The Musical Priest

Chairperson of the Old Drogheda Society, Seán Corcoran, has just produced a radio documentary on an aspect of Irish Music History and it is now available on SoundCloud.

Sean Corcoran at play

This fine production, The Musical Priest, was first broadcast @ 7pm Sun 29th December 2013 on Waterford Local Radio FM (WLRFM.com. A 48min radio documentary it was funded by the BAI Sound & Vision scheme and surveys the extraordinary life of Richard Henebry of Portlaw (1863-1916): funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee.

Richard Henebry, a farmer’s son from Portlaw, Co. Waterford became one of the leading figures internationally in the fields of Celtic Studies and of Irish Music studies at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Richard Henebry

Ordained a priest in 1892 he spent most of his life researching Irish Music and Celtic languages. An accomplished fiddler and a piper, Irish music was one of the great passions of his life and his historic contribution was that he was the first to carry out field recordings of country musicians and singers using the newly invented phonograph in 1903.

Edison Standard

This programme uses interviews with family members and experts and drama-documentary techniques to re-create the life of this extraordinary character.

Phonograph horn

• Writer, director, producer and presenter: Seán Corcoran
• Sound design:  Ronan Browne
• Actors: Diarmuid DeFaoite, Fred McCloskey
• Fiddle: Breda Keville
• Uilleann pipes: Ronan Browne
• Mandocello and vocals :- Seán Corcoran
• Music from Henebry adapted and arranged by Seán Corcoran

•  Old Drogheda Society - History, Archaeology & Heritage - Millmount, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland. Tel. 041-9833097 & 041-9833097

Ploughing Ahead in 2014

Now that we have stepped over the threshold of a new year and into 2014, the Old Drogheda Society would very much like to take the opportunity to wish all our members a Happy New Year. While mindful of the maxim that no news is good news we would nevertheless persist in our wishes that you have a Happy News Year.

Here at the Old Drogheda Society we will do out best to keep you informed of any news that is germane to the work that we do. History might not be news in the accepted sense of the term but historical finds, fresh investigations, new discoveries of artifacts, innovative approaches to history gathering all combine to make news.

Throughout the coming 12 months the Society will be ploughing on with its work of making local history accessible to Droghedians and those further afield with an interest in the topic. 

The type of work the Society is engaged in may be found by following or reading both this blog and our Facebook page where efforts are made to keep the public informed of ongoing activities and upcoming events. All members as well as the general public are invited to contribute to our Internet page.

It is our hope that the combination of this blog and our Facebook page will in some small way contribute to a better public understanding.

For those with more than a passing interest in local history the Old Drogheda Society might just be the type of body you could join.

• Old Drogheda Society - History, Archaeology & Heritage - Millmount, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland. Tel. 041-9833097 & 041-9833097