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PAUL KEATING

Multi-talented Kathleen Collins releases CD

By
Paul Keating

Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 3:11 PM
Updated Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 3:11 PM

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Kathleen Collins
Kathleen Collins

Taking its cue from the verses written by William Butler Yeats, there is a very prestigious prize awarded to an Irish traditional fiddler who rises above stiff competition every year to garner the honor.

In all the years that it was awarded I can think of only one recipient who excelled at fiddling and dancing as extolled in the popular poem, and that would be Kathleen Collins who won it in 1967 in Sligo just a year after becoming the first American-born fiddler to win the Senior All-Ireland Fiddle Championship in Boyle, Co. Roscommon.  

Those achievements plus an iconic recording released by Shanachie Records in 1976 called simply
“Traditional Music of Ireland” established the native New Yorker as a formidable fiddler in the Irish tradition with the potential for even greater acclaim as a musician. 

With the release of only her second recording this month entitled “Kathleen Collins: My Book of Songs” after 33 years some people may wonder what sidetracked her all those years on the music front. 

Fans of her music need not fret about time lost because the new recording will once again have people clamoring to hear more of her music in a classic style that still places her in the vanguard of fiddlers produced in New York.

While Collins was honing her fiddle skills along with brother Dan (founder of Shanachie Records where Kathleen’s albums appear) under the tutelage of Mayoman John McGrath, the Collins family of four (including brothers Dave and Billy) studied Irish dancing with Professor James McKenna, a Kerry dancing master who was legendary in New York lore.  

Early on the music and dancing had a huge impact on her, winning competitions and championships and securing a TCRG certificate to teach in 1961.

She left to live in Galway in 1965, where she kept up her music under the influence of then-husband Joe Burke and taught dance in the National schools around Galway. 

Upon returning to New York in 1973 just as Shanachie Records, the seminal record company for Irish music in the 1970s and 1980s was being born, she recorded that first solo recording with James Mahon as her piano accompanist.

Her other love, Irish dancing, was now drawing her in tighter as well as she achieved an adjudicator’s degree (ADCRG) in 1976 and started teaching and judging more dancing. 

Like many others she fell under the spell of set dancing guru and dancing master, the late Connie Ryan, on one of his first visits to New York in 1987 and threw herself feet first into learning the sets in Ireland and the U.S. 

In a short period of time she had her own classes in the Irish enclaves around New York City appealing to many adult learners looking for new pastimes to get them out of the house and getting exercise.

Her vigorous and disciplined approach was also timely as the set dancing revival was taking off in America, particularly in New York, and she whipped several teams into fleadh championship shape at the local New York fleadhs in the late 1990s before competition gave way to a more social and frequent ceili scene.  

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Multi-talented Kathleen Collins releases CD | Entertainment in Ireland and Around the World | IrishCentral


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