Pat Ahern is an Irish Roman Catholic priest, traditional musician, composer, and the founder, artistic director and producer (1974–1997) of Siamsa Tíre, the Irish National Folk Theatre which performed throughout Ireland and on three continents.
Life He was born in 1932 in Leitrim Middle, Moyvane (formerly Newtownsandes), north Kerry into a family immersed in Irish traditional music. His mother played traditional fiddle, as did his cousin Barney Enright of Moyvane. Pat's brother Seán is a singer and plays the uilleann pipes. Pat learnt the fiddle from his mother, and Irish step-dancing from the famous Kerry dance master Jeremiah Molyneaux.Pat Ahern, Kerryman North Edition, 19 09 2007, "Where did it start?" p. 115. See also Daithí Kearney, Ahern entry, Vallely, Fintan (ed.) Companion to Irish Traditional Music, Cork University Press 2011, p. 9. Pat attended primary school in Moyvane (1938–1944), subsequently enrolling at St Michael's College, Listowel (1944–1948). He studied for the Catholic priesthood at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth National Seminary (1950–1957); while there he studied piano and organ under Charles O'Callaghan. He was ordained in 1957, and that year appointed curate in St. John's Parish Tralee, County Kerry, with special responsibility for liturgical music. There he founded St. John's Gregorian Choir.Pat Ahern, Forging the Dance: Eachtraí mo Shaoil. Exploring the concept of Folk Theatre and the birth of Siamsa Tíre, O'Riain Publishing, Kilkenny, Ireland, 2022, pp. 16-18.
In 1959 he studied for the B.Mus. degree at University College, Cork under Aloys Fleischmann, with Tilly Fleischmann as his piano teacher. He graduated in 1962.John O’Keeffe, Ahern entry, Harry White and Barra Boydell (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, UCD Press, Vol. 1, pp. 8-9. In 1967 he was sent to the Catholic Communications Centre, Booterstown, Dublin, to study Radio and Television production and to set up and direct a Radio Production and Training Unit for clergy and religious. He produced a weekly religious radio programme for RTÉ radio, entitled ‘Network’. Recalled to Kerry in 1973, he was released from parish work by his bishop to devote himself to his work on folk theatre. In 1965 he had founded the group Siamsóirí na Ríochta [Entertainers of the Kingdom] out of which in 1972 developed Siamsa Tíre [Entertainment of the Land], the Folk Theatre of Ireland. Ahern was artistic director until he retired in 1997. He brought the company all over Ireland and travelled the world with it, enchanting audiences wherever they went.See Desmond Rushe, Ireland of the Welcomes, Vol. 28, No. 5, Sep/Oct 1979, pp. 32–34 He retired in 1997, but continues to organise concerts and stage productions.See Simon Brouder, "Celebration Time for Siamsa Tíre", Kerryman North Edition, 30 04 2014, p. 20
Pageants In 1958, a year after taking up his duties as curate in the parish of Tralee, Pat Ahern devised and produced a pageant based on the story of Lourdes entitled Massabielle, involving the parish choir, parish societies and theatre groups, in a celebration to mark the centenary of the Lourdes apparitions. It was presented in the Catholic Young Men's Hall, Tralee. In 1959 he produced a second parish pageant: Bethlehem, the story of Christmas. Then 1963 saw the production of a third parish pageant: Golgotha, the story of the Passion of Christ, involving a cast of 120, in the style of the celebrated Passion Play at Oberammergau in Bavaria. In 1964 Massabielle was reproduced in Tralee.
Later pageants: 1988 – Massabielle presented in Knocknagoshel by the people of Knocknagoshel parish 1996 – dance performance in Killarney Cathedral during the ordination of Dr William Murphy as new bishop of Kerry commemorating the monastic tradition of the diocese 1999 – Dance of Life, the story of salvation, to celebrate the new millennium in the diocese of Kerry; cast of 200, choir of 800 recruited from all the parishes of the diocese Music score by Aidan O’Carroll, 12,000 attended 2002 – Críost Liom, a stage presentation of the life of Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice, to mark the bicentenary of the founding of the Christian Brothers and Presentation Brothers, at the RDS Concert Hall in Dublin 2005 – Song of the Living Stones, the story of Christianity in Kerry, presented in Killarney Cathedral to commemorate the 150th anniversary of its consecration 2008 – 15–25 Nov Massabielle in Tralee to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Lourdes.
