Mikeen McCarthy

In an attempt to identify a local musician on an old reel to reel recording, via a song that the suspected musician on the recording had in his repertoire, I became acquainted with Jim Carroll via a vary circuitous route. This chance encounter has become one of the most fortuitous moments of my life so far. It has produced a treasure trove of material for the Binneas Collection, and a priceless store of unrecorded and undocumented local history. The foresight of Jim Carroll and his Pat Mackenzie, along with their decades of selfless commitment to recording the oral folklore of the Irish travellers in London can not be praised highly enough. This section of the Binneas website is dedicated to the recordings, stories, and folklore of Mikeen McCarthy and his extended family, are my way of extending my gratitude and the recognition they so well deserve. Peter Mullarkey (The Binneas Collection)

Mikeen McCarthy Traveller

Mikeen McCarthy was born on the Fairgreen in Caherciveen on Good Friday, April 3rd, 1931, he told us of the Travellers’ belief that anybody born on Good Friday would never grow to a great height - he was a little over five feet tall. He was washed in the first bucket of water drawn from the newly opened town pump; some years later a local man told him that his place of birth entitled him and his family to stop there whenever they pleased! His father, also Michael, was a skilled and a much sought after tinsmith, he was a recognized singer, storyteller, and musician, which gave the family some status with the settled community. As Mikeen followed him in that trade and took up his songs and stories, the family became well known in Caherciveen. 

Mikeen’s, mother, Anne Jane (Coffey), who was born on Valentia Island, was valued as someone called on to lament at wakes; an “ullagoner” (olagón - Irish). When she died in the late 1970s in Tralee, local people made a collection to pay for her funeral.

Along with other jobs, Mikeen and his mother sold ‘the ballads’ around the fairs and markets; these were the printed song-sheets which were to be found throughout Ireland right into the mid- 1950s, sold almost exclusively by Travellers. He described the production process in detail: they would approach a printer in a town, where a market was to take place, and either present the written-out words of a song, or recite it over the counter, and an order be placed for the required number. Having taken delivery of the printed sheets, they were taken around the fairs and markets to be sold. Mikeen’s description of the production of the ballads and the method of selling them is, to my knowledge unique.

In the summertime, the family’s route as tinsmiths included South West Kerry and West Cork. They had agreements with various farmers to be at a certain place and an arranged time to fulfil farming requirements. During the winter months they would rent an empty house in Caherciveen where all the family would help prepare tinware for the following year While settled, the children received a rudimentary education; their school friends included the Clifford family of Sigerson Clifford fame; Mikeen was able to read but his writing skills were somewhat limited.

In the early 1950s, Mikeen and his family left Ireland and headed for England, first to Birmingham and eventually London; we met him first in 1975 – we became instant friends and remained so until his death in Bristol in 2004. Throughout the time we knew him he filled tape after tape – songs, tales, lore and  information  on Travelling life in the first half o the 20th century in rural Kerry – he was a gift that never stopped giving. First, we introduced him to folk club audiences, then to festivals, and Library events; he won friends and admirers wherever he went. On one memorable occasion he performed before an audience of schoolchildren in Deptford, Southeast London – he mesmerised them with his gentle, one-to-one delivery.  

He was active in fighting for better conditions for travellers and helped to establish the ‘London Roadside Travellers Group’ in East London; that brought him in contact with the sympathetic Lord Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. Around the beginning of 2,000 he organised a successful collection for the ‘Save the Children Fund’ organisation and received a visit from their President, Princess Anne, with hilarious results involving the Princess’s bodyguards, one of Mikeen’s children, and The Mayor of Hackney.      

Wherever he went he made new friends, but in his heart, he never left Kerry and always recalled it with great fondness. He continued giving us new stories and information until a year before his death.

For the small man in stature Mikeen that he was, he rose to great heights in the estimation of so many people: as a singer, a storyteller and, in several cases a friend: Clare piper and concertina player, Tom McCarthy and he became great friends following a public exchange of music, stories, songs and reminiscences in the English Folk Dance and Song Society’s headquarters in London  He once told us a Fionn Mac Cumhaill, tale, Fionn and the French Giant; he began, “Fionn Mac Cumhaill was Ireland’s smallest giant, he got that wrong Mikeen McCarthy was Ireland’ smallest giant.    

It seems fitting that, after his travels, he should finally return in memory to his birthplace in Cahesiveen.

Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie