John Brosnan’s – Timmy Connors’ – Nell Fee’s Polkas – Saint Petersburg – Tony’s Musical Journeys

Padraig O’Keeffe’s / Nell Fee’s (Polkas) Source: Timmy O’Connor of Toureendarby (and others). Anton Zille (fiddle), Kirill Bukin (B/C accordion). V.O., Saint Petersburg, Russia, May 2022. Polkas are back! This time I’m playing with Kirill Bukin, who had come all the way from Siberia to re-energise the session and Irish traditional music scene in Saint Petersburg, and whose family band has recently become a trio. He’s keeping ‘er lit while we’re away! The polkas we recorded here are pretty well known but few people actually know where they came from. This might be because they’re almost universally referred to by the name of the well-known accordion player from Kerry who popularised this set. John Brosnan himself actually titled the two tunes Johnny Leary’s and Timmie Connors’ on his CD ‘The Cook in the Kitchen’. Being fortunate enough to know Timmy O’Connor, I was able to trace them back one step further. The reason why this set caught my attention was Timmy’s comment he made one night at a house tune in Toureendarby. Timmy was very particular about the key these polkas should be played in – D major, as opposed to G which they’re often transposed to these days. He also said the second one was really called Nell Fee’s. Timmy’s source for these polkas was Patsy Connors of Ballydesmond. Now, I personally like playing these polkas in either D, G or A and I see the transposition of tunes to keys fitting the range of the instrument as a quite natural process (that said, I’ll keep playing Foxhunter’s reel in A, nothing you can do about it!!) But I was really curious and impressed at how protective a traditional musician of the older generation could be about a simple tune they learned from someone, the “original” setting of it. This was really about a tune being handed down as close as possible to the source out of respect to the older musicians who generously shared their music with the younger crowd. That I find beautiful. It is also a vital part of the ever-lasting discourse between tradition and innovation. As a nod to the “original” setting Timmy played this tune in I play Nell Fee’s in D the first time ‘round… before we very naughtily transpose it to G! I titled the first tune Padraig O’Keeffe’s because it can be found in tablature manuscripts he wrote for his students. One such manuscript was shared with me by John Walsh, who had taken a copy of a piece of paper his uncle Sonny Riordan got from Padraig himself. It is a slightly different version that might be older than the setting of the tune commonly played today – or a variation that Padraig felt like writing that day! I also play a four-part version of the second polka that I learned from Timmy ‘The Brit’ McCarthy – but maybe these deserve stories and posts of their own. #IrishFiddle #SliabhLuachra #Polkas101 #IrishPolka #IrishTraditionalMusic #CoKerry #CoCork #ToMuJo