Folk Theatre by Siamsóirí na Ríochta [The Entertainers of the Kingdom] of Kerry In 1964 Ahern initiated a series of experiments in the promotion of traditional Irish folk culture with a small group of musicians, singers and dancers, drawn from the cast of Golgotha, and using the medium of the theatre as a focus for the experiments. In 1965 the Irish television producer, Liam Ó Murchú of RTÉ, commissioned four 30-minute TV programmes by the group for the Irish Music TV series Aililiú. Thenceforward the group was known as "Siamsóirí na Ríochta" – The Entertainers of the Kingdom (of Kerry).
In 1968 the first Folk Theatre production was presented by the group in Tralee, twice weekly through July and August. They called the new show, SIAMSA, Irish for "a coming together for merrymaking".Pat Ahern, Kerryman North Edition, 19 09 2007, "Where did it start?" p. 115. In January and May 1969 SIAMSA was presented at the Dublin Peacock Theatre and at the Abbey Theatre, in 1970 in the Abbey Theatre and the same year in the Cork School of Music, at the invitation of the Joan Denise Moriarty's Cork Ballet Company, and then on Saint Patrick's Day 1971 at the Cork Opera House.The Cork Examiner, 4 Oct 1970, 18 March 1971. At Christmas 1971 the Siamsa Tíre company presented a special Christmas show on RTÉ television: Coinnle na Nollag.
In 1972, at the request of Éamonn Casey, Bishop of Kerry, and Brendan O'Regan, Chairman of Bórd Fáilte, the Irish Tourist Board, a ten-year plan was drawn up by Ahern for the development of the Tralee folk theatre, now known nationally as Siamsa Tíre. The first appearance of the newly constituted group took place in Galway, at the Taibhdhearc theatre, in April 1972.Sharon Phelan: Dance in Ireland – Steps, Stages and Stories, Cambridge Scholars Press 2014, Ch. 7, pp.153–4. The following year Bishop Casey recalled Ahern from Dublin to Kerry, and released him from diocesan commitments to work full-time on the new folk theatre project in Tralee.Daithí Kearney, "Pat Ahern of North Kerry, Conference Review: The First International Conference on Irish Music and Musicians", Musicology Review 6, 2010, p. 259.
1974 Siamsa Tíre, The National Folk Theatre of Ireland In 1974 Siamsa Tíre was incorporated as a company, funded by Bord Fáilte, the Irish Tourist Board, and by Roinn na Gaeltachta (the government department for Irish-speaking districts); Pat Ahern was artistic director and Martin Whelan the manager until his death in 2002. Ahern's aim: "To provide through the medium of the theatre an attractive means of accessing our rich cultural heritage. … The Irish language enshrines a vast reservoir of story, poetry and song that is unique among the cultures of the world. Irish scholars, collectors and musicians have left a veritable library of Irish songs and dance tunes, many of which have never been sung or played to the living generations." Siamsa Tíre was to seek ways "of bringing these lost treasures to the ears of future audiences, in new and evocative settings, thus making them familiar again and musically interesting to the contemporary ear."Pat Ahern, cited in Dónal Nolan, "40th Anniversary of Siamsa Tíre National Folk Theatre", Kerryman North Edition, 14 05 2014, p. 17.
The establishment of rural training centres was a key concept of Siamsa Tíre's Founding Document of 1972. The rural centre, Tithe Siamsa (Siamsa houses), was to serve as a meeting-place for the people of the district, to provide experience of and training in music, dance and story-telling, and a filter-point where the native talents and folk wealth of the district would be assembled and researched. The first house, "Teach Siamsa", opened in 1974 at Finuge, north Kerry; it focused on the north Kerry dance tradition. The second opened the following year at Carraig in the west Kerry Gaeltacht, with a focus on the Irish language tradition.See Sharon Phelan: Dance in Ireland – Steps, Stages and Stories, Cambridge Scholars Press 2014, Ch. 7, p. 144.
