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Fr Pat Ahern who was awarded the Kerry Association in Dublin Arts Award. Photo by Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus LTD
FATHER Pat Ahern has been announced as the most recent recipient of the prestigious Kerry Association in Dublin Arts Award.
The award sponsored by Kerry County Council is in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the promotion and development of artistic, cultural and literary tradition of his native county both nationally and internationally.
In announcing the award Keelin Kissane, Chairperson of the Kerry Association in Dublin said “Fr Pat has had an inspirational impact both in Kerry and internationally.”
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“He has transferred the magic and music and mystery of Kerry to the stage and projected it magnificently to ever appreciating audiences both at home and throughout the world. He has been a great Ambassador for Kerry.”
Jimmy Deenihan, Chairperson of the Selection Committee also said Fr Pat Ahern is a worthy recipient of this prestigious award.
“But for his vision in establishing Siamsoiri Na Riochta back in the 1960’s the tradition of the music, song and dance unique to North Kerry may have disappeared. Fr Pat has translated this rich cultural tradition and has transmitted it on stage and film to a global audience. For him it is people that give rise to culture and culture cannot exist without people,” he said.
A native of Moyvane, Fr Pat was immersed in traditional Irish music from a young age. Having studied for the priesthood, he became a curate at St John’s in Tralee in 1957.
He founded the St John’s Gregorian Choir and was given responsibility for liturgical music in the diocese. While in Tralee he produced and directed a number of liturgical pageants and was involved in the Scoraíocht movement in Comhaltas that led, in part, to the establishment of Siamsóirí na Ríochta in 1968.
The Siamsóirí pioneered a form of folk theatre that presented Irish folk customs on stage through music, song and dance.
The Bishop of Kerry decided to send the young priest to UCC to study a B.Mus degree under Professor Fleischmann, who was a great inspiration to Fr Pat. Graduating with a music degree from UCC in 1962, Fr Pat joined the Catholic Communications Centre in Dublin and studied TV and radio production.
He produced a weekly series called “Network” for RTE Radio. Recalled to Kerry in 1973, he was released from parish work to devote himself to his work on folk theatre. His musical and theatrical work in the early years was channelled into the establishment of Siamsa Tíre, the national folk theatre of Ireland.
Since then Siamsa Tire has gone from strength to strength, culminating in the opening of its new building on the edge of Tralee Town Park in 1991. Fr Pat was artistic director there until 1997.
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s Fr Ahern was also involved in Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann in Kerry and at a national level.
Outside of Siamsa, Fr Pat has been responsible for numerous other productions including works on the life of Edmund Rice and the story of Christianity in Kerry. For the Millennium, he produced “Dance of Life” which featured over 800 singers and a cast of 200.
He is an accomplished fiddle player and is a former pupil of renowned dancing master, Jerry Molyneux.
