I wrote the post starting this thread just after I received the news of Tom’s death. I posted from my phone, over coffee in ‘The Frozen Spoon’ cafe in Miltown Malbay. I had just finished a lunchtime piping recital for the pipers in the Community Hall. I felt the post was too brief, there were memories and things to say. So I add some more.
I don’t remember when I first met Tom but it must have been some time during the mid nineties, it was, inevitably, The Willie Clancy week. Tom and his partner Helena came over from Sweden, played sessions and Tom, a piper, hung around piping things.
Somehow we got along well, shared interest and perhaps nerdy streaks, I don’t know, but Tom and Helena returned almost yearly to ‘the Willie’ and we spent a lot of time together.
At that time Tom would write up his experiences during their trips, Miltown Malbay and on to Tubbercurry and wherever they ended up, and post them online. First to the old IRTRAD-L mailing list and later, when discussion forums were on the rise, to Chiffandfipple and the session.org (where he posted as Steamwilkes). It gained him some following among people who enjoyed his observations and perhaps enjoyed living vicariously through his experiences.
Tom, as I said, had some nerdy streaks. He first developed an interest in the music of the Dorans and traveller culture. Her gathered up factoids and stories and that resulted in a website dedicated to Johnny Doran. Throughout the eighties and into the nineties, there were still people around who could recount vivid first-hand experiences of the Dorans. I knew Martin Rochford, Michael Falsey, Paddy O Donoghue and people like that but would also meet older local people who could give accounts of Johnny Doran and his travels in West Clare. I remember one story, told to me by several older men, about how a group of them got Johnny to play in an old shop on the Flag road in Miltown. The shop had a half story, I suppose today it would be called a mezzanine, where the lads sat down, legs dangling over the edge while Johnny played away on the ground floor. Each time I heard the story there were such vivid descriptions, of the music, the excitement and the whole atmosphere. Tom lapped up these things when I recounted them. One time I took Tom and Helena around sites on West Clare associated with the Dorans, the West Clare railway bridge in Kilmurry that was mentioned in an article of recollections of the Dorans by Michael Falsey that was published in An Piobaire during the eighties, the cemetery in Kilmurry where the travellers would set up camp, Looney’s on the banks of the Annageragh river where Johnny would stop. It was a great afternoon, eventually ending on Conway’s in Mullagh for tunes.
After setting up the Johnny Doran site, he threw himself into other projects, indexing old issues of An Piobaire, listing Taylor pipes and from that, as his interest in the flute grew, the Rudall catalogue.
But more often the couple would be playing around sessions in Miltown, enjoying music and the company ofpeople. I remember taking a photograph when we had some tunes in The Blondes in Miltown (I joined them briefly on vthe whistle), it was prompted by the tune they were playing, I told Tom it was great I got a snap of him playing the Black Rogue. (I couldn’t immediately find it , I am afraid but will add it when I do).
There was more ofcourse, perhaps too much to mention. In 2015 Tommy Peoples launched his book of tunes. Tom and Helena somehow missed the launch and couldn’t find the book in any of the shops. So I took them to the house where Tommy Peoples was staying so they could get it straight off the man himself. Tommy was gracious and friendly, true to his character, despite being unwell with the emphysema and on oxygen. We had a chat, Tommy signed the book for them and off we went. They were properly in awe of meeting Peoples.
Tom was a great supporter of my own piping, but was perhaps given to hyperbole about it. Sometimes I was a bit uneasy about that, I remember him gushing here after I played a few tunes at the Miltown piping recital (someone hadn’t turned up and Ken McLeod had suggested me as a replacement on five minutes notice). I brushed it away with an 'you’re only saying that because I played the Steampacket’. He also posted a review when I recorded a CD with a concertina playing friend and said something along the lines of it being the best traditional music recording of 2005. How’s that for raising expectations and setting you up for a fall? It was ofcourse his boundless enthusiasm and appreciation talking but I was never sure I would ever be able to live up to all that.
Some three years ago I emailed and asked if they would return to Miltown after Covid. ‘I think we’ll go to Tocane instead, we crave good weather’ he replied. That summer there were terrible heatwaves in France so sometime later I mailed again to ask how they had fared in the heat. Tom replied they ended up not going, he had developed a bit of a limp and a twitch in his leg and decided to have that looked at. The diagnosis, when it came, was devastating: ALS. He appeared stoic about it. He had his apartment future proofed with accessibility measures for when the inevitable came and he needed them. He seemed practical and matter of fact about it all, getting his belongings, pipes, flutes and other things (he often mentioned vintage Fender electric guitars, among othet things) he had collected, valued and sorted to make it easier for his family to dispose of them when the time came. But he appeared to decline quickly. Quite soon he became unable to play the pipes or flute and sought help finding people to take on his beloved Dave Williams set, the Wooff C chanter and his flutes. But a little later even handling that became too much. We had some email conversations but about a year ago he stopped responding.
He was on my mind when I played a recital this year because he was always so supportive and appreciative. . The Willie week is the high point of the year and it’s great to see everybody and reacquaint, but you feel the absence of those who aren’t there for whatever reason all the more acutely. I found out shortly after I came off-stage he had died the previous evening, someone said ‘the message arrived while you were playing’ and it hit harder for all of that.
I hope the end came gently.