THERE will be an exciting talk held as part of Letterkenny Trad Week which will explore the details of remarkable research on a famous Donegal family of travelling musicians.
Rab Cherry, a key figure in the Donegal fiddle tradition, has spent more than 15 years putting together a family tree of the Doherty family, featuring renowned fiddlers and pipers across two centuries.
They include the fiddler John Doherty (1900-1980), reckoned to be among the greatest Irish traditional musicians, and the famous piper Tarlach MacSuibhne (c.1832-1916).
The project is now almost complete. Rab will give an update in his talk on ‘Travellers and Traditional Music’ at the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny on Saturday, January 31 at 11am.
Also speaking will be Dr Conor Caldwell, Belfast, who did his PhD on John Doherty, and Bianca Rohleder, Dublin, who is a grand-daughter of John Doherty’s brother Simon.
The talk is one of three linked events in the RCC on Saturday, January 31. It will be followed at 1pm by the launch of three podcasts featuring Donegal travellers, called ‘Travellers’ Tales’. Then, at 2pm, there will be a lunchtime concert, ‘Travellers’ Tunes’, featuring Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh of Altan, Kevin Doherty of Four Men and a Dog, and more.
Rab Cherry is a fiddlemaker and for many years he’s been a leading figure in the Donegal fiddle organisation, Cairdeas na bhFidilíerí. Originally from Belfast, he now lives in Dublin and has a home outside Kilcar.
He says the Doherty project really began when he was fascinated by the Doherty family tree in the classic book ‘The Northern Fiddler’, published by Blackstaff Press in Belfast in 1979. That tree was put together by John Doherty, then living in Stranorlar, with the help of a local man, Paddy Doherty of Lower Drumboe.
Rab has now completed more than forty profiles of musicians and families, all linked to the Dohertys. He has put together a massive new Doherty family tree with 93 names on it, focusing on the musical members of the connection.
“I’ve talked about this project here and there over the years. And people have said they believe it’s the biggest project on a single family in Irish traditional music” Rab said.
Final preparations are now underway to put Rab’s information onto the Donegal fiddle website, donegalfiddlemusic.ie. He expects that will happen by the summer.
There will be the new giant family tree, smaller trees for family groups, and more than forty profiles of individual musicians and musical families linked to the Dohertys. There are also more than forty audio clips of music and speech, which have been re-mastered by Dublin sound specialist Harry Bradshaw.
Rab’s talk on is being supported by the ‘Pride not Prejudice’ project under the DTP, supported by the PEACEPLUS Programme and managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.
