Search Results for 'Mickey Finn'

Prior to 1961, public performance of Irish traditional music in Galway took place primarily in the form of céilís in large dancehalls — namely in the Hangar, the Commercial and the Astaire. These were enormously popular — remember the hundreds of bicycles parked outside the Hangar on a Sunday night — but they began to go out of fashion in the sixties and were regarded as old fashioned and backward.

GALWEGIANS OF a certain age will remember. A trip to the Claddagh Palace cinema was not complete without seeing him. Flat cap, long hair, and guitar in hand, singing folk songs.

THIS SATURDAY marks the 30th anniversary of the death of the legendary Galway fiddle player and traditional Irish musician Mickey Finn. His passing will be marked in a weekend of memorial sessions at The Crane Bar, from Friday April 21 to Sunday 23, featuring Mickey’s widow, Lena Finn, as well as Sean Ryan, Jackie Small, and Mickey’s brother Johnny Finn.

The Cellar has existed as a bar since the seventies when pubs were mostly for drinking in, and it was a more Bohemian place entirely then, a hotbed of music with Irish artists such as Mickey Finn and Frankie Gavin regularly playing there. It has changed hands a few times since then, in recent years becoming well known also as a casual restaurant which closed down at the end of 2010. It was not destined to stay closed for long and reopened in its current reincarnation in April 2011.