Mary O’Driscoll: America, Blackrock, Customs, Festivals, Fleadh, Fitzgerald’s Park, Immigration, Miltown Malbay, Poverty, Traditional Irish Music, Willie Clancy,
Title
Mary O’Driscoll: America, Blackrock, Customs, Festivals, Fleadh, Fitzgerald’s Park, Immigration, Miltown Malbay, Poverty, Traditional Irish Music, Willie Clancy,
Subject
Life History; Cork
Description
Mary at the time of this recording was the Cork Folklore Project's manager,
She was born in Des Moines Iowa, in the United States and moved to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minnesota when she was 8 years old. She had one sister who died when she was 10 years old when Mary was 5. They lived in an old Irish farmstead built by the Faro family from Waterford, which was rural and isolated. Her father was a Lawyer. Mary met her Blarney born husband [Sean] in America.
She discusses the family being impoverished because of costly medical bills for her mother and sister. Although they didn’t have much money they had land and they grew their own vegetables and fruit.
They were an unconventional family. Her parents were liberal and she had a lot of independence and freedom and called her parents by their names rather than Mom and Dad. They spent a lot of time together going to American traditional music festivals.
She recalls Halloween as being her favourite festival when everyone went door to door trick or treating. On the 4th July they went to the park for a fireworks display and had a ‘regatta’ they had on their own ‘Loch Mac’ lake at their house.
She and her husband moved to Cork because of the Irish music scene and Ireland’s proximity to the rest of Europe. She talks about how creativity is much more accepted in Ireland as a valid way to live your life.
Mary describes her first visit to Cork and how she loved the people and their humour. She comments on the size of Cork and all the old beautiful buildings, laneways and parks.
Mary discusses her family’s interest in American traditional music, old time Appalachian and Bluegrass music and how it led to her interest in Irish music. She learned to play the fiddle and ran an Irish radio programme in the United States for 10 years.
She describes the standard of traditional music in Ireland being so much better than the United States; comments additionally on the affect of immigration from Ireland to the US on the music scene.
People plan their year around going to music festivals in Ireland such as Miltown Malbay, The Willie Clancy Week and the all Ireland Fleadh. Her favourite is the Murphy festival in Wexford.
Note; This interview was conducted as part of the Cork 2005 Project
She was born in Des Moines Iowa, in the United States and moved to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minnesota when she was 8 years old. She had one sister who died when she was 10 years old when Mary was 5. They lived in an old Irish farmstead built by the Faro family from Waterford, which was rural and isolated. Her father was a Lawyer. Mary met her Blarney born husband [Sean] in America.
She discusses the family being impoverished because of costly medical bills for her mother and sister. Although they didn’t have much money they had land and they grew their own vegetables and fruit.
They were an unconventional family. Her parents were liberal and she had a lot of independence and freedom and called her parents by their names rather than Mom and Dad. They spent a lot of time together going to American traditional music festivals.
She recalls Halloween as being her favourite festival when everyone went door to door trick or treating. On the 4th July they went to the park for a fireworks display and had a ‘regatta’ they had on their own ‘Loch Mac’ lake at their house.
She and her husband moved to Cork because of the Irish music scene and Ireland’s proximity to the rest of Europe. She talks about how creativity is much more accepted in Ireland as a valid way to live your life.
Mary describes her first visit to Cork and how she loved the people and their humour. She comments on the size of Cork and all the old beautiful buildings, laneways and parks.
Mary discusses her family’s interest in American traditional music, old time Appalachian and Bluegrass music and how it led to her interest in Irish music. She learned to play the fiddle and ran an Irish radio programme in the United States for 10 years.
She describes the standard of traditional music in Ireland being so much better than the United States; comments additionally on the affect of immigration from Ireland to the US on the music scene.
People plan their year around going to music festivals in Ireland such as Miltown Malbay, The Willie Clancy Week and the all Ireland Fleadh. Her favourite is the Murphy festival in Wexford.
