Sean Ó Riada

Born John Reidy in Cork City he was educated at St Finbarr's College, Farranferris. He played the violin, piano and organ and studied the Greek and Latin classics at University College Cork, graduating in 1952. While at College, Ó Riada was the auditor of the UCC Philosophical Society. In the same year he became assistant director for Radio Éireann. He married Ruth Coughlan in 1953. During the evening he played piano with dance bands. In 1955 Ó Riada left his prestigious job, his wife and his newborn son Peadar, and moved to Italy and France, adopting a wild bohemian lifestyle. While studying composition under Aloys Fleischman he wrote avant-garde music. He drank heavily, and acquired a passion for expensive fast cars. Over the next ten years Ó Riada wrote several orchestral pieces called "Nomos." The third was left incomplete and some of the others took years to finish. None of them was publicly performed more than once. Ruth went in pursuit of her husband and found him living in poverty in Paris. She persuaded relatives to give them money and brought him back to Ireland, where he became musical director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin for five years. At about this time he changed his name from John Reidy to Seán Ó Riada, after giving the subject much thought. A much more accurate (indeed the above account includes many fallacies) and detailed account of the early years is given in Dr. Tomás Ó Canainn's biography of Ó Riada.

A New collection of his recordings has just been released on Gael Linn and is available now The Essential collection Seoda An Riadigh.