I’m from Walkinstown, a first-generation Dub. My parents were from the west of Ireland, Roscommon and Galway to be exact.
My mother played the fiddle, my father played the tape recorder. He hadn’t a note in his head. My mother taught him two tunes over his lifetime and he never progressed. He would go to the fleadhs and was very keen on music. He started a small music school at the back of the house. He walked into Waltons and ordered 15 accordions. He knocked on neighbours’ doors and got the parents interested in getting their kids started. He put in a wooden floor in the shed and started with a dance teacher. Monday to Friday, people used to traipse through our house, there were drums, dancing, fiddle, whistle and accordion in the shed. This is where I learned to play.
In those days, there wasn’t as much trad in the pubs because it wasn’t that popular, but there were always sessions in the houses. There were always parties in our house growing up.
I started off on the piano accordion and went on to playing the button accordion, which was more traditional. I loved it. I have a very good ear. My music reading capability wasn’t great, so I used to learn tunes as I heard them. Once I hear a melody a couple of times, I can play it. I was constantly just coming up with tunes I heard at sessions. I still can’t read very well; you get spoilt with a good ear.
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My first job in 1975 was at a local factory, a record pressing plant. In the recession in the 1980s, I worked in London in a music repair shop in Notting Hill. It was mostly stringed instruments, but you would get the odd accordion. Over there, all the schools had music on the curriculum. The local school would drop in 300 bows on a Monday morning and expect them back by Friday.
I played music at night in the Irish bars and clubs, but I always knew I was coming home. Everyone I met, they were always coming home too. They were there for years, going to their local Irish bar. I found that very sad.
I came back and got a job in Gael Linn Records and played music at night. Then in 1995 I bought a workshop and did all Waltons music shop repairs. After a few years, I moved this work to my house in Walkinstown. I started importing accordions from Italy and set up All about Accordions, which I still run today.
In 2008 my nephew, who is an All Ireland Fás woodworker, was laid off. We’d been talking over the years about making an instrument. We had a look and we said, no one in Ireland is making concertinas, that’s definitely the way to go. We set up the Irish Concertina Company. Before that time all concertinas played in Ireland were imported.
He is a fantastic woodworker. He loves his woods and experiments with different types – walnut, rosewood, maple. I’m responsible for all the fittings. We just went off and did our research. I managed to get a crafts guy in Wexford to make the bellows and gradually it came together. We are well established now and have made more than 1,000 concertinas.
What makes a good concertina? No matter who you ask, you will get a different opinion, but at the end of the day, it’s down to the reeds, as they produce the end sound. They are made from steel, and the plate, which gives the concertina its tone, is made from brass. The pressure on the buttons is important, as this in turn makes compression in the bellows, and for Irish music, it’s about speed and response, which brings you back to the reeds.
My customers find it hard to believe we actually make concertinas in the shop, so we have installed a viewing window at our shop in Crumlin where they can see the process. From the time a concertina is ordered, it takes eight to 12 weeks to make.
I have built up my business mostly on the back of Comhaltas, which runs classes all around the country. Parents will call in, having heard of us or met us at the Fleadhanna or the Willie Clancy week in Miltown Malbay.
During Covid, classes stopped and sales went down but exports went way up. I could barely keep up with the orders. Irish people are ordering again now because classes are open.
My customers are wide-ranging. This morning I had a father who brought in his nine-year-old looking for a concertina. Tomorrow it could be a retired gent who has only taken up the concertina recently. We sell to Canada, Australia, the United States and Germany quite a lot. Anywhere Irish music is played, there is demand.
I don’t think the Irish music scene has ever been in a more healthy state. It’s fantastic. Seeing one of my concertinas being played, I have to say that’s a buzz. I’d be sitting there hoping that it doesn’t break down, especially if I’m at a competition, but it has never happened.
I had John Spillane call into my shop a few weeks ago and he sat there singing his old favourites, playing the concertina. I felt privileged as I’ve been a big fan of his forever. My Eirú is the best instrument I have made. We have got there – top end – and we are competing on the world stage now with all these other makers. It’s taken almost 15 years to get to that level.
Today we employ four people in the shop. I look forward to turning the key in the door every morning and getting stuck in, whether it’s a concertina to be assembled or tuned. I play a couple of times a week, just at sessions. Over the years, I went out and earned money playing music, and there is enjoyment in that, but not as much enjoyment as just walking into a local pub where there are a few tunes happening and you have a beer and you are just sitting with your friends. I enjoy working with instruments and I enjoy playing music. I suppose it is what I have become: I am a maker. But I am also a musician. I love the work.
In conversation with Joanne Hunt
