Recently-published book was inspired by famous Tipperary musician

Edited by Helen Phelan, Marie McCarthy and Nicholas Carolan, ‘Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin: A Life in Music’ is a collection of essays, reflections and poems inspired by the musical life of the Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.

Published by Cork University Press, with contributions from musicians, dancers, artists, academics, students, poets and media personalities, the book explores the multi-faceted life of one of Ireland’s best-known musicians, who was originally from Clonmel.

Ranging in style from the scholarly to the personal, the anecdotal and the poetic, this richly illustrated volume brings together the voices of those who knew Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin best.

It captures his wide-ranging influence as a performer, composer, educator and cultural personality.

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The publication was launched at the Irish World Academy, University of Limerick by Dr Iarla Ó Lionáird, the sean-nós singer, best known as part of renowned bands including the Irish-American supergroup The Gloaming, and The Afro Celt Sound System.

He was also a regular musical collaborator of Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin’s and is one of the essayists featured in this new publication, along with poets Paul Muldoon, Moya Cannon and Paula Meehan, novelist Joseph O’Connor and musicians including Martin Hayes, Lillis Ó Laoire and Paddy Glackin.

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who died in 2018 at the age of 67, was a pianist, composer, recording artist and academic. He held the Professorship of Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, which he founded at the University of Limerick in 1994.

He was made a Freeman of Clonmel in 2016. He and his brother John grew up with their parents, the late Ambrose and Ellen, at the family corner shop in Mitchel Street, Clonmel. Ellen was tragically killed in a gas explosion in their home in 1976.

John later established a successful insurance business, which is still operating, on the same site.

From his ground-breaking developments as a composer with a unique Irish piano style fusing classical, jazz and Irish traditional elements, to his founding of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin’s output is regarded as having changed the course of Irish music and music education.

He was heavily influenced by the pioneering work of Seán Ó Riada and Aloys Fleischman.