At exactly 12.30pm, the coffin of musician, composer and academic Míchéal Ó Súilleabháin was carried down the aisle of St Senan’s Church in Kilrush, Co Clare, on the shoulders of his loved ones, including his sons Eoin and Míchéal.
The simple wicker casket, topped with a wreath of wild flowers and grasses, was followed by the rest of his family, including his wife, Prof Helen Phelan, their young son Luke, his former wife, Dr Nóirín Ní Riain and, in a touch that was archetypically Ó Súilleabháin -- mischievous, knowing, and harking back to an almost-forgotten tradition -- a ritual clown.
The solemn clown, with his red nose and mournful, chalk-white face, represented the Archangel Michael “that figure in all cultures that carries our soul from this world to the next” and was part of the deceased’s “meticulous” planning for the day, Eoin Ó Súilleabháin said.
Around 500 mourners attended the service including President Michael D Higgins, the Taoiseach’s aide-de-camp, Cmdt Caroline Burke, and a host of figures from the arts and academic worlds.
The pianist, who died last week at 67 after a long illness, devised a ceremony that was a deeply personal love letter to his family, and to the music to which he had devoted his life. It featured stirring pieces performed on uilleann pipes, saxophones, and strings by musicians including Iarla Ó Lionáird, Lillis O’Laoire, Síle Denver, the Cantarel Choir and members of the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
‘Guru’
Chief celebrant Fr Mark Patrick Hederman, former abbot of Glenstal Abbey, said Ó Súilleabháin was a “hero, a contemporary Orpheus, who brightened our paths with heartrending music,…a teacher, a guru, a guide”.
Mícheál Padraig Ó Súilleabháin spoke of the “endless well of celebration, tectonic affection, and seismic loss you are to me” in a poem written for this father.
Luke Phelan Ó Súilleabháin, encouraged along by a squeeze on the shoulders from his older brothers, read a short poem by Rainer Maria Rilke in a clear, strong voice.
Kilrush struck some mourners as an unexpected choice for a man born in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, and deeply associated with Limerick. Ó Súilleabháin was emeritus professor of music at the University of Limerick, as well as founder and director of its Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. But it had been chosen with as much care as everything else, as a nod to his family’s love of nearby Scattery Island, and his own affinity with St Senan.
In his homily, Fr Hederman pointed out that the location at the mouth of the Shannon was also heavily symbolic.
“Mícheál created a similar estuary further up the Shannon where Limerick and Clare are joined on a living bridge, and where traditional Irish music and dance gain access to, and at the same time hugely enrich, the vast body of classical and worldwide music from which they had previously been excluded.”
