Handing Down the Tunes

Produced and directed by Ken Lynam (53 minutes)

This, the first UK screening of the documentary about the life and legacy of the West Clare musician Tommy McCarthy, will be followed by a session with members of the McCarthy family.

Beginning in Shyan, near Kilmichil, where Tommy was born in 1929, the film charts Tommy’s early years growing up in Co. Clare and then moves to London where he emigrated with wife Kathleen in the early 1950s. Contributors such as Reg Hall, Liam Farrell and Dessie O’Halloran describe the music scene in London during these years and Tommy himself speaks about the other musicians he played with. When all his children left London, with three of them settling in the West of Ireland, it was perhaps inevitable that Tommy and Kathleen would return also.

The documentary then looks at this part of Tommy’s life, his involvement with Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy, playing in sessions locally and his on-going involvement with his family, particularly his grandchildren. It concludes with Tommy’s last visit to the family home where he played music with his son Tom Jnr. Two days later he died while visiting Lourdes.

As a final coda, we see his children playing at the Return to Camden Town Festival in 2002.

We are delighted that Ken Lynam and members of Tommy’s family will be present for the screening.