Séamus Ennis
Encyclopedia
Séamus Ennis was an Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 piper, singer and folk-song
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 collector.

Early years

In 1908 James Ennis, Séamus's father, was in a pawn-shop in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Ennis bought a bag of small pieces of Uilleann pipes
Uilleann pipes
The uilleann pipes or //; ) are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland, their current name, earlier known in English as "union pipes", is a part translation of the Irish-language term píobaí uilleann , from their method of inflation.The bag of the uilleann pipes is inflated by means of a...

. They were made in the early nineteenth century by Coyne of Thomas Street in Dublin. James worked as a civil servant in Naul, Co Dublin
County Dublin
County Dublin is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Dublin Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Dublin which is the capital of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first of the parts of Ireland to be shired by King John of England following the...

. In 1912 he came first at the Oireachtas
Oireachtas
The Oireachtas , sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the "national parliament" or legislature of Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of:*The President of Ireland*The two Houses of the Oireachtas :**Dáil Éireann...

 competition for warpipes, second at Uilleann pipes. He was also a prize-winning dancer. He married Mary McCabe in 1916. They had six children, including Séamus, who was born on May 5 1919 in Jamestown in Finglas
Finglas
-See also:* List of towns and villages in Ireland* List of abbeys and priories in Ireland...

, North County Dublin. James Ennis was a member of the Fingal trio, which included Frank O'Higgins (fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

) and John Cawley (flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

). They performed on the radio. At the age of thirteen, Séamus started receiving lessons on the pipes from his father. He attended the all-Irish schools at Scoil Cholm Cille and Colaiste Mhuire
Coláiste Mhuire
Coláiste Mhuire, which is part of the Marino Institute of Education , is a primary teacher training college which is affiliated with Trinity College, Dublin. It is located on Griffith Avenue, Dublin 9. Coláiste Mhuire is primarily focused on providing for pre-service primary education...

, which gave him a knowledge of the Irish language
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 as well as English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. He sat an exam to become Employment Exchange clerk but was too far down the list to be offered a job. He was twenty and unemployed.

Three Candles Press

Colm Ó Lochlainn was editor of "Irish Street Ballads" and a friend of the Ennis family. In 1938 Séamus confided in Colm that he intended to move to England to join the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

. Colm immediately offered him a job at The Three Candles Press. There Séamus learned all aspects of the printing trade. This included writing down slow airs
Air (music)
Air , a variant of the musical song form, is the name of various song-like vocal or instrumental compositions.-English lute ayres:...

 for printed scores - a skill which later proved important. Colm was director of an Irish language choir, An Claisceadal, which Séamus joined. In 1942, during The Emergency, shortages and rationing meant that things became difficult in the printing trade. Professor Seamus O Duilearge of the Irish Folklore Commission
Irish Folklore Commission
The Irish Folklore Commission was set up in 1935 by the Irish Government to study and collect information on the folklore and traditions of Ireland....

 hired the 23-year old to collect songs. He was given "pen, paper and pushbike" and a salary of three pounds
Pound (currency)
The pound is a unit of currency in some nations. The term originated in England as the value of a pound of silver.The word pound is the English translation of the Latin word libra, which was the unit of account of the Roman Empire...

 per week. Off he went to Connemara
Connemara
Connemara is a district in the west of Ireland consisting of a broad peninsula between Killary Harbour and Kilkieran Bay in the west of County Galway.-Overview:...

.

The song collector

From 1942 to 1947, working for the Irish Folklore Commission, Séamus collected songs in West Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...

, Galway
County Galway
County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...

, Cavan
County Cavan
County Cavan is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Border Region and is also located in the province of Ulster. It is named after the town of Cavan. Cavan County Council is the local authority for the county...

, Mayo
County Mayo
County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...

, Donegal
Donegal
Donegal or Donegal Town is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. Its name, which was historically written in English as Dunnagall or Dunagall, translates from Irish as "stronghold of the foreigners" ....

, Kerry
County Kerry
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...

, the Aran Islands
Aran Islands
The Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. They constitute the barony of Aran in County Galway, Ireland...

 and the Scottish Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...

. His knowledge of Scots Gaelic enabled him to transcribe much of the John Lorne Campbell
John Lorne Campbell
John Lorne Campbell was a Scottish historian, farmer, environmentalist and folklore scholar.-Biography:In the 1930s Campbell was living on the Hebridean island of Barra where, with the author Compton Mackenzie, he founded the Sea League to fight for the rights of local fisherman and organised a...

 collection of songs. Elizabeth Cronin
Elizabeth Cronin
Elizabeth "Bess" Cronin was an Irish singer who specialized in traditional music.Born in West Cork, the daughter of Seán Ó hIarlaithe, a schoolteacher, she lived in the Baile Bhuirne area all her life. She spent her teenage years on her uncle's farm nearby. She married Seán Ó Croinin and they...

 of Baile Mhuirne, County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...

 was so keen to chat to Séamus on his visits that she wrote down her own songs and handed them over as he arrived, and then got down to conversation. He had a natural empathy with the musicians and singers he met. In August 1947 he started work as an outside broadcast officer with Radio Eireann. He was a presenter and recorded Willie Clancy
Willie Clancy
Willie Clancy was an Irish uilleann piper.Clancy was born into a musical family at Islandbawn near Miltown Malbay, County Clare. His parents both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute...

, Sean Reid and Micho Russell
Micho Russell
Micho Russell was an Irish musician and author best known for his expert tin whistle performance. He also played the simple-system flute and was a collector of traditional music and folklore.-Biography:...

 for the first time. There was an air of authority in his voice. In 1951 Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

 and Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie is an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player.- Out of Kentucky :Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest...

 arrived from America to record Irish songs and tunes. The tables were turned as Séamus became the subject of someone else's collection. There is a photograph from 1952/53 showing Jean huddled over the tape recorder while Séamus plays Uilleann pipes.

As I Roved Out

Late in 1951 he joined the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

. He moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to work with producer Brian George. In 1952 he married Margaret Glynn. They had two children, Catherine and Christopher. His job was to record the traditional music of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 and Ireland and to present it on the BBC Home Service
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...

. The programme was called "As I Roved Out" and ran until 1958. The poet Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...

 managed to wangle his way onto this project. For him it was a pub-crawl around Britain. Meeting up with Alan Lomax again, Séamus was largely responsible for the album Folk and Primitive Music (volume on Ireland) on the Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 label.

Full time musician

In 1958, after his contract with the BBC was not renewed, he started doing freelance work, first in England then back in Ireland, with the new TV station Teilifis Éireann. Soon he was relying totally on his musical ability to make a living. About this time his marriage broke down and he returned to Ireland. He suffered from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 and was ill for some time. In 1964 he performed at the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...

. His father gave him the pipes he had bought in 1908. Although most pipers can be classed as playing in a tight style or an open style, Séamus was in between. Séamus was a master of the slow air, knowing how to decorate long notes with taste and discreet variation.

Two legendary sessions

Two events will live in legend among pipers. The first was in Bettystown in 1968, when the society of Irish pipers, Na Píobairí Uilleann
Na Píobairí Uilleann
Na Píobairí Uilleann is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the Irish Uilleann pipes and its music.-Organisation:...

, was formed. Brendan Breathnach was playing a tape of his own piping. Séamus asked "What year?" Brendan replied "1948". Séamus said "So I thought". For a couple of hours the younger players performed while Séamus sat in silence. Eventually he was asked to play. Slowly he took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He spent 20 minutes tuning up his 130-year-old pipes. He then asked the gathering whether all the tape recorders were ready and proceeded to play for over an hour. To everyone's astonishment he then offered his precious pipes to Willie Clancy to play a set. Willie demurred but eventually gave in. Next Liam O'Flynn
Liam O'Flynn
Liam O'Flynn is a master uilleann piper and prominent Irish folk musician. In addition to an impressive solo career and his work with the Irish traditional group Planxty, O'Flynn has recorded with many prominent international musical artists, including Mark Knopfler, the Everly Brothers, Enya,...

 (Liam Og Ó Floinn) was asked to play them, and so on, round the room. The second unforgettable session was in Dowlings' pub in Prosperous in County Kildare
County Kildare
County Kildare is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county...

. Christy Moore
Christy Moore
Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore is a popular Irish folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He is well known as one of the founding members of Planxty and Moving Hearts...

 was there, as well as most of the future members of Planxty
Planxty
Planxty is an Irish folk music band formed in the 1970s, consisting initially of Christy Moore , Dónal Lunny , Andy Irvine , and Liam O'Flynn...

.

Séamus never ran any school of piping but his enthusiasm infused everyone he met. In the early seventies he shared a house with Liam O'Flynn for almost three years. Finally he bought a piece of land in Naul and lived in a mobile home there. One of his last performances was at the Willie Clancy Summer School
Willie Clancy Summer School
The Willie Clancy Summer School is Ireland's largest traditional music summer school held annually since 1973 in memory of the uilleann piper Willie Clancy. During the week, nearly a thousand students from every part of the world attend daily classes taught by experts in Irish music and dance...

 in 1982. He died on October 5, 1982. His pipes were bequeathed to Liam O'Flynn. Radio producer Peter Browne produced a compilation of his performances, called "The Return from Fingal" spanning 40 years.

Trivia

  • Ennis is the subject of Christy Moore's song 'The Easter Snow.' This is also the title of a slow air Ennis used to play, and one that he also named his final home in Naul after.

Discography

  • The Bonny Bunch of Roses (1959)
  • Forty Years of Irish Piping (1974)
  • The Pure Drop (1974)
  • The Fox Chase (1974)
  • The Best of Irish Piping
    The Best of Irish Piping
    The Best of Irish Piping is a two CD boxset incorporating The Pure Drop and The Fox Chase albums by Seamus. Liam O'Flynn wrote the sleevenotes.-Tracks:-References:...

     (1974) (this is The Pure Drop plus The Fox Chase)
  • Irish Pipe and Tin Whistle Songs (1976)(USA release of "The Bonny Bunch of Roses) (Not identical to anthology of same name of 1994)
  • Feidlim Toon Ri's Castle (1977)
  • The Ace and Deuce of Piping
  • The Wandering Minstrel (1977)
  • The Return from Fingal (1997)
  • Two Centuries of Celtic Music (2001)
  • Séamus Ennis - Ceol, Scealta agus Amhráin (2006, remastered from recording first issued in 1961)

Anthologies (various artists)

  • Irish Pipe and Tin Whistle Songs (1994) (not identical to same title LP (1976) above)
  • Green Linnet 20th Anniversary Collection (1996)
  • Alan Lomax
    Alan Lomax
    Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

     Sampler (1997)
  • Traditional Dance Music of Ireland (1997)

External links

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