Paddy Tunney
1921 - 2002
Paddy Tunney was born in the shadow of the Blochairn Steel Works in the Irish ghetto of Garngad in Glasgow. At the time, his father was a steel worker and his mother kept house. When just two weeks old, the family moved home to Rushen in Co. Donegal, moving to Fermanagh six years later. Paddy was born into a network of families who shared a rich singing tradition spanning back many generations. His first song teacher was his maternal grandfather and he learned songs from uncles, aunts, great uncles, great aunts and many neighbours.
In his lifetime, he made many solo albums and appeared on a plethora of compilations, including Where the Linnets Sing, where he appears alongside his mother and other family members. He began broadcasting in 1952 for Radio Éireann and later for BBC, working with Seán Mac Réamoinn, Seán O Boyle and Peter Kennedy. Throughout the 1960s he wrote and presented many programmes on RTÉ radio and collaborated with RTÉ’s Ciarán Mac Mathúna in the 1980s on a four-part radio documentary on Irish Traditional Singing. He worked with the BBC producer Tony McCauley scripting and presenting two award-winning television documentaries on the traditions of the area around his home in west Fermanagh. In 2001, he was the subject of a documentary in the TG4 series Sé Mo Laoch.
Paddy was once described by Ewan MacColl as “the greatest lyrical folksinger in the English language”, while the singer Paul Brady simply called him “a giant” in the world of traditional singing. His family songs have appeared in the repertoires of countless singers, including such commercial artists as The Chieftains, Planxty, Dolores Keane, Altan, Dervish, Cara Dillon, Rita Gallagher and a host of others. He can be heard singing on The Lark in the Morning (Tradition, 1957), A Man’s in Love Feels no Cold (Folktrax 164), The Man of Songs (Folk Legacy, 1962), A Wild Bees’ Nest (Topic 1965), The Irish Edge (Topic, 1966), Ireland Her own (Topic 1966), The Mountain Streams (Topic, 1975), The Flowery Vale (Topic, 1976), The Stone Fiddle (Green Linnet, 1981), Where the Linnets Sing (CCÉ, 1999) , and The Flax in Bloom (Topic, 2014).