Niall Keegan

Niall Keegan was born in the south east of England and began playing Irish traditional flute at an early age amongst the community of first and second generation musicians in and around St. Albans branch of CCE and the wider London community.  He broke his musical teeth playing with the St. Colmcilles Ceili Band who won the senior All-Ireland title in 1988 and 1991.

In 1990 Niall began studying under Dr Mícheál Ó Súileabháin for a Masters degree which he completed in 1992 with the submission of a thesis entitled The Words of Traditional Flute Style. Niall completed his PhD, The Art of Juncture: Transformations of Irish traditional Music in 2012. He was the founding course director of the Traditional Irish Music Performance Masters as well as the BA in Irish Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick and still teaches on those and the ethnomusicology program there. He has given occasional lectures and taught instrumental classes at the Music Dept. of University College, Cork and University College, Galway, Sibelius Academy, Dublin Institute of Technology, Newcastle University, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and the University of Addis Abeba among many others.  Niall is currently the course director of the BA Arts at the Faculty of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences.

Since moving to Ireland Niall has performed extensively throughout the country and abroad in a variety of contexts and venues, including the Royal Albert Hall, Barbican, Project Arts Centre in Dublin, the University of Limerick Concert Hall, The National Concert Hall in Dublin, The Waterfront Hall in Belfast and the Galway Arts Centre. In 1992 he was invited to record at the Traditional Music Archive in Dublin with the bodhran player / percussionist Mel Mercier. Niall has performed Mícheál Ó Súileabháin’s concerto for flute and chamber orchestra, Oilean on several occasions in Ireland and Britain and as part of the jazz/trad fusion group Hiberno Jazz. He is featured on both the recording of the 1994 Eigse na Laoi, Across the Water and the television series A River of Sound made by Hummingbird Productions. Niall also features on the Realworld CD The Gathering (1997) and the RTE CD Ceol agus foinn : Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy (2015). Niall’s solo recording, Don’t Touch the Elk, was released in June 1999 on his own independent label and subsequently is really hard to get (he denies all knowledge of it).

Niall performed as part of the Eurovision interval piece Lumen and features on the commercial recording of that piece. Niall usually performs with Sandra Joyce, an innovative bodhran player and vocalist, and guitar players such as Chris Kelly, Conal O’Kane and Clive Carroll. Other performances have included a six week tour in Britain and northern Ireland with a South Indian Katakali dance drama group, a two week tour of India, appearances at several European festivals and the North Texas Flute festival in Dallas, the second largest flute festival of its kind in the world.

He has been on the committee of the Folk Music Society of Ireland and director of the University of Limerick based projects Nomad (aimed at honouring the music cultures of the traveling peoples at the University).  Niall was formerly co-director of the Sionna Festival of European Traditional Music, and the Blas International Summer School of Traditional Irish Music and Dance, a university accredited programme. He has been guest director of the Adult Folkworks sumerschool in Durham, England. He is the author of articles concerning issues of language, style, gender and literacy in traditional Irish music and was founding editor of the online journal for Irish music and dance, Inbhear.

SELECT RECENT RESEARCH OUTPUTS (ARTS PRACTICE)

(2024) Performer and Curator, Irish World Academy Lunchtime Concert Series, with Conal O’Kane, Alec Brown and Sandra Joyce.

(2024) MórGlór award concert for Siobhán Peoples, Glór Theatre, Ennis, December 2023.  Flute and ensemble performance.

(2022)  Milwaukee IrishFest.  Flute workshops and performance.  This is the largest festival of Irish music in the world

(2021)  Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, ‘Carry the Tunes’ Livestream Series, November 2021, curator and performer, with John Carty (fiddle) Alan Reid (bouzouki), Sandra Joyce (song/bodhran)

(2021) Flunked, new recording featuring traditional flutes and piano.  Own label.  Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

(2021) Director and Curator, North Atlantic Fiddle Convention, hosted online from UL, June 23-26.  I provided artistic and academic direction in planning and delivering a complex series of performances, conference, workshops and talks.

(2019) Performer and arranger, opening event of the NAFSA Conference, Walter E Washington Convention Centre, Washington DC, May 28th.  I curated this performance event featuring musicians and dancers, which was attended by approximately 10,000 people, with speeches by former Minister for Education and Skills, Joe McHugh TD, as well as former US Secretaries of State, Madeline Albright and Colin Powell.  This was organised and funded by UL Global and Enterprise Ireland/Education in Ireland.

