Famous Tipperary musician and academic the subject of RTÉ documentary

Childhood summers spent in Hillview Sports Club with his brother, famous musician Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, in the Clonmel of the 1960s have been recalled by John O’Sullivan.

“In those days, kids were tufted out of the house after breakfast and told not to come back until teatime,” says John.

“Mícheál and I spent a lot of time in Hillview with other kids from the town. Mícheál was very competent at pitch and putt and tennis and he represented Munster at Under 11 and Under 12 in both sports.”

John O’Sullivan was speaking ahead of Between Worlds, a new documentary on the late Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, which will be shown on RTÉ One television at 10.15pm next Tuesday, December 20.

Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who died on November 7, 2018 at the age of 67, and had he lived would have been 72 last Saturday, was a renowned 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. 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.

Their friends on the daily trips to Hillview Sports Club in the summer included Frank Burke from Summerhill Drive, Jimmy O’Neill from Jervis Place, Michael Slattery from Emmet Street and Pat Hahessy from Morton Street. Former TD Seamus Healy was another of Mícheál’s lifelong friends.

“As we got into our teenage years, we were both heavily involved in a lot of youth club activity, including social and community programmes,” says John.

The youth club was based at Our Lady’s Hall in Morton Street in a building that’s now the site of FHIST (Funded Housing in South Tipperary).

“Mícheál’s rock band, The Seacliffes, played at a lot of our teen dances there.

“We had a lot of friends around Mitchel Street too, including Michael Morrissey and Brendan and Tony O’Keeffe. Tony was Mícheál’s godfather.

“Tony (who has had a long association with Banna Chluain Meala) is a very talented musician and he took Mícheál under his wing. He was a hugely important figure in his life,” says John.

John is looking forward to next Tuesday night’s documentary, in which he is interviewed, and says that Mícheál’s sons, Owen and Mícheál, are very happy with it.

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.

Mícheál’s family and close friends were involved in the documentary.

His wife Helen provides a narrative thread throughout, giving a rare and emotive insight into his early life, his career and the background to their long professional and personal relationship.

His sons Owen and Mícheál build soundscapes for the documentary through the medium of his poetry and music.

Mícheál’s brother, John, recreates those childhood summers in Clonmel while Nóirín Ni Riain fondly recalls meeting the then Mick O’Sullivan in the early days in UCC.

It also features contributions from former students Mary Mitchell Ingoldsby and Mel Mercier and long-time musical collaborators Iarla Ó Lionáird, Neil Martin and David Brophy.