de Grae at the Gleneagle, Killarney, on June 27; support by Teorainn. See: gleneaglearena.ie
Jackie Daly is joined by Matt Cranitch (left), Eileen O'Brien, and Paul de Grae at the Gleneagle, Killarney, on June 27
Jackie Daly: Question of Taste
Current reading?
My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor. I love his writing. He was a very intelligent man and had a beautiful way of expressing himself. I read an awful lot and I go to the library every week.
Current hobbies?
I do crosswords all the time. I had a brain haemorrhage about 30 years ago and I was told that if you keep your mind busy, that's good. I do Sudoku as well. I had three aneurysms but I think my memory has improved slightly over the years and I still have the names of all the tunes.
Current listening?
I listen to any music that I consider to be good, but pop music I hate. The Beatles were good. Myself and Alec Finn took Hey Jude and made a hornpipe out of it and Alec got a letter from McCartney saying it was the best version of it that he came across. It's beautiful as a hornpipe – it's so melodic.
What's important in your life right now?
The news these days is bad. But I love going for walks and I do meditation. I love meeting people, talking to people - and yes, telling jokes.
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Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Irish Examiner
'There's great satisfaction in hearing your own tunes played': Jackie Daly turns 80
Jackie Daly, accordion legend, composer, Gradam Ceoil recipient, and renowned joke-teller, may already have the honour of putting the Lucrative into Sliabh Luachra, if only as one of his vast collection of puns. But as the Kanturk native celebrates his 80th birthday this weekend, now ranked among his proudest achievements is the title of the Man who put the Planxty into the Sliabh Luachra tradition. Steeped in the music of the Cork-Kerry border, whose tunes he first learned from fiddle master Pádraig O'Keeffe's past pupil Jim O'Keeffe, Daly has long made his own mark on the area's tradition as one of the finest purveyors of its polkas and slides, airs, reels, hornpipes, and jigs. In a career playing and recording with Dé Danann, Buttons & Bows, Arcady, and Patrick Street, and with duet partners including Séamus Creagh, Kevin Burke, Máire O'Keeffe, and Matt Cranitch, Daly's broader musical credentials on both accordion and concertina are impeccable. When public performances were curtailed during covid lockdown, his talents as a composer flourished and a trickle of new tunes became a torrent, culminating in the 2022 publication of The Jackie Daly Collection of 227 original works. Between the jigs and the reels are four planxties, reflective of the Irish harp melodies associated with Turlough O'Carolan, described by Daly as 'a little bit classical'. 'They never seemed to be part of the Sliabh Luachra tradition, so in my collection there's four of them and one of them is getting popular now – it's called Planxty Luachra,' he says. Among his musical accomplishments thus far, he adds: 'At the moment the one I'm most proud of is the planxty because it wasn't done before.' Considering the possibility that in another 80 years academics might pontificate on the origins of this Sliabh Luachra 'planxty tradition', he quips: 'I don't know if they will or not. We'll harp on that later. 'But I love the slides and polkas. There's three [self-composed] polkas - The Cat on the Half-Door, Pauline's Panache, and Joe Burke's – that have got popular now and a lot of people are playing them together. There's great satisfaction in hearing your own tunes played.' Beyond his new compositions, Daly has been helping to shape traditional music for decades through his arrangements, ornamentation, and reinterpretations of existing tunes, many becoming so well known that they are now themselves the standards. 'I should bring out another collection,' he says. 'There's lots of tunes that are not in the book because of the fact that I put extra parts to established tunes. They've become popularised as well, so in the future maybe I'll do something about that.' Already mulling the title of such a volume, he tells a tale of how a Sligo-Leitrim version of the tune The Bucks of Oranmore once earned the disapproval of musician John Kelly. 'Connie Connell was playing it in Dublin and John Kelly said to me 'what's that?'. He said 'Jackie, The Bucks should not be interfered with.' So I'm thinking of calling my book 'Jackie Daly and the ones he interfered with'.' All joking aside, in interpretations of tunes Daly respects the tradition and if he adds anything to the tune it's always in context, according to his long-time collaborator, fiddle player Matt Cranitch. 'On the recording that he did with Dé Danann on The Mist Covered Mountain, the set of reels The Cameronian and The Doon - and The Doon is a well-known Sliabh Luachra tune - every single note on that is a workshop in musical integrity,' says Cranitch. 