(2018) Sunday Miscellany, Irish World Academy House Band, performer and arranger, broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1, (May 13 and June 10).

(2016) Oileán/Island (composed by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin), soloist with National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, performances in University Concert Hall, Limerick, July 22nd; National Opera House, Wexford, July 23rd; National Concert Hall, Dublin, July 24th.  Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and the Department of Education and Skills. 

SELECT RECENT RESEARCH OUTPUTS (ACADEMIC) 

(2024) The Dance Music of Eamon Flynn, Ed. Niall Keegan and Avril McLoughlin, Garraun Press, Limerick.

(2024) "Conferring the Céilí: Irish traditional music programmes at the Irish World Academy” in Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin: A Life in Music, Cork University Press.

(2024) ”Balls!” Gender, Language and Aesthetic in the Worlds of Irish Harping.” in Irish Harp Studies 2, Sandra Joyce & Helen Lawlor,  Irish Academic Press, pp. 126-141.

 (2007-16) Assorted reviews and articles for The Journal of Music.

(2024) Assorted Entries for The Companion of Irish Traditional Irish Music, Cork University Press.

 Currently completing two books, one on the music of influential musician Brendan Mulkere, one on the barn dance in the Irish tradition.

PhD SUPERVISION

I have supervised 7 PhDs to completion, and currently supervise 4 PhDs.

GRANTS AND SUCCESSFUL FUNDING APPLICATIONS

 2021: Creative Ireland funding for the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention

€20,000

2020: Arts Council of Ireland funding for book on Brendan Mulkere

€6,000

2018: Arts Council of Ireland funding for Flunked album

€6,000

Development of proposal and management of the delivery for  €500,000 North Atlantic Philanthropies technical gift for the Irish World Academy 

Erasmus + funding for various student and staff exchanges with: Birzeit University, Ramallah; University of Addis Ababa; University of the Cape Coast, Ghana (2016 to present).

 INVITED TALKS

(2016) ‘Memory Spaces and Horizons of Artistry in Irish Traditional Music’, Presented to the Performance, Practice and Interactivity Research Cluster, Maynooth University Department of Music, April 16^th.

 RECENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

 “‘The Ballroom Favourite’ – John McKenna and the Invention of the Irish Flute” Early Recordings: the Impacts of a Transformative Technology, Cardiff University, 2021.

 “Balls!” Gender, Language and Aesthetic in the Worlds of Irish Harping‘  ICTM World Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, 2018.

Memory Spaces and Horizons of Artistry in Irish Traditional Music’, Presented to the Performance, Practice and Interactivity Research Cluster, Maynooth University Department of Music, April 2016.

Will I Need A Degree For This Session? The Negotiation Of Aesthetic, Institution And Tradition Within Traditional Music Programmes At The Irish World Academy, ICTM World Conference, Kazakhstan, 2015.

 RECENT INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENTS

 PERFORMANCE

 (2021) Erasmus+ 2021 – 2027 launch by the HEA/Leargas, performance with partner institutions in Ghana (UCC) and Ethiopia (Addis Ababa University). 

(2021) Virtual St Patrick’s Day Fling, in partnership with UL Global, University Concert Hall and Limerick Culture and Arts Office, Limerick City and County Council. This event generated 186,000 new impressions on Academy social media with over 23,000 views online. This resulted 2,536 new visitor sessions on the Academy website for Academy Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes, the majority being from Ireland and North America. In other territories there have been 8,458,232 impressions including India, Africa, and South East Asia.  The event was also featured in many newspapers in the US, including the New York based Irish Voice (March 10, 2021).  This event was used to promote UL generally.

(2019) Consulate of Ireland, Shanghai and Irish Embassy, Beijing, March – curator and performer at several events featuring staff and students at the Academy by invitation of the Irish Embassy, Beijing.  I met with the Irish Ambassador, Eoin O’Leary, as well as representatives from Education in Ireland, about developing further opportunities for UL in China.

(2018) Holland College, Prince Edward Island, Canada, October - curator and performer of concert featuring UL staff and alumni, and students from various institutions on PEI, with UL Global

(2019) Irish Arts Centre, New York, January - curator and performer of concert featuring UL staff and alumni, with UL Global

(2017) University Concert Hall, Limerick, July - performance for Sionna Concert for International Council for Traditional Music Conference