Neansaí Ní Choisdealbha - Flute / Whistle player

Artists Profile

I am originally from Cor na Rón in
Indreabhán. This small locality has always been renowned for music, and there were many accordion players around when I was a
small child. I was first encouraged to play music at home by my father Michael Mheáirt and my mother Bairbre Joe Staff Seoighe,
originally from Cnoc, Lettermullen.
I started playing a note or two on the accordion at home, but when I started at primary school Máire Bean Uí Mhainnín, a woman who had a great interest in music,
encouraged me to play the whistle – there was no more talk of the accordion from then on – and it would be true to say that they
weren’t too happy at home at the time!
I used to play a few tunes with my father – he had a habit of taking out the accordion after a day’s work and playing a few tunes,
sometimes taking them from the collection of books that he had – O’Neill’s Music of Ireland
and Breandán Breathnach’s Ceol Rince na hÉireann. I learned quite a lot from listening to him, and after he bought a ‘reel-to-reel’ taperecorder from Raftery’s in Galway, I was given the task of recording the music from
programmes like Céilí House and Mo Cheol Thú. Little did I know at that time that I would
make a living doing the same thing with RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta years later!
In my teens It was Meaití Jó Shéamuis who first invited me to go to a session when I was about twelve years old, and I was inspired that night because I heard two young musicians, Patsy and Liam Lewis, playing the sweetest music I ever heard, and that was the moment when I realised that this music wasn’t only for
the ‘old lads’!
I spent many a night at home listening and playing along to the music on the reel-to-reels tapes recorded from the radio - such as Seán Maguire, Joe Burke, Raymond Roland, Paddy
O’Brien, Séamus Connolly, Andy McGann, Tommy Peoples, Mary Bergin, Deirdre Collis and indeed the flute players who were in vogue at the time, Séamus Tansey, Matt
Molloy, Roger Sherlock, P. J. Crotty, Paddy Taylor, Paddy Carty, Marcus Hernon, Michael Hynes, Noel Sweeney to name but a few.
At the moment I am working as Eagraí Ceoil with RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta and present/produce 4 music programmes a week - Ceol Binn ó na Beanna, a two hour music programme broadcast on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday evening from 7-9pm and a live Sunday Morning Programme "Béal Maidine" from 8-10am.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFbjpSTNOqU