Séamus Connolly, a world-renowned Irish traditional musician, performer, teacher, and collector, was born in 1944 in Killaloe, Co. Clare, Ireland, and he began to play the fiddle in 1956. He won ten All-Ireland solo fiddle championships, including both junior and senior division titles in 1961 and the senior title in 1963. Additional honors include the Sligo Fiddler of Dooney Competition in 1967, and four Oireachtas duet titles with flutist Peadar O Loughlin. As a young man, Connolly played with several prominent bands including the Kilfenora Céilí Band, the Inis Cealtra Céilí Band, and the Leitrim Céilí Band, which in 1962 won the senior céilí band All-Ireland title.

Connolly immigrated to the United States in 1976 and settled with his family in the Boston area, where he quickly became a recognized leader within New England’s Irish traditional music community. He taught fiddle classes for Boston’s Hanafin-Cooley Branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, and co-hosted the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann weekly radio show with fiddle player Larry Reynolds. Connolly received numerous distinctions for his work as a performance artist, teacher, tradition bearer, and community leader within the international Irish music traditional community. He received a Fellowship in Traditional Arts from the Massachusetts Arts Council in 1990, and three master/apprenticeship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1990-1993) for teaching Irish traditional music. In 2002, Connolly was inducted into the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Northeast Region Hall of Fame, was named the Irish Echo’s traditional artist of the year. He also received the Master Music Maker award for lifetime achievement from the Swannanoa Gathering in Asheville, North Carolina.

Connolly has recorded two solo fiddle albums, Notes from My Mind (1988, remastered 2006) and Here and There (1989), as well as the critically-acclaimed The Banks of the Shannon (1973, reissued 1993) with Paddy O’Brien and Charlie Lennon, and Warming Up (1993) with Martin Mulhaire, Jack Coen, and Felix Dolan. All in all, Connolly has been involved with nearly 30 albums. In addition to performing, recording, and composing, Connolly has contributed significantly to Irish traditional music education and preservation throughout the United States.

Connolly’s music career at Boston College began in 1990, when he was recruited to work with visiting ethnomusicology professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin in coordinating the Boston College Irish Fiddle Festival. Joining the Boston College Music Department shortly thereafter, Connolly developed the Irish Music, Song, and Dance Program within the Irish Studies Program. Further collaboration between Irish Studies and the Music Department produced a festival of sean-nós song in 1991 and a Celtic harp festival in 1992. Connolly founded the Gaelic Roots festival as a weekend event in 1993 and expanded it to a week-long event in 1997 through 2003. In this endeavor he was advised and assisted by his wife Chrysandra Walter. The Gaelic Roots Festival evolved into the Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Workshop and Lecture Series, and Connolly continues to play an integral role in building the Irish Music Archives at the Burns Library. The Center for Irish Programs publicly recognized Connolly’s contributions to the university in 2004 by awarding the chair and title, Sullivan Artist in Residence in Irish Music at Boston College.

Sources

Hitchner, Earle. “From Prodigy to Preservationist.” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2011.

-----. "Séamus Connolly, Top Trad Musician of '02." The Irish Echo LXXVI, No. 3 (2003): 28.

Vallely, Fintan. The Companion to Irish Traditional Music. 1st ed. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 1999.

-----. The Companion to Irish Traditional Music. 2nd ed. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 2011.