Joe Heaney


Joe Heaney was an Irish traditional singer from Connemara, County Galway, Ireland. He spent most of his adult life abroad, living in England, Scotland and New York City, in the course of which he recorded hundreds of songs.

Biography

Heaney was born in Carna, a village in Connemara, County Galway, along the west coast of Ireland. This is an Irish-speaking district. He said he started singing at the age of five, but his shyness kept him from singing in public until he was 20. He learned English at school in Carna. When he was 16 years old, he won a scholarship to attend school in Dublin. While there he won first and second prizes at a national singing competition. Most of his repertoire was learned while growing up in Carna.
In 1949, he went to London where he worked on building sites and became involved in the folk-music scene. He recorded for the Topic and Gael-linn labels. He was married for six years until his wife died of tuberculosis.
He was recorded by Pádraic Ó Raghallaigh for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, and by Peter Kennedy for the BBC in 1959. The BBC recordings were assembled on a BBC LP, not commercially issued, as BBC LP 22570.
He visited America in 1965 at the invitation of the Newport Folk Festival. After singing at Newport, he decided to move to America and settled in New York City.
In 1981, Australian folk historian Warren Fahey brought Heaney to Australia, where he filled the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.
From 1982 until 1984, Heaney was an artist-in-residence at the University of Washington in Seattle, and previously had taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The Joe Heaney Collection of the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives was established after Heaney's death in 1984. The entirety of the collection was transferred to the National University of Ireland at Galway, where it is freely available online.
The Féile Chomórtha Joe Éinniú is held every year in Carna.
In 2007, an Irish-language biography of him titled Seosamh Ó hÉanaí: Nár Fhágha Mé Bás Choíche by Liam Mac Con Iomaire was published. In 2011, Bright Star of the West: Joe Heaney, Irish Song-Man, co-authored by Sean Williams and Lillis Ó Laoire, was published. The 2011 biography discusses his work in the larger context of Ireland and the United States, and it won the 2012 Alan P. Merriam Prize for best monograph from the Society for Ethnomusicology.

Partial discography

  • "Caoineadh na dtrí Máire" 78 RPM
  • "Neansín Bhán" 78 RPM
  • "Bean an Leanna" 78 RPM
  • Individual songs on Gael Linn Discs : "Amhrán na Trá Báine", "Amhrán na Páise", "Sadhbh Ní Bhruinneallaigh" & "Is Measa Liom Bródach" 1960 78 RPM, reissued in "Seoltaí Séidte"
  • "Amhráin Aniar" 4 track EP 45 RPM
  • "Joe Heaney: Morrisey & the Russian Sailor" 3 track EP 45 RPM
  • "Joe Heaney: The Bonny Bunch of Roses & Other Irish Songs" 3 track EP 45 RPM
  • "Joe Heaney Sings Traditional Songs in Gaelic and English"
  • "Come All Ye Gallant Irishmen"
  • "Irish Music in London Pubs"
  • "Seoda Ceoil 2"
  • "Seosamh Ó hÉanaí" , reissued as disc one in "Seosamh Ó hÉanaí: Ó Mo Dhúchas/From My Tradition Sraith 1 & Sraith 2"
  • "Joe Heaney"
  • "Seosamh Ó hÉanaí, sraith 2. Ó Mo Dhúchas: From My Tradition" , reissued as "The Best of Joe Heaney: From My Tradition" and as disc two in "Seosamh Ó hÉanaí: Ó Mo Dhúchas/From My Tradition. Sraith 1 & Sraith 2"
  • "Joe and the Gabe"
  • "Say a Song: Joe Heaney in the Pacific Northwest"
  • "Road from Connemara: Songs and Stories Told and Sung to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger"
  • "Tell a Story: Joe Heaney in the Pacific Northwest"
  • "Wife of the Bold Tenant Farmer" from Irish Traditional Songs in Gaelic & English was included in Topic Records' 70-year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten as track sixteen on the third CD.

    Documentaries

  • Joe Heaney: Sing the Dark Away by Michael Davitt
  • Song of Granite by Pat Collins, 2017

    Awards and honors

Heaney was a recipient of a 1982 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA.