Tommy Kearney

[gold ring]

Does Tommy Kearney still play etc? I know he is a very old man at this stage.

[Steampacket]

I last saw Tommy playing in the piping workshop at Miltown in 2004, might have been 2003, on his Leo Rowsome set. He was playing the regs and everything. It seems the set was leaking a bit but it was great to hear him play. Tommy´s a true gentleman piper. The NPU CD is worth getting

[sean an piobaire]

I met Tommy at the Behal Family Chateau, at Kilmacow, Co. Kilkenny, just across the Suir river from Waterford (Monsieur Behal "pere" was an engineer from France, married to an Irish lady, and they had 18 children! Eugene, one of the older ones, is a Gaelic speaker, who I met at Buncrana, 1975).
Tommy plays the most elegant set of Leo Rowsome's Pipes, that I have ever seen. The drones are all metal, silver plated, and the only wood ( Blackwood) on it is the chanter, and the 3 regulator bodies. The sound of this set is "full-on" Rowsome, with that slightly "Hollow" chanter sound, and the Regulators were in tune, and nicely balanced with the chanter.
I was playing the Kennedy set, 1/4 step sharp of concert A, so I couldn't play with Tommy on the Pipes, but I had a "Nach" Meyer Flute, so I knocked out all the tunes I knew from the Rowsome and Crowley Uilleann Pipe Tutors (during the 1970s, they were the only 2 available).
Tommy knew all of that repetoire, and his favorite jig out of all of it, was the 3 part double jig,
"The Maid at the Spinning Wheel" (the 4th part of it is printed in the Brendan Breathnach's "Ceol Rinnce na hEireann" Vol.1).
Tommy also played "The Marseilles" for M.le Behal, and
I remember Tommy saying that he had learned the arrangement from Leo Rowsome, I can't remember if Tommy said that he had played with Leo on Irish Radio, in Leo Rowsome's Band of Pipers? If he did he would
probably be the last Piper, still alive, to have done so. I mention this, because I had just been contributing to that previous, posted subject, "Leo Rowsome's Band"....perhaps Tommy has some recordings and/or memories of the band? Tommy did tell me that he had taken some lessons with Leo and had spared no expense for the set of Leo's Pipes.
Anyhow, he was the only Piper I met up with in the South East of Ireland, and I had a very nice time with him, listening to his piping was a wonderful experience, and it's good to know that he's still playing!
Sean Folsom

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Well, in the preface to the Leo Rowsome Tune Collection his daughter Helena mentions the quartet spanning about 30 years, and starting perhaps in the early 30s, so Leo kept it going until perhaps the early 60s. Helena mentions Sean Seery and Mick Tuohy as members, I think they're both still around. I think Tommy Creegan took lessons from Mick in the mid-70s, before being forcibly deported or whatever.



Concert pitch set made by Leo Rowsome c. 1945 - Played by Sean Seery

Fancy stuff.

[gold ring]

the set in the picture above was left by Sean to Fergus Finnegan who has the set now.