Domhnall O’Suilleabhain (Domhnall Dall)

‘Na hInsí, an Cuirean’

Domhnall O’Suilleabhain of na hInsí, an Cuirean, known locally as ‘Domhball Dall’, was a multi-talent man. His name keeps cropping up in all all the areas of the local tradition. He was an uilleann piper, a dancer, an Oireachtas winning traditional singer and all round raconteur. He had an interest in traditional medicine and two pocket books of cures were among his possessions.

Domhnall Dall’s two books of cures and other interesting material.

‘I took down this air, with the accompanying words, in July, 1919, from the singing of Domhnall O’Suilleabhain ("Domhnall Dall"), of na hInsi, an Cuirean, Co. Kerry. Domhnall possesses a fine voice, and has won the first prize for traditional singing at the Oireachtas. The song itself is a luibin, or hunneog, to which any singer would' be at liberty to add verses; three others appear in An Lochrann for May, 1917.’

D.J O’Sullivan The Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society (1920)

Domhnall appears in a couple of verses in one of the ‘Ball’ songs titled ‘The Ball of Tadhg of Loher’.

‘Domhnall Dall the acting clown, one leg up and one leg down,

all the night he danced around, at the ball of Tadhg of Loher’.

Domhnall Dall got the scour, down his leg like a shower,

at the ball of Tadhg of Loher’

Other material in the collection relating to Domhnall in the Binneas Collection will be available here in the future.