Sliabh Luachra fiddle player Paddy Cronin recalls meeting melodeon maestro PJ Conlon in New York.
Listowel in County Kerry is host to this year's Fleadh Cheoil na hÉirean, with traditional music and dance in the streets, pubs, and anywhere where space can be found. Music and singing competitions for every age group are also part of the annual festival, which attracts thousands of people.
Paddy Cronin from Gneeveguilla is one of many overseas visitors who has travelled to Listowel. Now resident in Boston, he emigrated to the United States in the 1940s and is regarded as one of the finest players of the Sliabh Luachra style.
He recalls meeting Peter James 'PJ' Conlon (1894 – 1967), a button accordion (also called melodeon) player from Milltown, County Galway in an Irish pub in Manhattan.
PJ Conlon had emigrated to the US as a young man and was one of the first musicians there to make commercial recordings of Irish traditional music. He was well known among the Irish emigrant community. Musicians and those with an interest in traditional music held him in high regard.
The two spent a day playing music, with Paddy Cronin describing PJ Conlon as,
The best accordion player I ever heard.
This episode of ‘Ceol’ was broadcast on 15 October 1985. The narrator is Pearse Hutchinson.
'Ceol’ was a series of four programmes made with the co-operation of Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Eireann, and is described in the RTÉ Guide television billings as ‘A half-hour in the company of eight distinguished traditional musicians who attended Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann in Listowel on Saturday 24th August 1985’ (RTÉ Guide, 11 October 1985, p. 17). The series was produced and directed by Tony MacMahon.