Note; This interview was conducted as part of the Cork 2005 Project
Date
11 June 2004
Identifier
CFP_SR00330_odriscoll_2004
Coverage
Personal Life, both in Ireland and America.
Relation
Cork 2005 Collection Catalogue Numbers:
CFP_SR00329_mccarthy_2004;
CFP_SR00331_claffey_2004;
CFP_SR00332_hanover_2004;
CFP_SR00333_desplanques_2004;
CFP_SR00334_bale_2004;
CFP_SR00335_sheridan_1996;
CFP_SR00336_steiner-scott_2004;
CFP_SR00337_rot_2004;
CFP_SR00338_stafford_2004;
CFP_SR00339_odonoghue_2004;
CFP_SR00340_hawkins_2004;
CFP_SR00341_ocarroll_2004;
CFP_SR00342_ikebuasi_2004;
CFP_SR00343_ogeallabhain_2004;
CFP_SR00344_geaney_2004;
CFP_SR00345_wulff_2004;
CFP_SR00346_abdoulbaneeva_2004;
CFP_SR00347_gunes_2004;
CFP_SR00348_fourie_2004;
CFP_SR00349_henderson_2004;
CFP_SR00350_valdman_2004;
CFP_SR00351_carmody_2004;
CFP_SR00352_osullivan_2004;
CFP_SR00353_mahknanov_2004;
CFP_SR00354_oflynn_2004;
CFP_SR00355_akhter_2004;
CFP_SR00356_walker_2004;
CFP_SR00357_kelleher_2004;
CFP_SR00358_manresa_2004;
CFP_SR00359_wimpenny_2005;
CFP_SR00360_skotarczak_2005;
CFP_SR00361_vermeulen_2005;
CFP_SR00362_owen_2005;
CFP_SR00363_dsouza_2005;
CFP_SR00364_setter_2005;
CFP_SR00365_obrien_2005;
CFP_SR00366_botan_2005:
CFP_SR00329_mccarthy_2004;
CFP_SR00331_claffey_2004;
CFP_SR00332_hanover_2004;
CFP_SR00333_desplanques_2004;
CFP_SR00334_bale_2004;
CFP_SR00335_sheridan_1996;
CFP_SR00336_steiner-scott_2004;
CFP_SR00337_rot_2004;
CFP_SR00338_stafford_2004;
CFP_SR00339_odonoghue_2004;
CFP_SR00340_hawkins_2004;
CFP_SR00341_ocarroll_2004;
CFP_SR00342_ikebuasi_2004;
CFP_SR00343_ogeallabhain_2004;
CFP_SR00344_geaney_2004;
CFP_SR00345_wulff_2004;
CFP_SR00346_abdoulbaneeva_2004;
CFP_SR00347_gunes_2004;
CFP_SR00348_fourie_2004;
CFP_SR00349_henderson_2004;
CFP_SR00350_valdman_2004;
CFP_SR00351_carmody_2004;
CFP_SR00352_osullivan_2004;
CFP_SR00353_mahknanov_2004;
CFP_SR00354_oflynn_2004;
CFP_SR00355_akhter_2004;
CFP_SR00356_walker_2004;
CFP_SR00357_kelleher_2004;
CFP_SR00358_manresa_2004;
CFP_SR00359_wimpenny_2005;
CFP_SR00360_skotarczak_2005;
CFP_SR00361_vermeulen_2005;
CFP_SR00362_owen_2005;
CFP_SR00363_dsouza_2005;
CFP_SR00364_setter_2005;
CFP_SR00365_obrien_2005;
CFP_SR00366_botan_2005:
Published Material;
‘How’s it Goin’, Boy? radio series (six thirty-minute episodes, broadcast 2005 and available on the Cork Folklore Project website)
O'Carroll, Clíona for the Cork Northside Folklore Project (2006) How's it goin', boy? Dublin: Nonsuch Publishing.
Related Content in CFP Archive.
