latest Martin Reilly Lecture will take place on Tuesday 10 February, 6.30pm in Galway City Library

Seán Gilrane will present ‘the life, times and music of the legendary Leitrim flute player John McKenna (1880-1947)’ which stems from research conducted as part of the recent publication and recording ‘The Music and Life of John McKenna: The Buck from the Mountain’.
This release, published by the John McKenna Society in Leitrim, is the definitive work on McKenna and includes his complete corpus of 44 commercial recordings, as well as a substantial accompanying book containing an extensive biography, an analysis of his music style and legacy together with music transcriptions of his tunes. McKenna was one of the premier stars of the legendary golden age of Irish traditional music in New York in the 1920s and 30s, and left behind an unsurpassed legacy that is the first major corpus of recorded Irish flute music.

A native of Leitrim himself, and a flute player, Seán Gilrane has worked extensively with the John McKenna Society in researching the life and music of the maestro McKenna.