Bernard O Sullivan

[Guest Peter Laban]

Clare Fm,in a tribute programme last night, announced the death of Bernard O Sullivan. Best know throug hhis two recordings with Tommy McMahon 'Clare Concertinas' and 'Music from County Clare'.

[Mark Davies]

Bernard was visited at home by Neil Wayne(who recorded the two Topic LP's in the 1970's)and Shay Fogarty the Dublin concertina player during the recent Eigse Mrs Crotty.The two LP's that Bernard recorded with Tommy McMahon are a formative record of a distinctive style of playing that is not now favoured and are thus of great importance.Neil Wayne is planning to re-issue these recordings and all his other concertina recordings on CD.It was pleasing to see Tommy McMahon playing in Kilrush during the Eigse Mrs Crotty and particularly at the Tom Carey Tribute.Bernard's grandson has taken up the concertina and is showing great promise for one so young, so the O'Sullivan concertina playing tradition will be carried on.

[Stephen Chambers]

Sad news indeed. I often used to meet Bernard at the Willie Clancy Week in years gone by, and many's the long chat we had ...

 

For example it was Bernard who told me the story of how Mrs. Crotty chose her Lachenal, in preference to a 4-row Jeffries:

 

It seems that, like just about all of Ireland's concertina players at the time, Mrs. Crotty was playing a 2-row German concertina, until a man called Ned Falvey (who was living in England, & used to bring concertinas back home with him in his suitcase) offered her a 4-row Jeffries, but she couldn't get on with it and bought her 3-row Lachenal off him instead!

 

It was Bernard who then bought that same Jeffries (and many more of the old West Clare players' instruments came from the same source too, including those being played today by both Gerald Haugh and Tom Carey.

It's a pity that I wasn't thinking of posterity, or had a tape-recorder with me when we were talking, though I had been hoping to arrange to meet Bernard again in the near future and possibly record an interview with him (something that I mentioned to Mark Davies at Eigse Mrs. Crotty only a couple of weeks ago!)

 

For anybody who's interested, the Clare FM radio programme that Peter mentioned would have been Music in the Glen, in which Claire Keville interviewed Jacqueline McCarthy about her father (Tommy McCarthy)'s friend Bernard O'Sullivan. The archived programme can be heard here over the next few days (only), the tribute starting 50 minutes into it.

Edited September 7, 2006 by Stephen Chambers

[Mark Davies]

I attach two photographs of the visit referred to me in my posting,one of Bernard with his grandson and another with Shay Fogarty, Bernard and his family.

[Mark Davies]

Try again!Apologies its not letting me attach the photographs to the message.

[Guest Peter Laban]

Tommy McMahon and Bernard O Sullivan's lp 'Clare Concertinas' on Topic is presently on e-bay:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A%3AIT&rd=1

 

 

Edited September 12, 2006 by Peter Laban