Belfast Fiddler Leo Ginley

Welcome Sheila Barfoot

2012-01-21T13:29:00.000+11:00

Here is correspondence from Sheila Barfoot, Grandaughter of Billy Barfoot, musician, and lifelong friend of my father, even through the darkest, most evil times. This lovely note from Shiela is included here with her permission. Quotation begins:

Dear Leo

I am sorry I have been so long in replying to you. I have not been reading my emails as I have had a dose of flu for the last 10 days. Firstly thank you so much for replying and giving me the link to your website. It has sparked so many memeories and emotions that this reply may not be very coherent. There are so many things I just want to spill out. You are uncannily like your dear Dad and I am delighted to learn that you play the guitar and have a love of music too.

I am 64, a retired civil servant and the second child of Lily Hanna and Billy Barfoot(there are 9 of us 5 girls and 4 boys). My mother was the eldest child of Nellie Ginley and James Hanna and she married my father in 1944. My father was the eldest son of the William Barfoot who appears in the band photograph on your site. My grandfather William Barfoot who was a Prebyterian had a great love of traditional Irish music and met John, Leo and Tom at the Ard Scoil in Divis Street. He brought my father and his brother Robert( Bertie) to sessions in Quadrant Street and it was there my mother and father met.

As a child I spent a lot of time in my Granny Hanna's in Irwin Street and she would bring us to John and Rosie's where I first heard your Dad play. We grew up in the sure and certain knowledge that he was a genius, according to my Granny and confirmed by my mother and father. He and my father were avid readers and had an encyclopedic knowledge of many subjects and of course there was the chess. I have no clear memory of you although I must have seeen you at some stage but I do remember Susan and Virginia.

I think Susan did very well in nursing and may have gone to America.

I was interested in Irish music and the language and went to an Irish speaking club, Cumann Cluain Ard in Hawthorne Street( off Cavendish Street) up until the late 60's when "the Troubles" intervened. Your Dad and Tom played there in a band, the Seamus Whyte Ceilidh Band every Sunday night and we used to have great times. Leo would play solos, Meditation, Air on a G String, Czardas and many more to great acclaim. I am very grateful for the gift he passed on to us, a love of great music which has been a comfort to me all my life. I don't play an instrument myself but it's great that you have the gift as well and as far as I know Tom's daughter also plays the flute so the great Ginley tradition goes on.

I suppose it is a sign of ageing but I realised recently that I didn't know all that much about my parents' families which is why I was looking on the net for information about the Ginleys and luckily met you. I am not as proficient on the computer as you but I will get my nephew to show me how to scan photographs and will send any I think may be of interest.

I hope this ramble doesn't put you off keeping in touch!

Best wishes to you and your lovely family from a proud distant relation.

Sheila

End quotation.

Manuscripts from Josephine McCreesh

2011-07-29T15:27:00.000+10:00

Some manuscripts of Leo Ginley's (my father) sent to me by Josephine McCreesh.Thank you Josephine. Knowlegeable traditional Irish music lovers will note at the bottom of one of the tunes titled "The Golden Vale hornpipe ", my father's note to the celebrated Sean Maguire. The exchange between them was in 1959!

When sending me these treasures, Josephine Wrote:

Leo, I am attaching some of the pieces of music manuscript with tunes written down by your father.

They are not his compositions but rather tunes he would have taken down from the playing of Jack Maguire,
Sean's father. I also got tunes from Jack and some of these may be in the collection of tunes that I published a few years ago. I should have a few more for you and some of the originals I can send and others
not, because of other material on the reverse side.

So far other information is scanty but I am waiting for some replies, and I am also sending a photo of Tom
supplied by Sean O'Driscoll who played piano once upon a time with the Maguire Ceilidhe Band but didn't
know your father.
I will keep probing and see what turns up.

All the best
Josephine

The humours of Ballydehob

2010-11-21T12:28:00.000+11:00

The humours of Ballydehob

The Wonder Hornpipe

2010-11-21T12:22:00.000+11:00

The Wonder Hornpipe

The Wonder Hornpipe

The Star Hornpipe

2010-11-21T12:19:00.000+11:00

Some more of Leo Ginley's Handwritten manuscripts digitised

2010-03-25T14:08:00.000+11:00

This one is called "Within a mile of Dublin"

Irish traditional tunes were given imaginative, humorous, and sometimes cryptic names!

2010-03-23T20:15:00.000+11:00

This is "Gillian's Apples."

2009-07-04T21:25:00.000+10:00

OK, Here's what happened... Michael Costello has reprimanded me for not keeping this up to date. The group photo of the band lineup (elsewhere on this blog) is the subject of discussion and Michael's reprimand directed to me. This is his email to me:

Hello ,Young Leo!,
Great to hear from you again.I have looked at the Scan of the photo and Tom Ginley,your cousin also looked at it and supplied identification..The other three men are Tom Ginley`s father,(holding the flute),the piper is John McAleer, and the man behind him between the 2 Ginleys is called William Barfoot.He`s the man who sold Leo a fiddle ,which Leo sold to me.I still have it.So thats one mystery cleared up! I`m glad you are gathering together all the info you can about Leo.Keep in touch ,Michael Costello

Now, I hope that sorts it out.. Thanks Michael!

2009-06-21T11:42:00.000+10:00

... and just so you know what I look like... here's a picture of me!

In the Shadow of the Gunmen | TIME

2007-03-30T10:32:00.000+10:00

In the Shadow of the Gunmen TIME

I found this article in Time Magazine's Archives, and thought ; When someone asks "What is it all about in Ireland?" that this is the best synopsis of a thousand years of Irish history I could offer them. I think it's pretty well balanced, and have reached that conclusion by realising that hard liners from both sides of the issue would probably feel hard-done-by.

Leo

More pictures

2006-12-28T22:09:00.000+11:00

Group:
Leo in a band lineup (extreme right in picture).

If anyone can recognise anyone else in the picture, please leave me a comment?

Two-shot:
Leo with his sister Mary.

Leo Ginley, Belfast Fiddler

2006-01-11T12:18:00.000+11:00

A couple of pictures of my father, Leo Ginley. The first one was taken a few years before he died. The second one may have been taken before I was born!