The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169955   Message #4109552
Posted By: GUEST,JTT
10-Jun-21 - 03:36 AM
Thread Name: Info: Harpist Treasa Nic Chormaic
Subject: RE: Info: Harpist Treasa Nic Chormaic
At one stage, in a 1945 Thomas Davis Centenary Book Fair, she was playing the music the poets of the Nation listened to. Other people lecturing and performing included Patricia Lynch, who wrote many children's books (The Turf-Cutter's Donkey, King of the Tinkers, etc); Sean O'Faolain; President Sean T and Mrs O'Kelly "paid an informal visit".
In 1935 she played at a Fianna Fail céilidhe attended by 1,000 people. Sean T O'Kelly, Frank Aiken, Sean MacEntee et al were there. "The following artistes contributed to the programme: Treasa Nic Cormaic, Leo Rowsome, Aindreas O Muimhneachain, Gabriel Lyons, Tadhg Forbes, Tadhg Small, M Greegan, Una Ni Thiomain, Miss Berrigan, Mrs L Rapple, Peig Ni Annrachain and Miss Lyons (accompanist).
In 1937 Miss Rosaleen Halligan, a pupil of Teresa McCormac's Irish Harp School, is pictured after winning first prize in the Junior Harp Competition in Feis Atha Cliath.
In 1940 she's playing at a Gaelic League event along with An Ceol-Chumann, Townsend Harpists, Pilib O Laoghaire (Bheidhlin), Ide Ni Chadhla (Amhrain), Craobh an Cheitinaigh, Colm O Lochlainn (amhrain ag a bpiano).
In 1974 an obituary of her son Peadar Broe mentions that before wt the article calls his "tragic death" in January, "for many years he had farmed in County Cork".
Also in 1974 his widow is looking for anyone who has any recordings of his music (in a piece talking about piping generally and referring to the upcoming chance to hear "the sweet little pipes of Northumbria").
Another son is mentioned in a piece by Benedict Kiely from 1981, remembering back to 1939, when "in Dublin, a sleepy Sunday afternoon, in North Dublin city, in Hollybrook Road, Clontarf. But, in the house of Brian O'Higgins, Brian na Banban, there was a very pleasant party going on.
Jimmy Broe was on his feet and singing, in one of the best tenor voices I've ever heard… That voice is long silent; Jimmy died young. He was the son of the harpist Treasa Nic Chormaic, with whom, and with Dennis Cox, the baritone, I once travelled on the boat from Glasgow to Belfast."