'When an ornament is put in, they have incredible effect and meaning and this kind of thing doesn't happen by accident. It happens from his lifetime of music and the genius of the man himself.' Daly's lifetime in music is a world tour of festivals, concerts, and sessions from America to Japan, from Kanturk to his current home in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, and of friendships and acquaintances, famous names, and fond memories. In four 'fantastic' years from 1978 with Dé Danann 'we played a lot in America and bluegrass festivals where they'd never heard Irish traditional music before and it went down a bomb,' he recalls. He went on to perform at 'a big festival in Milwaukee, one in Chicago, in Boston, lots of them, and the Catskills I did 13 years on the trot. I've even done a few tours of Japan.' Of all his collaborations, however, Daly acknowledges accordion-fiddle duets are his 'favourite kind of music' as the instruments 'go so well together'. Influential in popularising C#D, rather than B/C accordion tuning, he says: 'I was the first person to start tuning my box 'dry', as they call it; not using an awful lot of tremolo on it, so it fits in better with the fiddle - and some people even find it hard to differentiate between the fiddle and the box with that kind of tuning.' Eavesdropper, his 1981 duet album with Kevin Burke, earned great critical acclaim and his eponymous 1977 album with Séamus Creagh is for many people one of the seminal recordings of Sliabh Luachra music. Though a native of Westmeath and a former showband electric guitarist, he and Daly were both into the same things – 'music and music and music' – and Creagh fell in love with the Sliabh Luachra style. Séamus Creagh and Jackie Daly provided one of the seminal recordings of Sliabh Luachra music. Picture: Domhnall Ó Mairtín Daly, a fitter by trade, had joined the Dutch merchant navy at 18. 'I was also in Denmark in the late '60s and unfortunately I had a bad experience,' he says. 'I met my wife in Denmark when I was doing a training course and we got married but she passed away a year after. And that's when I packed up my work as a fitter and sold my house in Little Island. 'I started busking on the street and shortly after that I met Séamus Creagh and we took off together, which was great.' Regular fixtures together at The Gables and The Phoenix in Cork, Daly also recalls other gigs in far-flung corners. 'Lovely weekends when we'd play in Dingle on Saturday nights and Sundays we'd do Sherkin Island.' Creagh had taken on the job as the local postman on the Co Cork island. Though profoundly affected by the loss of his wife, her death also 'made me see that you should be doing the things that you love - and I loved music since I was a child', says Daly. Still doing what he loves, between gigs with Cranitch in Beara, Kenmare, and Ballydehob, Daly was back in Miltown Malbay last week, where he plays Friday sessions with fiddle player Eileen O'Brien. In Kerry, what Cranitch terms Daly's 'fiddle sensibility' derived from his early O'Keeffe influences, ensures 'when World Fiddle Day happens in Scartaglin every year he has a position of honour among all the fiddle players in the sense that he's considered to be part of that tradition'. This year, that connection was celebrated in Scartaglin with a tribute to Daly in advance of his 80th birthday this Sunday, his tunes taking centre stage with a new generation. 'They had a concert in my honour,' he says. 'All the musicians went up - a lot of them were young people - and played tunes of mine. It was beautiful to sit there and listen to them.' Jackie Daly is joined by Matt Cranitch, Eileen O'Brien, and Paul de Grae at the Gleneagle, Killarney, on June 27; support by Teorainn. See: Jackie Daly is joined by Matt Cranitch (left), Eileen O'Brien, and Paul de Grae at the Gleneagle, Killarney, on June 27 Jackie Daly: Question of Taste Current reading? My Oedipus Complex by Frank O'Connor. I love his writing. He was a very intelligent man and had a beautiful way of expressing himself. I read an awful lot and I go to the library every week. Current hobbies? I do crosswords all the time. I had a brain haemorrhage about 30 years ago and I was told that if you keep your mind busy, that's good. I do Sudoku as well. I had three aneurysms but I think my memory has improved slightly over the years and I still have the names of all the tunes. Current listening? I listen to any music that I consider to be good, but pop music I hate. The Beatles were good. Myself and Alec Finn took Hey Jude and made a hornpipe out of it and Alec got a letter from McCartney saying it was the best version of it that he came across. It's beautiful as a hornpipe – it's so melodic. What's important in your life right now? The news these days is bad. But I love going for walks and I do meditation. I love meeting people, talking to people - and yes, telling jokes.
