Celebrating Maurice

By ADAM O’CONNOR

Having been held annually during Easter Week since 2002, the Maurice O’Keeffe Music Festival has now reached its twenty-third year. It is a Week-Long Festival of Sessions, Céilís, Set Dancing Workshops, Concerts, Mass and Choir, & Much More! Among the activities it offers are Morning Escorted Tours including visits to The Ring of Kerry, The Dingle Peninsula, The Gap of Dunloe & West Cork. Its purpose since its inception has always been to celebrate the amazing Maurice O’Keeffe and his equally amazing life.

Born in Glounreigh in 1919, Maurice’s love of music started in his early childhood, and can be attributed to his mother Mary O’Keeffe. An accomplished concertina and melodeon player from a noted musical family, Mary ensured that music became entrenched in the lives of her children. At age ten, Maurice acquired his first musical instrument, a fiddle, purchased for him by his mother in Ballydesmond, and received lessons from renowned local teacher John Linehan. It appears that Maurice was Linehan’s last pupil. The lessons imbued Maurice

with a style and repertoire that would serve him well throughout his long life, and he continued to have lessons with his mother following Linehan’s death. Frequent house parties in the neighbourhood ensured that Maurice had plenty of opportunity to hone his craft.

Maurice became a favourite performer of many music halls in his area, but such occasions became less frequent as the music hall scene died out in the 1950s. Subsequently Maurice would occupy himself far more with his home life, raising eight children with his wife Peg. However, this musical dry spell was not to last, as the revival of set dancing and rising popularity of pub sessions brought with them opportunities for Maurice to perform in other parts of Sliabh Luachra and establish himself as a fixture of the musical community.

Despite never producing a commercial recording, Maurice’s gift for the music of his locality ensured that his legacy would last for many years to come, though it was his immense generosity to all that will last in people’s hearts and minds for generations. Until his death in 2017, he was not only the guest of honour at the music festival named after him, but an active participant, playing away in

the sessions until the wee hours. In 2007 he was presented with the Patrick O’Keeffe Traditional Music Award in recognition of his contribution to the tradition.