Alex Sutherland from Toome, Drumreilly was a fiddle player who was taught by Peter Kennedy (c1822 -1902) of Lisnatulla, Ballinamore. Sutherland, himself, became a prolific fiddle teacher and taught between approximately 1910 to 1960. His students were from within a 15 mile radius of Toome.
Sutherland Heritage
Thanks to the research work of Dr. Conor Ward and Fr. John Quinn, we have a little more detail about the Sutherland family lineage.
Music Sources
Sutherland submitted 6 manuscript books to the National Folklore Commission in UCD in 1957 and 1960. This collection contained approximately 275 tunes, 20 songs and 5 local folktales. Some of the songs appear to have been composed by Sutherland.
When he died, 38 tunes on slips of paper were found in his fiddle case
Joseph McCabe, one of his pupils, from Crickeen, Drumreilly had kept a manuscript of the tunes taught to him by Sutherland
Another pupil of his, Mary Kate Gaffney from Carrickmakeegan had also retained her fiddle manuscript.
Many modern-day traditional artists credit Sutherland on their album sleeves and have performed and recorded tunes from his manuscripts over the years – including the McNamara Family, Aughavas and Leitrim Equation. Ceolus Céili Band have also revived many of the tunes.
In August 2019, Leitrim Library hosted an event in celebration of his contribution to traditional music in association with Cumann Ceoil Conmhaicne. Researched and presented by Conor Ward and Fr. John Quinn, there were also presentations by Mary Kate Gaffney’s granddaughter, Marion Mulligan, music with Marion, Conor and Padraig McGovern, songs by Fionnuala Maxwell and Sutherland’s granddaughter, Carmel McDermott as well as an array of tunes from Alex Sutherland’s descendants.
You can check out a video of proceedings here:
Some of the tunes from Sutherland’s manuscripts have been digitised and are available on thesession.org and tuneearch.org
March of the Irish Defence Forces
And here are some links to various musicians playing tunes that they learned from his manuscripts
