2017 Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha

Subject: Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 10 Sep 17 - 04:46 AM

Lovers of the tradition of sean-nós singing in the Irish language, will be saddened to hear of the death of Josie Sheáin Jeaic. A gentleman, sailor and wonderful singer, his loss to the tradition is immense.

Subject: RE: Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 17 - 06:55 AM

Extremely sorry to hear this Martin
We met up with him early this year when he attended the showing of the Film, The Irishmen at The Irish Film Institute in Dublin
Pat (my partner) was intrumenta in getting him invited to the event by the organisers when she informed him That Josie was still around and living in Carna
The film, a documentary of Irishmen who moved to London in the 1950s to work on the building sites and Josie was the continuing link - filmed first at home, then on the sites in London
A truely great film in which Josie played a key part
The BBC got cold feet when they saw the interviews of men talking about the conditions in the building trade and it was never shown in Britain on the media in Britain - its first appearance was in an obituary tribute when its producer, Phillip Donnelan died in the early 2000's on Irish television (TG4)
It serves as a great memorial to Phillip, to Josie and all the men who made 'the great journey' to Britain to look for work
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 10 Sep 17 - 09:25 PM

This is thread creep,
but that film, The Irishmen,
sounds reminiscent of Ken Loach's "Riff Raff."

You-Tube has clips with Mr. MacDonncha's singing. Impressive.
How old was he? I hope he lived long and well.

Subject: RE: 2017 Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 06:59 AM

Johnny was born 1943, according to the Companion to Irish Traditional Music.

Regards

Subject: RE: 2017 Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 01:57 PM

"sounds reminiscent of Ken Loach's "Riff Raff." "
No - one's a documentary made up of clips of navvies talking about their work, Loach's film (one of my favourites) was a feature film about just one group of workers
If anybody is in the vicinity of Miltown Malbay in Clare on the 2nd Tuesday in December, the local history group, The Old Kilfarboy Society, will be showing the film
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 2017 Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 02:23 PM

Although I seem to have missed a few things recently, I may be able to come in for that, if I remember.

FWIW, google had put up the film at their site around a decade ago. I couldn't find it again when I briefly tried just now but a decade ago I downloaded it.

Josie Sheáin Jeaic sang at the Willie week in 2015, I took this snap

Subject: RE: 2017 Obit: Josie Sheáin Jeaic Mac Donncha
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Sep 17 - 03:08 PM

Nice photo Peter
We had a very strange experience with Josie years ago
He and his Sean Nós singer neignbour, Johnny used to visit Miltown every February as guests of Roisín White, for a weekend of singing.
We had been given a copy of the film by the producer, Phillip Donnelan, and Tom Munnelly suggested we show it at one of the bars with a roll-down screen
We agreed, and turned up at the bar - no sign of Josie or Johnny
After a while we agreed we should start.
The film reached the part where Josie was on the screen bidding goodbye to his (real-life) parents
At this moment Josie walked through the door, stared up at the image of his long-dead parents and nearly collapsed.
He hadn't seen the film since it had been made thirty-odd years before.
At his request, we made him a copy of it and sent it on to hi
Jim Carroll