Willie Clancy

Willie Clancy (24 December 1918 – buried 26 January 1973) was an Irish uilleann piper.

Clancy was born into a musical family at Islandbawn near Miltown Malbay, County Clare. His parents (Gilbert Clancy and Ellen Killeen) both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute. Clancy's father had been heavily influenced by local blind piper Garret Barry and passed much of Barry's music and passed it on to Willie.

Willie started playing the whistle at age 5, and later took up the flute. He first saw a set of pipes in 1936 when he saw Johnny Doran playing locally. He obtained his first set of pipes two years later. His influences included Leo Rowsome, Séamus Ennis, John Potts, and Andy Conroy. Clancy won the Oireachtas competition in 1947. Unable to earn a living from music he emigrated to London where he worked as a carpenter.^[1]

Clancy married Dóirín Healy in 1962. The Willie Clancy Summer School was established in his honour in 1973.

He was also the subject of a major television documentary "Cérbh É? Willie Clancy" on TG4, first broadcast in November 2009. In this programme, one of a series in which major figures in contemporary traditional music, profile and pay homage to a master of their craft from a bygone age, Peter Browne traced the life and legacy of Clancy.

Discography

• Irish Jigs, Reels & Hornpipes (Folkways Records). For details and contents, see [1]
• The Minstrel from Clare (Green Linnet). For details and contents, see [2]
• The Pipering of Willie Clancy, Vol. 1 (Claddagh Records). For details and contents, see [3]
• The Pipering of Willie Clancy, Vol. 2 (Claddagh Records). For details and contents, see [4]
• The Drones and the Chanters Vol. 1. For details and contents, see [5]

References

• Mac Mathúna, Ciarán (1980) "Willie Clancy" (sleeve notes on) The Pipering of Willie Clancy; volume I.
• Mitchell, Pat, ed. (1976), The Dance Music of Willie Clancy, Cork: Mercier Press ISBN 0853424659
  • --do.--Cork: Ossian Publications, 1993. ISBN 0-946005-72-9.
• Vallely, Fintan (1999), The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-8802-5.