Acclaimed traditional singer and musician:RITA KEANE, who has died aged 85, was an internationally acclaimed singer and member of one of Galway's best-known musical families.
An aunt of singers Dolores, Seán and Matt Keane, she was regarded as one of the most influential traditional singers of the past half century.
Three years ago Rita and her older sister Sarah were awarded the TG4 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their outstanding contribution to traditional music and song.
From the townland of Laragh, Caherlistrane, Co Galway, she was born in 1923, the daughter of Matt Keane and his wife May (née Costello). Her father played Jew’s harp, while her mother, from a family of singers and musicians, collected songs; her large repertoire included Lord Donegal, an obscure version of an old ballad Lord Lovell.
Rita learned to play accordion and Sarah played fiddle. With their parents and siblings they made up the Keane Céilí Band, formations of which continued to perform from the 1930s into the 1980s.
The sisters’ rendering of traditional music both instrumental and vocal had a distinctive style and they were especially noted for their disciplined unison singing. They came to national and, later, international prominence through their widely-acclaimed album, Once I Loved, a collection of songs in Irish and English.
In the late 1960s they were approached by Garech Browne’s Claddagh Records to make the album. Recorded in Dublin and in the Convent of Mercy, Tuam, by Gene Martin and Morgan O’Sullivan, Once I Loved was released in 1968.
The album was warmly received. Eric Winter wrote in Folk Review that the sisters did not put a note wrong. “No pretences, no show, just an honest-to-goodness job of truly big singing.”
When the album was reissued in CD format in the 1990s, Geoff Wallis in Songlines wrote: “The abiding experience of listening to this album is of two sisters, utterly musically conjoined, capturing the essence of Ireland’s deep and darkest past with astonishing vocal subtlety.”
In the 1970s and 1980s the sisters made appearances at the Peacock Theatre with the Chieftains, and Jack MacGowran, at the Dublin Folk Festival and at the Sense of Ireland Festival in London.
And in their 80s, they continued to give public performances. They toured the Scandinavian countries and with their sister Bridie gave a workshop at the Stoehill Festival in the US.
Their home in Caherlistrane became a magnet for song collectors, among them Len Graham.
It was also well-known for its music sessions, many of which were recorded for broadcast.
It took almost 20 years before their second collection of songs was released in the mid-1980s, At the Setting of the Sun.
Rod Stradling in Musical Traditions was captivated by the “beauty and poignancy” of the Keane sisters’ singing style.
“This is one of those rare records which, when it’s playing, makes it impossible to concentrate on anything else except the singing.”
The broadcaster Ciarán Mac Mathúna counted Rita and Sarah among the greats of Irish traditional music, saying they had played a “crucial role in keeping traditional music alive when it was at its lowest ebb”.
Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains said that their singing “brought an incomparable and haunting beauty to their work”.
They last sang in public a month ago in Tí Coli, Galway.
Rita is survived by her sister Sarah, many nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces.
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Rita Keane: born December 31st, 1923; died June 28th, 2009