On St. Patrick's Day this year we mourn the death, and pray for the soul, of Liam O'Flynn, a great piper who died on March 14. O'Flynn came from a musical family--his father played the fiddle, and his mother piano--and from an early age he learned to play the uillean pipes under the tutelage of Leo Rowsome and Seamus Ennis, two pipers who had kept the Irish piping tradition alive in the early 1900's.
O'Flynn became well known through his work with the band Planxty. O'Flynn gave Planxty credibility as a traditional music group--his fellow band members came more from the ballad and folk singing traditions--but at the same time he learned to adopt the pipes to accompany some of the non-Irish songs Planxty performed. O'Flynn also stood out in Planxty for being far more soft-spoken and far less emotional than his bandmates; he was always seated in the middle of the stage and only occasionally swayed a little to his music or cracked a smile. In the following video, though, O'Flynn demonstrates his skill on two slip jigs and ending with a classic piping jig (starting at 3:50), "The Yellow Wattle":
Later in his career, O'Flynn continued to show how flexible a musician was, becoming the first piper to record with an orchestra while working on several pieces with Shaun Davey. He also collaborated with poet Seamus Heaney in setting poetry to music; he later played a lament at Heaney's funeral.
But, in the end, O'Flynn will be remembered as a great piper and, by all accounts, a kind and gentle man.
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