Broadcaster Ciarán Mac Mathúna dies
Friday, 11 December 2009 23:07
Well known broadcaster and music collector Ciarán Mac Mathúna has died.
Born in 1925, he was a recognised authority on Irish Music and lectured extensively on the subject.
A native of Co Limerick, Ciarán Mac Mathúna first joined RTÉ as a radio producer in 1955. One of his first jobs was to travel around the country in the company of a mobile recording unit gathering material for Radio Éireann's traditional music archive.
Mac Mathúna started his Mo Cheol Thú programme in 1970 and it became one of the longest running programmes on radio, finishing in November 2005.
Listen to Mo Cheol Thú programmes from the RTÉ archive
Each 45 minute programme offered a miscellany of archive music, poetry and folklore, mainly of Irish origin.
It was described as an 'unashamedly nostalgic and wistful' mix of poetry, instrumental music and song.
For more than 50 years he made an enormous contribution to the preservation and development of Irish traditional music.
He won two Jacob's Awards in 1969 and 1990 for his radio programmes and received the Freedom of Limerick City in 2004.