In 1978 Siamsa Tíre moved into the refurbished Theatre Royal Cinema in Tralee. From 1982 Ahern began collaborations with artists from other folk traditions, among others with Argentinian, Bulgarian and Spanish dancers. Up to 1985 the members of the company had all been amateurs, employed on a part-time basis; now a core group of four professionals was established. An educational programme for school visits was devised. In 1991 the company moved into a specially built theatre in Tralee. It opened with a new production, Ding Dong Dedero – Forging the Dance, which explored the process of acquiring one's tradition through the story of young Jerry Molyneaux, son of a north Kerry blacksmith, who became the most influential dance master in Munster, and whose dance has been preserved as a key ingredient of the Siamsa Tíre idiom of folk theatre.Pat Ahern, interview of 2013 with Sharon Phelan, cited in Dance in Ireland – Steps, Stages and Stories, Cambridge Scholars Press 2014, Ch. 7, p. 150.
The significance of Siamsa Tíre was summed up by the writer Frank Delaney in 1976 just before the company's first tour to the United States: Somewhere in there when the dance is high and the music lively there's an echo of all times past, remembered and forgotten. Times that are getting more remote in a world that's intent on bringing news of the future at great speed to people of the present. But there's a need for the past, a need for roots. The search for truth, that great intellectual excursion, often gains its momentum in the search for identity. In a time when identity cards are plastic and processed, Siamsa is a banner of cloth, of an old weave, from a timeless loom. And at the same time it's a very enjoyable evening's theatre.Frank Delaney, "Siamsa Tíre", Cara Magazine, Aer Lingus Dublin, Oct/Dec 1976.
Radio and TV broadcasts 1965 four 30-min. programmes in the RTÉ TV series, Aililiú 1966 RTÉ TV Christmas show, Coinnle na Nollag 1971 Bavarian Radio from the Weilheim studio. 1974 Radharc TV: Bímis ag Rince (Let us dance) 1977 RTÉ TV 1978 05 25: BBC documentary 1981 Four 30-min. radio programmes recorded for Scoraíocht 1984 March 17 RTÉ Radio, Ahern's Aifreann Phádraig Naofa, premiere Dublin Pro Cathedral 1986 Oct. 11 Australian Morning TV 1986 Oct 17, Australian Channel 9 TV 1986 12 26 St. Stephen's Day Programme on RTÉ TV 1988 2 TV RTÉ shows: 24–27 May 1989 St. Patrick's Night special – Ireland in Concert, BBC and RTÉ co-production 1989 03 26 Songs of Leaving produced by Dublin theatre director, Michael Scott with Siamsa Tíre, RTÉ TV 1989 04 11 Siamsa Tíre on the RTÉ "BiBi" Show 1991 Siamsa Tíre on the RTÉ "BiBi" Show 1991 Dec and Jan 1992: Christmas Crackers RTÉ TV show 1992 12 30 RTÉ TV: An Ireland in Seville 1994 RTÉ Christmas Show 28–30 Dec.; 2–4 Jan 1995 1995 Company sings Mass live on RTÉ on St. Patrick's Day 1995 RTÉ Christmas Show TV 1996 RTÉ Christmas Show TV 2000 RTÉ TV Dance of LifeSee Pat Ahern, "Cork International Choral Festival", Cork International Choral Festival 1954–2004 – A Celebration, ed. Ruth Fleischmann, Cork 2004, pp. 185–8.
Irish performances outside Kerry (a selection) 1965, 1966, 1974, 1982, 1987, 1992–1994, 2010 Cork International Choral Festival 1970 Fleadh Nua [The New Festival], Croke Park, Dublin 1970, 1981, 1983 Cork Opera House 1977 Jan 1-3 Abbey Theatre, Dublin 1977 Limerick Civic Week 1979 Siamsa Tíre sing at Limerick Mass for Pope John Paul II visit