Watch documentary on Johnny Doherty, Donegal fiddle legend
Posted on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 09:28 PM
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Tinsmith, storyteller and legendary traditional fiddler, Johnny Doherty was in the 1970s still traveling the hills of Donegal at an advanced age, playing music and making a living. The documentary below was made in 1972 by Seán O'Haughey of the Coimisiún Béaloideasa Éireann (Irish Folklore Commission). You can watch it in its entirety, in five parts.
Johnny Doherty (Seán Ó Dochartaigh) was born in Ardara, County Donegal (Ard an Rátha, Co. Thír Chonaill) at an unknown year.
The O'Doherty family were travelers in the culturally rich Gleann Cholm Cille area. Johnny's father Mickey was a fiddler, and his mother Mary McConnell was a singer. Johnny was the youngest of nine children. As a teenager, Johnny was not allowed to play fiddle in the company of his parents until he had mastered the reel "Bonny Kate." Johnny's brother, also called Mickey, was noted for his style after the recording artist Michael Coleman ( Mícheál Ó Clúmháin), and Mickey can be heard play on "The Gravel Walks."
The classic album The Floating Bow preserves Johnny Doherty music and stories for all time, and is a valuable treasure of the tradition. O'Doherty's music is noted for its complicated ornamentation, double-stop bowing technique, and the uilleann pipe sound he successfully recreated on the fiddle. His influence on later masters is incalculably and hugely significant.
Related: interview I conducted with East Galway flute legend, Jack Coen.
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NOPYLONS | Feb 13, 2010, 11:43 AM EST
The hills in this documentary are under threat from wind turbines and high voltage power lines. If the landscape is destroyed so is the music it inspires. Wind energy is not green when it destroys the landscape and endangers the health of the inhabitants with cancer inducing power lines and wind turbine induced depression. The language, music, poetry and song will be wiped away in these areas. Save the Hills of Donegal for future generations and oppose unsustainable industrial wind farms.
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