Historical Society pays tribute to late president

The evening will be compered by Dr Peter Smith (Peadar Mac Gabhann) and Brian Mullan. Peter Smith is a lecturer in Irish at the University of Ulster. He has published widely on various aspects of the Irish literary and musical tradition and his double CD box-set collection, Songs from the Sperrins, which was published in 2009, contains some of the material which he collected in the Mid and North Tyrone area in the late 1980s.

Brian Mullan is a singer from Derry who has worked for many years as a broadcaster with the BBC. Brian has met and became friends with and learned from some of the great singers of Ulster like Eddie Butcher, Joe Holmes, Geordie Hanna and Nellie Ní Dhomhnaill.

Peter and Brian will elaborate on: O’Conluain as a song collector: Proinsias’s work with Róise na nAmhran (Róise of the Songs) in Aranmore Island saved a collection of rare Ulster Irish songs from extinction

• Proinsias’s work with Robert Cinamond, one of the greatest Irish singers in English of the twentieth century preserves for us the voice of a great Ulster singer.

• Proinsias’s work as a collector with the Outside Broadcast Unit of RTÉ preserves for us important specimens of the Irish Language of Mid and North Tyrone

• Prionsias was the person who inspired Sean Ó hEochaidh, the great Donegal folklore collector to transcribe the life story of his father-in-law, Micí Mac Gabhann. This project evolved into the book entitled: Rotha Mór an tSaoil: The Hard Road to the Klondyke, upon which Desmond Bell based his documentary film of the same title (1999).

The evening on the 26th Sept at 8.00pm, will be recorded and illustrated with music and song featuring well known Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann members. The venue is the Brantry Bard Cultural Centre, Brantry, Dungannon. BT70 1LT.

Supper Served and Admission is £10.00 with Pensioners/Students £5.00

Further details and tickets from: [email protected]