DkIT graduate Conor Ward and current doctoral student Darren Culliney featured on a recent episode of Ceolaireacht focusing on Co. Leitrim, showcasing the interest of the Irish music community in the history of local musical traditions.

Challenging concepts of the geography of Irish traditional music, the focus of academic research by DkIT lecturer Dr Daithí Kearney, presenter Doireann Ní Ghlacáin delves into the music scene in less recognised areas, musically speaking, to see who is playing, what they are playing and where the craic is at. In the first series, she explored music in Dundalk and, in the most recent episode, she travelled to Leitrim.

In this episode, Doireann talks to fiddle player Conor Ward, whose PhD research at Dundalk Institute of Technology, examined the musical traditions associated with Thomas Kernan, a blind 19th-century fiddle master. The programme features a page from the Kernan manuscripts, which formed the basis for Conor’s research, demonstrating the continuation and evolution of the tradition in Leitrim and Longford through the generations.

Button accordion player Darren Culliney from Longford is currently undertaking research on Ulster musical traditions at DkIT. On Ceolaireacht, he performs with a group of musicians from Drumshanbo, a town well known for its annual summer school, including Aisling Clarke who comments on discussions at sessions when there’s a tune played, everybody is curious about where it came from and who wrote it.

Directed by Louthman Feilimí O’Connor, series 3 of Ceolaireacht continues on TG4 each Sunday night.

Ceolaireacht is available to view on the TG4 player at https://www.tg4.ie/en/player/online-boxsets/?series=Ceolaireacht&genre=Ceol