Just came across this online - and couldn't resist posting it here:

Source: http://www.belfastfolk.co.uk/reflections/index18.asp?p=1&rf=11

Tom Munnelly

A few friends of mine have died recently and, while each loss leaves an ache, one of them was an extra-special individual - Tom Munnelly, a friend of 40 years. Tom just loved - and I cannot stress that verb strongly enough - he LOVED Irish traditional music and song. So much so that he devoted most of his life into its collection, collation and, most important of all, its preservation. No boreen was too small, no hill too high - if Tom thought that there was a song to be heard (or pint to be drunk or crack to be had!) at its bottom or top, he was there with his battered recorder. The amount he collected, from some of the most unlikely sources imaginable, was both phenomenal and prodigious. According to Fintan Vallelly's mighty tome A Companion to Irish Traditional Music, Cork University Press, 1999, Tom was responsible for around 18,000 catalogued entries in (mainly) folk song but also in poetry and folklore, including some 1500 recorded tapes from 1971 onwards which is now considered to be the single largest and most comprehensive collection by any one individual in the history of the genre.

I have copied below an obit from The Guardian listing his achievements and while it is factually correct and sincere, it slightly misses out on the humanity of the lad himself. Yes, he was fastidious in his research; yes, he was precise in the way he honed his eye and ear for the nuances of the performed music. But Tom was fundamentally one of the most entertaining individuals you could ever come across in a country full of blarney-kissers. While the piece below lists his academic (or not!) achievements, Tom himself hated the pomposity of the platform where some scholars of late have tried to elevate and diagnose to death the simple music of the peasant. For him, music/song was about crack and crack was 'life' and 'death' and everything in between. Warts and all, no prisoners taken. And, from this base, he gloried, as we all did, in his put-downs of the more anally retentive of the folk 'academics' as described above. An observation Tom made a few years ago is a case in point. There is this extremely opinionated, but gifted, accordion player whom everyone knows and both respects for his music and despises for his arrogance, with the latter taking precedence. He was rumoured to have a tumour but thankfully it proved not to be life-threatening. Tom's comment, when asked about the aforementioned's state of health, was, 'Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the tumour's not malignant, the bad news is that the rest of the f***ker is'.

Brenda and I called to see Tom and Annette towards the end of the Willy Clancy week in mid July when he was quite ill but still seeing visitors. Typically, he was in the best of form while my good lady and I were somewhat restrained due to the seriousness of his condition. Nonetheless he kept us entertained for the while we were there until the next bunch of callers, of which there were hundreds. I can't even imagine where he got his energy from to welcome the myriads of well-wishers who called to see him. His courage, in the face of death, was awesome. The funeral which was, several months previously, preceded by a live 'wake' during which Tom himself officiated at his own impending interment, remarking at one point in the proceedings that 'the only thing missing was the 'box' in the corner'(!!), was sensitive, beautiful and the most brilliant crack - just as he would have wished. He will be sorely missed. Hugs and handshakes to Annette, his wife, to his sons, Colm and Tara, and to Eadhaoin his daughter.

Anyway, the Guardian's piece is worth reading if even to get a clue as to the depth and breadth of Tom's achievements. Perhaps Finbar Boyle, one of BelfastFolk's contributors, who worked on the collating end of Tom's fieldwork for many years, would be kind enough to give us a few words on his knowledge of, and his collaboration with, Tom in their seminal work in the Irish Folklore Commission.

Gerry McCartney

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Regards