UCC to receive O'Riada music collection
The O’Riada collection, which contains instruments, original scores, correspondence, possessions and 2000 books belonging to one of the country’s most important traditional musicians, is today being presented to the Taoiseach on behalf of Ireland.
The Sean O’Riada collection is to be housed in University College Cork’s Boole Library after the university was given more than €500,000 by the Government to purchase and preserve it.
The presentation is part of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s tour of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery at UCC and will be made to the accompaniment of surviving members of O’Riada’s ensemble.
In addition to O’Riada’s library of fiction and works on film, poetry and music, the collection contains what the family refer to as the last Kerry harp - a sixteenth century instrument – and his walking sticks, graduation robes, tin whistles, piano, furniture and fishing rods.
There is also a large family photographic archive and correspondence between the composer and the Abbey Theatre, RTE and the Irish Times, as well as love letters between him and his wife Ruth.
The original scores of all the major O’Riada works, described by the university as a national treasure in their own right, also form part of the collection.
O’Riada achieved national prominence in the 1960s when he wrote the score for Mise Eire, a documentary about the Irish War of Independence.
He founded a group called Ceoltoiri Cualann (The Musicians of Cualann), which helped to revive Irish traditional music.
Three of its members – Paddy Moloney, Martin Fay, and Sean Keane – went on to form the Chieftains.
As well as his composing work, O’Riada was also a playwright, a newspaper columnist and a strong enthusiast for the Irish language.
He died in 1971 at the age of 40 from sclerosis of the liver and his family preserved his collection at his home in Ballyvourney, a Gaeltacht area in West Cork.
The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism provided UCC with the €500,000 required to acquire it from the family, as well as another €100,000 to pay for conservation and public display.
Today UCC librarian John Fitzgerald said the richest part of the archive concerned his work, including original compositions, unpublished plays and poetry, his diary and correspondence.
“It is intended to rename one of the reading rooms in the new library extension, due to open in June 2007, Seomra Ui Riada in his honour.
“I think for many years to come, scholars will avail of this rich collection and use it to gain a deeper understanding of O’Riada’s life and work,” he said.
UCC President Professor Gerard Wrixon said it was “entirely appropriate” the university should house the collection as O’Riada studied music there and became a lecturer in the music department in 1963.
“This is a collection that is immensely important in the cultural and musical history of this country,” he said.
