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Lá Lugh: Mál Bhán Ní Chuilleannáin /The destitution

March 17, 2014 By guillaume

Lá Lugh was a traditional Irish music duo from County Louth in South Ulster comprised of husband and wife Gerry O’Connor (fiddle) and Eithne Ní Uallacháin (flute and voice). Between 1991 and Eithne Ní Uallacháin’s untimely death in 1999, the duo released three landmark recordings – Cosa gan Bhróga in 1987 with flute player Dezi Wilkinson, the self-titled Lá Lugh in 1991 and Brighid’s Kiss in 1996. In 1998, the release of Senex Puer on the Sony Music label, a compilation of tracks from their last two albums albums, gave the duo an international exposure. Lá Lugh’s music features essentially a lot of rare songs and tunes from the Oriel region of South East Ulster which were collected either from historical journals or from the repertoire of local musicians while also venturing into the Scottish or French Canadian repertoire.

Lá Lugh (1991)
Lá Lugh (1991)

While remaining authentic to their roots, Lá Lugh was very much a contemporary and innovative band with a modern sound. Singing in English and in Irish, Eithne Ní Uallacháin was a fantastic singer with a remarkably clear and almost blues-inflected voice.

Mál Bhán Ní Chuilleannáin (Fair Molly Hollywood) is a traditional song that was collected at the turn of the 20th century and published at the time in a collection of popular Ulster songs. Since only the words of the song were noted down and the original airs were lost, Eithne Ní Uallacháin composed a new tune for the song. Introducing and concluding the song is a slow reel called “The destitution” which was composed by English mandolin player Ian Stevenson.

All the recordings mentioned are available from Gerry O’Connor’s website.

Filed Under: Ireland, Traditional Tagged With: Eithne Ní Uallacháin, Lá Lugh, songwriting

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Comments

  1. Gerry O'Connor says

    March 11, 2016 at 9:30 pm

    Dear Guillaume … Thank you for posting this informed and complimentary article.
    Since the launch of the Bilingua in 2014 we have recorded a live concert in St Patrick’s Cathedral on Jan 27, 2016 with Karen Matheson ( Capercaille) Muireann Ní Amhlaimh ( Danú ) and Pauline Scanlon ( Lumiere) with a full 8 piece band directed by my son Dónal . All of Eithne’s four children took part in the concert ; Dónal’s company Red Box recorded the music and Feilimí’s company Stirling Film videoed the concert for broadcast ob TG4 later this year. Finnian and Siúbhan sang a number . Another program by Feilimi interviewing the singers and musicians , family and friends of Eithne ad this will be broad cast as a separate but linked documentary was made.
    more info is at
    http://www.eithneniuallachain.com
    I hope this is of interest to you

    Regards
    Gerry

    Reply
    • guillaume says

      March 12, 2016 at 10:39 pm

      Many thanks for this Gerry – I am looking forward to watching the concert on TG4 later this year!

      Reply

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