As Interviewer:
CFP00339_ODonoghue_2004; CFP00345Wulff_2004:
Source
Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive
Language
English
Type
Sound
Format
1 .wav File
Interviewee
Interviewer
Duration
24m 12s
Location
Farrinferris, Cork City, Ireland
Original Format
MiniDisc
Bit Rate/Frequency
16bit / 44.1kHz
Transcription
The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com
J.M: OK. Could you elaborate a little bit about your family please?
M.O'D: Well it’s a very small family compared to the average Irish family in that it was just basically from the time I was five just myself and my mother and father; em my mother and father wanted to have more kids, but my mother had had heart damage from having rheumatic fever as a child, so she wasn’t supposed to have anymore and they said she shouldn’t even adopt, so the three of us were very close, and fairly unusual kind of relationship – I didn’t call them mother and father – I called them by their names. And we did a lot of things together, and we were all interested in American traditional music, and went to a lot of music festivals together, and had a fairly unusual relationship, at least compared to my friends, it wasn’t the sort of parent and child kind of classic sort of separation, and my parents were very liberal and very open-minded and let me kind of pursue whatever I wanted, in an era when parents were not letting their children you know buy Mad magazine and Hollywood Movie Magazines - it was my little bit of money that I got every week and I could do whatever I wanted with it.
J.M: We’ll come back to the subject of traditional music later, but could you tell me what type of events did you celebrate as a family?
M.O'D: Well em we were not a religious family, but Christmas of course is always you know is a big thing, em I think my personal favourite holiday was Halloween, the chocolate as much as the dressing up, I’d say and that was an era when everybody went trick or treating, you literally went door to door, and you were meant to have a trick, you were meant to sing a song, or tell a joke or do something, em and that you know other than sort of personal you know people’s birthdays or anniversaries – my parents wedding anniversary or something like that – that was I don’t think, because we weren’t religious, there weren’t all those kind of things, and that was before I knew much about Ireland or anything to do with Irish culture, so Paddy’s Day did not figure, so.
J.M: OK. Could you elaborate a little bit about your family please?
M.O'D: Well it’s a very small family compared to the average Irish family in that it was just basically from the time I was five just myself and my mother and father; em my mother and father wanted to have more kids, but my mother had had heart damage from having rheumatic fever as a child, so she wasn’t supposed to have anymore and they said she shouldn’t even adopt, so the three of us were very close, and fairly unusual kind of relationship – I didn’t call them mother and father – I called them by their names. And we did a lot of things together, and we were all interested in American traditional music, and went to a lot of music festivals together, and had a fairly unusual relationship, at least compared to my friends, it wasn’t the sort of parent and child kind of classic sort of separation, and my parents were very liberal and very open-minded and let me kind of pursue whatever I wanted, in an era when parents were not letting their children you know buy Mad magazine and Hollywood Movie Magazines - it was my little bit of money that I got every week and I could do whatever I wanted with it.
J.M: We’ll come back to the subject of traditional music later, but could you tell me what type of events did you celebrate as a family?
M.O'D: Well em we were not a religious family, but Christmas of course is always you know is a big thing, em I think my personal favourite holiday was Halloween, the chocolate as much as the dressing up, I’d say and that was an era when everybody went trick or treating, you literally went door to door, and you were meant to have a trick, you were meant to sing a song, or tell a joke or do something, em and that you know other than sort of personal you know people’s birthdays or anniversaries – my parents wedding anniversary or something like that – that was I don’t think, because we weren’t religious, there weren’t all those kind of things, and that was before I knew much about Ireland or anything to do with Irish culture, so Paddy’s Day did not figure, so.
Interview Format
Audio
Collection
Citation
Cork Folklore Project, “Mary O’Driscoll: America, Blackrock, Customs, Festivals, Fleadh, Fitzgerald’s Park, Immigration, Miltown Malbay, Poverty, Traditional Irish Music, Willie Clancy,,” accessed April 20, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/18.