Dolores Keane’s nieces sing moving tribute as Galway legend enters Folk Awards Hall of Fame
Her brother Seán said hearing the next generation sing was “almost like Dolores was sitting in the middle of them”, as President Catherine Connolly presented the posthumous honour to her children at Dublin’s Vicar Street.
“Anyone who's been to the family home in Caherlistrane knows that's how the Keanes do it, a song. It's always the music,” host John Creedon said as he introduced the next generation of the Keane family at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards on Tuesday night.
The family performed Never Be the Sun in memory of Dolores Keane, who was posthumously inducted into the Folk Awards Hall of Fame at Dublin’s Vicar Street.
Creedon had already drawn cheers from the audience by declaring that the “City of the Tribes was well and truly in the house”.
President Catherine Connolly presented the award to Dolores’s children, Tara and Joseph, recalling the singer’s first recording for Radio Éireann at the age of five and the remarkable career that followed.
“What a woman, what an artist and what a performer,” President Connolly said. “When Dolores sang, you listened.”
Creedon described Dolores as “the voice of Mother Ireland”, adding: “Truly, we will never see her likes again.”
Accepting her mother’s award, Tara spoke of letters arriving from “all corners of the earth” since Dolores’s death in March.
“I know for sure she touched people all over the world with her music,” she said.
Fresh from a week of gigs in Germany, Dolores’s brother Seán spoke to the Galway City Tribune ahead of the ceremony about how singing together had helped the family cope with their loss.
“It’s almost like Dolores was sitting in the middle of them,” he said of hearing his nieces sing.
“It’s kind of been a healing process for everybody involved.”
It was Seán’s idea to bring the younger generation together, including his own daughters, rather than perform himself.
“I was asked to do a song, and I said, no, there’s something else that could be done here. All of those girls can sing.”
The family had previously performed a tribute at the Fleadh in Belfast and will come together again at Dublin’s National Concert Hall on December 30.
That concert, Be the Light: Remembering Dolores Keane, takes its title from a line in Never Be the Sun, the very song RTÉ had independently suggested for Tuesday’s ceremony.
“They said, ‘Would you do that song?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we will do that now,’” Seán recalled.
The December concert will feature some of Dolores’s best-loved songs, including Caledonia, Galway Bay, Sonny and The Island.
Seán hopes the family will eventually bring the tribute home to Galway.
“I would like to do it because I think it would be a fitting thing to do for Dolores,” he said.
“We will, I would say, organise another night or two after Christmas.”
Back in Galway this week, Seán is also passing on his love of music to another generation, singing with hundreds of children from four primary schools as part of Galway TradFest’s Seán sa Scoil programme.
Pupils in Oranmore, Claregalway, Kiltullagh and Ballinasloe have been learning songs from his repertoire ahead of performances on Wednesday and Friday, including Caledonia in memory of Dolores.
For Seán, introducing children to live music is a chance to inspire the next generation.
“You never know what influence it might have on them,” he said.
Highlights of the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards from Dublin’s Vicar Street will be broadcast on RTÉ One on Saturday.