February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
It was an excellent turnout for the popular uilleann piper, who teaches flute and whistle at Tara Circle, the not-for-profit Irish cultural center in Yonkers where the benefit took place.
Inside large, downstairs rooms at Alder Manor, home of Tara Circle, performers delivered first-rate music with easygoing wit. The occasion was celebratory, not somber, and seemed well suited to the upbeat outlook and deep faith of O’Sullivan himself. Only his short bristle of hair, now growing back after rounds of chemotherapy, hinted at the medical ordeal he had gone through. He was there to greet people as they arrived and as they left.
Waterford-born Robbie O’Connell drove down from Massachusetts to sing such songs as “Early Riser” and “Home Away From Home” to the throng sitting and standing in one room.
Following O’Connell, Galway flutist Mike Rafferty, his button accordion-playing daughter Mary, Dan_ guitarist Donal Clancy (Mary’s husband), flutist Brian Holleran, and fiddler Willie Kelly played some beautifully paced medleys of dance tunes.
Button accordionist Billy McComiskey and bodhr