Na Píobairí Uilleann presents Notes & Narratives – a series of monthly performance-based lectures on traditional music, song and dance by some of Ireland’s finest traditional artists.
This month's speaker will be Caoimhín Mac Aoidh presenting a talk on "Island of Fiddlers: Donegal fiddle music in Beaver Island, Lake Michigan".
"Island of Fiddlers: the Donegal Fiddle Music of Beaver Island, Lake Michigan".
Islands of Fiddlers is an illustrated presentation which tells the story of the post-Famine emigrants from The Rosses and Arranmore Island of northwest County Donegal. Having left severely harsh conditions at home, they eventually found themselves settled on Beaver Island in the upper reaches of Lake Michigan in the Great Lakes. The isolation of their new island home meant that life continued on much in the same way as it had back in Donegal. Subsistence farming and fishing were familiar forms of work. The Irish language remained spoken up until the 1960s. With more than fifteen Rosses born fiddlers amongst the original settlers, Donegal fiddle music was the entertainment soundscape of the community with tunes and versions from the mid-1800s. Patrick Bonner (1882 - 1973) was a first generation islander and from a very early age enthusiastically pursued the repertoire and style of the older generation of Donegal fiddlers. He was recorded from the 1930s to the 1960s leaving a legacy of more than 100 tunes documented by the renowned collectors Alan Lomax and Professor Ivan Walton as well as island neighbours. While Patrick Bonner’s music is of great interest to traditional Irish fiddlers today, the parallels of his musical life with that of his contemporaries, Néillidh Ó Baoighill and Danny O’Donnell almost 5,000 miles away in the Rosses are astounding.
Caoimhín Mac Aoidh is a fiddler and piper who has for more than half a century collected, studied and documented fiddle music from the northern counties, in particular, County Donegal. He has written a number of books and collections on Donegal fiddle music as well as numerous articles on more general aspects of traditional Irish fiddle playing. He has performed and broadcast widely and is in demand as a fiddle teacher. His latest published work, co-authored with noted Michigan fiddler Glenn Hendrix, presents the music and story of Patrick Bonner, a first generation Beaver Islander in Lake Michigan of Rosses, County Donegal, parentage who made learning and playing the fiddle music of his many Donegal born mentors a life’s passion.
Notes & Narratives will take place at Na Píobairí Uilleann, 15 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1, starting at 8:30pm on Thursday 21st August 2025.
Admission is €10 (unwaged / student / retired €5). For those unable to attend in person, it will also be live streamed for free through our channel NPU-TV.
Supported by The Arts Council.
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