An important link in Tyrone's cultural history has been lost with the death from cancer of traditional musician Arthur Kearney of Omagh at the age of 83.
Kearney was a son of poet and musician Felix Kearney, a farm labourer, and his wife Sophia (née McCaffrey), and was born in the family cottage on the side of the Pigeon Top Mountain about three miles west of Omagh.
Felix Kearney's songs are still sung, and his Hills Above Drumquin recognised as a classic. Kearney was a noted exponent of father's work and composed songs and tunes of his own.
The most famous is A Song for Felix Kearney, written shortly after his father's death, which ends:
Walk the last sad steps beside me,
as the sun shines through the pine trees
Where we lay the gentle poet down
to take a mighty rest.
There we leave him to his maker
and the prayers of those who loved him
Where the wild flowers of his native land
are growing o'er his breast.
He possessed a marvellous singing voice, which only reached a wider audience in his 70s when BBC Radio Ulster's Irish-language unit discovered him.
Kearney taught traditional music in 1950s and 1960s, before it became popular. He was a working-class intellectual who left school at 14 and spent most of his working life as a joiner. Fluent in Irish, he also taught himself German, and was widely read.
Fluency in Irish was achieved during six years as an IRA prisoner in the 1940s.
On release, he took up the trade of shoemaker. As the trade he had learnt in prison, it held bad memories, so he sold up and cycled to Belmullet in Mayo with a brother-in-law who was a joiner and had found work there. He returned to Omagh with a bride, Molly, to spend the rest of his life in the town.
Broadcaster Anne Craig remembers his love of language. "Both his singing voice and his lyrical speaking voice had a great effect on me," she said. "It was lyrical particularly when describing his home area.
He had a great love for the poems of Tyrone poet W.F. Marshall."
He is survived by his widow Molly, sisters Eileen (Carney), Rosaleen (McCullough), Rita (Hynes) and Patsy (Burke), daughters Deirdre (O'Neill), Mary, Valerie (McCance) and Laura (Lander), son Pádraig, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
He was predeceased by his brother Felix (jnr) and sisters Nessa (McMenamin) and Mary (McGlynn).
Arthur Kearney: born March 23rd, 1921: died October 23rd, 2004.