With his first solo album, 'Journeyman', fiddle player Gerry O'Connor is finally stepping into the glare of the spotlight, writes Siobhán Long

Sligo flute players, Kerry box players and Donegal fiddlers have all had their moments in the sun. Those denizens of that ever-expanding land of mythological proportions, Sliabh Luachra, have no cause for complaint either. But there's one county that's not only been backward in coming forward, but has been clinging to a wilful anonymity as though the prospect of the public gaze was more than its modesty could bear.

Gerry "Fiddle" O'Connor has fallen victim to just a tincture of Louth's unparalleled quest for anonymity, his obvious talent and flair as a fiddle player all too readily subsumed beneath a desire to let the light shine on everyone else, and rarely on himself. Throughout his years of playing with Skylark and Lá Lugh, as well as his extensive collaborations with everyone from Dónal Lunny to Italian pianist Antonio Breschi, O'Connor has been loathe to pilfer the spotlight from any one of his playing mates, opting instead for the shared glories of the ensemble.

Now, though, he's finally shed his inhibitions, recording a sublime album of fiddle tunes, and he's even thinking of embarking on a few "solo" concerts to celebrate the unleashing of Journeyman. Could it be that those who've long championed the delights of O'Connor's playing will be finally rewarded for their tenacity?

Long known as Gerry "Fiddle" O'Connor, (to distinguish himself from his namesake, Gerry "Banjo" O'Connor), this is one fiddler whose pulse is quickened by the sheer delight in the tunes, rather than in the accolades that might accompany them. As a fourth-generation fiddle player, he knows the value of the shared tune. Having garnered much of his fiddle style from his mother Rose (who played in a céilí band until she was six months pregnant), O'Connor was rarely stuck for a playing partner since he first picked up the fiddle.

"My mother's people are all fiddle players," he explains, "and on my father's side they were all brass and reed people. I think I've had bass drum rhythm in my head from an early age." With manuscripts lodged on every shelf and crevice in his childhood home, O'Connor had little choice but to respond to the music, energised in no small part by his mother Rose.

"We grew up in a post-industrial society here in Dundalk," O'Connor continues, quick to dispel any notions of music sessions in Louth's pastoral glades, "and we had access to BBC before most of the rest of the country so we had exposure to a dual existence really, with the music going on alongside that. In our teens we all played guitars in folk bands. My father was a fine singer, and he was a shipping manager here in Dundalk, so he would bring in captains from the coal ships coming in from Poland or from Germany, and we'd have the fiddles out. So in the mid to late '60s, this was a chance for them to taste a living culture here."

Dancing was integral to O'Connor's early experience of music, with his first dance classes taken well before he enrolled in school. Later, the thriving Dundalk showband tradition ensured that all manner of music wended its way past the eardrums of the stealthiest of traditional players.

"We weren't just playing reels and jigs all the time," he recounts. "We had a broad palette of music to draw from." Still, traditional music was what stuck fast, and O'Connor was a member of the All Ireland-winning Under-18 Céilí Band competition at the tender age of eight. They went on to win three All Irelands in a row, with O'Connor being relegated to the Under-14 competition after that, to accommodate the burgeoning increase in demand for fiddle playing places at the time. Akin to a senior player being relegated to the minor team, he proceeded to garner further All-Ireland laurels with his new-found junior playing partners. Life lessons are rarely learned so readily these days.

O'Connor's taken his own time in making his first solo album, but then again his musical interests have always stretched well beyond the confines of music recording.

"Music to me was never my only profession," he explains. "I was also working as a violin maker, and before that I had a day job as an engineer in Tara Mines. Playing music was always important to me, but I never worked within music management structures that would have seen the value or importance of having a solo album at an earlier point in my career. I also understood from recording my other albums with Lá Lugh and Skylark what a draw on resources, emotionally, creatively and financially that recording is. Any energy I had could have gone into a solo album, but instead I put it into band work or collaborative projects."

When it came to tune selections for his solo début, O'Connor was lucky enough to be in a position to pay tribute to the many musicians who'd given him tunes in the past, including John Joe Gardiner, Paddy Tyrrell and Tommy McArdle.

"Many would have been personal friends of mine who mightn't have recorded commercially," he notes, "but to me it was important to make personal references to the tunes. It identified me with them and them with me, in a way. So it wasn't simply a case of just selecting tunes for nice key changes or for effect. These particular tunes have a personal resonance for me. This album isn't a potted history, but it does reflect my different sources and different times in my life, from my dancing days to my band days to my travelling and playing at home days: the various strands that go to make up who I am at the moment."

Gerry's mother Rose is a well-known fiddle player and teacher whose protégés are scattered across the length and breadth of the country. Her influence as a player, a teacher and as a meticulous recorder of the music in manuscript form is gargantuan, and she makes no bones about the importance of the music across the three generations of her family.

"Only for the music I'd be dead long ago," she declares vigorously. "I've cut down the teaching to three days a week now and I have some fantastic little pupils of only six years of age, and you would not believe how they can read music. My life has always been full of music. All down through the years, if I couldn't sleep, down I'd pop and I'd write a few bars of a tune. I have at least 500 tunes written down now." Journeyman was co-produced by Gerry's son Dónal, a fiddler and keyboard player of considerable repute, despite his tender years. Their comfort sharing a tune is due to more than their shared genetic lineage, Dónal reckons.

"It's difficult to explain how big an influence he's been on me," he acknowledges. "First, he's my father, and secondly he's my idol as a fiddle player. He's my favourite fiddle player. I've always tried to watch and learn from the different things he does. His fluid bow hand and his meticulous left hand as well. For me there's no one better. I think he's a fiddle players' fiddler. He always makes things look very easy, and I've always tried to play like that as well."