Born: Born: October 18, 1932
Died: November 11, 2025
Geraldine O’Grady, the internationally renowned classical violinist who was the first woman leader of the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra (now the national symphony orchestra) has died following a long illness.
The Dublin-born musician also performed as a soloist with several American orchestras including the Boston Pops, the Kansas City Philharmonic and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
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With her sister, Eily O’Grady, she recorded albums of Irish airs (such as My Favourite Irish Melodies). And during the 1980s, Geraldine and Eily O’Grady toured the United States with Eily’s husband, the tenor, Frank Patterson.
In the 1990s and 2000s, O’Grady performed violin duos and made recordings (such as Heartstrings in Harmony and The Lark in the Clear Air) with her daughter, Oonagh Keogh, violinist with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and director of Ceol na Mara Summer School for Strings in Co Galway.
Many noted composers such as Philip Martin, Brian Boydell, Gerard Victory, John Kinsella and James Wilson wrote works for O’Grady. Throughout her long and illustrious career, she played these classical pieces – alongside the Irish airs that she so valued – accompanied by pianists such as Veronica McSwiney, Margaret O’Sullivan, Philip Martin and Charles Lynch.
Many of these Irish airs were arranged by the Irish composer, teacher and conductor, Thomas C Kelly. These included The Lark in the Clear Air, a recording of which by Geraldine and Eily O’Grady became the signature tune of Ciarán Mac Mathúna’s RTÉ radio programme, Mo Cheoil Thú for 35 years.
[ Noted violinist Geraldine O’Grady dies at age of 93Opens in new window ]
A regular performer on RTÉ television and radio, O’Grady shared her love of violin music with audiences on her own prime time RTÉ One television series, Strings in the Air (1988).
Guests on this show included the Chieftains, John Sheahan and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin. She also performed on Frank Patterson’s For Your Pleasure on RTÉ television in the 1970s.
She was also one of the first Irish classical violinist with multi-album recording deal with the EMI/Phillips label. These included Two Sonatas by Ernest John Moeran and Howard Ferguson with Charles Lynch in 1975.
Described as an inspirational figure for many musicians, O’Grady was also a huge cultural ambassador for Ireland when performing throughout Europe, the USA, South America and the West Indies. In a 1977 review of her performances at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, she was described as an “artist of the first rank”.
“She was responsible for the contemporary retelling of traditional Irish airs. And with her sister, Eily and her brother-in-law, Frank Patterson, she laid the foundations for many Irish musical groups, bringing a new generation of fans to classical and Irish music,” says Gerald Peregrine, cellist and nephew of O’Grady.
O’Grady received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland at Maynooth in 1989. In 2004, she was given the prestigious Fellowship by the Royal Irish Academy of Music where she taught violin for many years. (Since its foundation in 1848, only 61 RIAM Fellowships have been awarded).
The eldest of five children of pharmacist Gerald O’Grady and teacher Sheila O’Grady (née Cassidy), Geraldine attended Loreto College Crumlin where her mother was a teacher. She began learning the violin at the age of eight when her uncle Sean Cassidy – father of the traditional Irish group Na Casaidigh – gave her first violin.
[ Geraldine O'Grady and Oonagh Keogh (violin duo), Anthony Byrne (piano)Opens in new window ]
Her mother, Sheila, who played the piano, instilled in her children the strong discipline required for performance. Her brother, Sean, played the violin and her sisters all became musicians in their own right: Moya a cellist, Eily a pianist and Sheila a violinist.
The young O’Grady sisters performed all over Ireland in hospitals, schools and concert halls and were renowned for their professional performances and glamorous presentation.
At the age of 16, O’Grady was awarded an Irish government grant to study music in Paris. The acclaimed French violinist, Jean Fournier was her tutor. In 1955, she became the first Irish person to graduate from the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris with the Premier Prix. At that time, she also won three special prizes – Prix Saraste, Prix Milanello and Prix Christine Nillsson – awarded by an international jury led by the Belgian virtuoso violinist, Arthur Grumiaux.
In 1959, following her studies in Paris, O’Grady returned to Dublin to be appointed first violinist and the first woman leader of the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra. At the time, most musicians in symphony orchestras were male and it was highly unusual for a woman to be to the violin soloist and liaison between the conductor and the orchestra.
Performing The Rite of Spring with the Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky, as guest conductor in the National Concert Hall in 1963 was a highlight of this period of her career.
Veronica McSwiney was a pianist who performed with the symphony orchestra while O’Grady was the leader and then from the late 1990s to mid 2010s, she toured throughout Ireland with O’Grady with Music Network and others.
Recalling O’Grady’s time as leader of the orchestra, McSwiney says, “she had a very sunny disposition and was very popular. And, she could handle all the international musicians who were in the orchestra at that time”.
O’Grady left the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra in 1963 to pursue a solo career but returned to perform with both the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra (now Irish Concert Orchestra) over the years.
In 1965, O’Grady married the actor and radio presenter, Des Keogh. The couple first met earlier that year when Geraldine was invited to perform on Melody Fair, an RTÉ television show that Keogh was hosting. Keogh proposed to her within six weeks of their first date and they married three months later.
O’Grady’s professional career in the United States began when she with her sister, Eily O’Grady, was invited to accompany a narrated piece on John Millington Synge by Des Keogh in St Paul’s, Minnesota and then in Washington DC.
The then head of the Irish American Cultural Institute, Frank Gannon was so impressed by O’Grady’s performance that he offered to organise concert recitals and performances with symphony orchestras for her across United States.
After living in Ballsbridge for two years, Keogh and O’Grady bought their home in Dundrum which they shared – first with their daughter, Oonagh – and then with their beloved border collie dogs.
Supporting each other’s careers, the couple were well known in Dublin cultural circles – even if Keogh’s partner in comedy revues, Rosaleen Linehan was sometimes mistaken for his wife in the popular imagination.
In October 2012 to celebrate O’Grady’s 80th birthday, a group of talented musicians made up of her extended family and friends performed with her in a special concert at the National Concert Hall in Dublin.
Oonagh Keogh says that not only was her mother a trailblazing musician but she was also an extraordinary caring person. “She was genuinely interested in everyone she met and was generous with her time and her talent. I remember once at a party, a young child asked her, ‘are you an actress?’ to which she answered, ‘no I’m just a fiddler’.”
O’Grady is survived by her husband, Des Keogh, her daughter, Oonagh, her grandchildren, Ruadhán and Aoibhín and her sister, Sheila. She was predeceased by her sisters, Moya and Eily and her brother Séan.