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Irish Times
Ray Burke on a landmark pub in Oranmore, Galway that played host to many well-known artistes
Anyone who travelled to Galway from Dublin or from the South of Ireland by road before the advent of motorways or bypasses cannot have missed the thatched pub that stands at the T-junction where the roads converged in Oranmore village. 'Quite a pretty place with a nice thatched pub, an old forge [and] a 1916 memorial' was how the RTÉ reporter Cathal O'Shannon described Oranmore village on a Newsbeat television programme in July 1967. 'All the traffic between Galway, Dublin and Limerick comes through here', he added, standing outside the thatched pub whose landmark location ensured that it attracted passing trade as well as local custom. The internationally renowned orchestra conductor and jazz pianist André Previn and his better-known future wife Mia Farrow were able to sit quietly talking and sipping Guinness in front of the pub's fireplace, unnoticed by any of the locals, shortly after O'Shannon's broadcast. READ MORE She had recently left her husband, Frank Sinatra, and she still sported her tom-boy hairstyle from the 1968 film Rosemary's Baby that made her famous. The couple had booked bed and breakfast next door to the pub in Oran Villa, a guesthouse owned by Maisie McDonagh, mother of the pub's proprietor, George. A group of musicians who could match André Previn in virtuosity arrived into the pub's lounge one Saturday a few years later at around midday. Three members of the nascent traditional Irish music group Planxty ventured tentatively into the empty lounge accompanied by their mentor, the master piper and broadcaster Seamus Ennis. Their fragile collective demeanours told that they were recovering from a late night. Less fortunate than the Hollywood actress or the famed musicians was the Galway hurler Mickey Burke, captain of the team that was beaten by Cork in the 1953 All-Ireland final. A farmer in Glennascaul, a mile north of the village, Mickey had his teeth knocked out by Cork's Christy Ring in that match. He was never again allowed to finish his drink of choice, a bottle of Guinness, in peace in the pub. His occasional daytime visits always ended prematurely when someone mentioned the 1953 final. More than 20 years after the match, Mickey invariably had to place his unfinished drink on the counter and walk out. Another occasional daytime customer was a fine, tall man who lived with his mother on Tawin Island, on the edge of Galway Bay and accessible via a narrow bridge. He never set a foot in the pub at night, but he used to call for a chat and a couple of pints whenever he cycled the seven miles to Oranmore for messages. The pub was usually quiet or maybe empty when he called at around midday. He was such a handsome, sturdy man that the bartender asked him one day why he had never married. He replied that when he had told his mother that he was thinking of getting married her response was: 'You have never yet had to iron your own shirt in this house' - 13 words that dictated the rest of his life. He never married and he never again raised the subject with his mother. A greater human tragedy overhung the arrival of three uniformed Gardai into the lounge one mid-winter Saturday afternoon. White-faced and wearing heavy overcoats, the Gardai exchanged barely a word and they left immediately after consuming two double-brandies each in quick succession. They were returning from the scene of a fatal car crash on the road to Galway. Oranmore village had fewer than 200 residents in 1967. Some feared that a road bypass proposed in Galway Co Council's draft development plan would turn it into 'a ghost town'. The most recent Census recorded a population of 4,721 in the Oranmore electoral division. The village hinterland was entirely agricultural until the 1960s when the first local industry was established. Producing pre-cast and ready-mixed concrete, it was known locally as 'the factory'. One of its original employees lived in the village. He had charge of one of the factory's machines, but he regularly took unofficial leave to spend part of each day in McDonagh's pub. He always went home at lunchtime to avoid any factory manager who might call into the pub for a newspaper or a packet of cigarettes. 'You'd need to be careful Amby or they'll sack you and put somebody else in charge of that machine', a fellow drinker advised him one morning. 'They can't', Amby replied instantly, 'I have the key to it here in my pocket'.
Irish Independent
14-06-2025
- Irish Independent
BBC Radio Two presenter Vernon Kay congratulates wife Tess Daly on MBE
The 56-year-old has been recognised alongside her Strictly co-host Claudia Winkleman in the King's Birthday Honours for her services to broadcasting. Kay, who has two children with Daly who he married in 2003, also praised Winkleman and the Strictly team for 'consistently producing the best show every year'. 'All the hard work and huge effort you put into everything you do has been recognised by the King. 'Being on Strictly from the start when our babies weren't even born just proves how well you've done. Now they're almost 21 and 16 and we've all enjoyed this journey together!! 'Also, bravo everyone at @bbcstrictly and @claudiawinkle for consistently producing the best show every year!! Time to pop a cork me thinks…' Daly began working as a model and first appeared on screens in 1999 when she hosted The Big Breakfast's Find Me A Model competition on Channel 4. She reached new levels of fame as co-host of the BBC One Saturday night dancing competition Strictly Come Dancing, which she presented alongside the late Sir Bruce Forsyth until 2014, three years before his death at the age of 89. Traitors presenter Winkleman joined Daly as Strictly co-host, with the pair picking up the best entertainment award at the 2024 Bafta TV ceremony. On being made MBE, Daly told the PA News Agency: 'I cried when I opened the letter, because I just I couldn't believe it. 'It feels like the most wonderful honour, because when you work as a broadcaster, you're part of people's viewing habits. ADVERTISEMENT 'Broadcasting is without a doubt a collective effort. I've been really fortunate to work with some of the very best production teams that there are in the business. And so my biggest thanks is to them, because you're only as good as your team.' The broadcaster also presented the ITV makeover show, Home On Their Own in 2003, replacing Ulrika Jonsson, and in 2011 fronted the BBC Two documentary TV Greats: Our Favourites From The North where she took a look at Manchester's broadcasting past as BBC North bid farewell to its studios in the city to move to Salford. Across her career she has interviewed stars including Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette, rock band No Doubt and US musician Lenny Kravitz.
