In Safe Hands – Celebrating Dublin's Legacy of Traditional Music

Name: In Safe Hands – Celebrating Dublin's Legacy of Traditional Music
Start: 2025-09-17T19:30:00+01:00
Location: Teachers Club

Schedule

Wed, 17 Sep, 2025 at 07:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Teachers Club | Dublin, DN

The Clé Club will host a special celebration of the capital’s remarkable legacy of traditional music and song featuring members of the acclaimed O’Connor family, led by master flute player, Mick O’Connor, his daughter, Aoife, on concertina and son, Liam, the award-winning fiddle player who is now Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive.
This wonderful night of music and song – which will also celebrate Mick O’Connor’s recently published book, 'In Safe Hands' – will take place in the Teachers’ Club in Parnell Square, Dublin, at 7.30pm on Wednesday September 17. Admission is €5. (Photo of Mick O'Brien by Colm Keating).
Clé Club Chair, Des Geraghty, reflects on 'In Safe Hands':
"This mighty story of traditional music in the city of Dublin from 1893 to 1970 is much more than a history or a scholarly record of its subject. It is a life-long harvest of musical material and illustrations which reflect the author’s own love and enthusiasm for traditional music and for the music makers. It is a unique treasury of information, pictures and illustrations supported by well-researched material on all aspects of the music revival in Dublin.
"The material has been assembled with great care by the author, Michael O’Connor, who has been immersed, along with his family and friends, in the performance of traditional music for many decades.
"Dublin may not be the first place people would immediately associate with the story of the Irish traditional music revival, but this book demonstrates how central the city has been in growing and sustaining that tradition. While many of the musicians came to the city from remote and distant places, their wonderful music has been widely shared by many families, groups and individual performers within the city. Because of the quality of their playing and the improved standards of teaching in all counties, traditional music is now widely acknowledged, however grudgingly, as one of Ireland’s most important art forms.
"Mick O’Connor’s book puts a truly human face on the musicians, the bands and the groups who have contributed to that development; and also traces the evolution of the music itself. It tells the personal stories and illustrates the nature of the people involved; and it gives us a valuable insight into their lives. It also explores very well the difficult circumstances in which the tradition has had to develop over seventy seven years, from virtual extinction to its current status. It demonstrates the intimate relationship of the music with our struggle for freedom, cultural expression, pride and self respect as a people.
"The piping tradition rightly has a very special place in this story, from the early marching bands to the ceili bands old and new, and the pipers and players of all descriptions. The author, with the heart and history of a piper himself, places the product of his remarkable research and his personal passion for the music in the safe hands of the current crop of young uilleann pipers.
"This book is a remarkable, once-in-a-lifetime story about how our traditional music has achieved growing recognition, at home and worldwide. It is an important chapter in the history of our capital city and a recognition of those pioneers who contributed so much to our enjoyment, self respect and national pride over many generations."