Ciarán Mac Mathúna: Limerick born guardian of Ireland’s traditional music

There are some voices that seem to belong to the air itself. For generations of Irish listeners, one such voice came floating through the wireless on Sunday mornings - a soft, steady Limerick baritone speaking of fiddlers and folklore, of tunes that wandered from the west and stories whispered by the fire. That voice was Ciarán Mac Mathúna’s, and though he spoke to the whole of Ireland, his heart and cadence were unmistakably Limerick.
Born November 26, 1925, this year marks the centenary of his birth in Limerick. Ciarán Mac Mathúna was the kind of Limerick man who carried the city with him wherever he went - not in boast or badge, but in a quiet musical way. His voice, his humour, and his deep respect for ordinary people all echoed the spirit of this place. From the cobbled streets and schoolrooms of Limerick to the airwaves of RTÉ, Mac Mathúna became one of the most beloved broadcasters in Irish history - and one of the most important collectors of our traditional music.

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A Childhood by the Shannon
Mac Mathúna grew up in a time when Limerick still moved to the rhythm of the river and the ring of the market bell. He attended the Christian Brothers School on Sexton Street and, like many Limerick children of his era, was shaped by two great teachers: the Irish language and the art of listening.
At home, songs and stories weren’t museum pieces - they were the currency of conversation. He later recalled how neighbours could make an evening last on a single tune, how the language of the street blended effortlessly with the cadences of Irish speech. It was, he said, “A kind of schooling no college could give.”
That ear for rhythm and nuance would define his life. He went on to University College Dublin, where he studied Irish and Greek - an unlikely pair that made perfect sense to him. “The Greeks had Homer,” he would say. “We had the seanchaí.” Both told stories to hold their people together.

Limerick Roots, National Voice
When Mac Mathúna joined Radio Éireann in 1954, it was still an era when the broadcaster’s microphones rarely strayed far from Dublin. But Ciarán had no interest in polished studios or scripted speeches. He packed a tape recorder - one of those heavy, boxy contraptions that took two hands and a strong back - and set off into the country. His mission was simple and profound: to record Ireland’s living tradition before it slipped away.
He began close to home, in County Clare, where the music of fiddles and flutes spilled across the border from his native Limerick like kinfolk visiting unannounced. Then he travelled further afield - Kerry, Donegal, Connemara, Fermanagh - recording singers, musicians, and storytellers in their kitchens and crossroads dances.
He always said his best interviews were not interviews at all, but conversations.
“You don’t take a story,” he once said. “You’re given it.” And people gave him plenty. They trusted him because he listened like a neighbour, not a journalist.

A Limerick Sensibility
To understand Mac Mathúna’s genius, you have to understand his Limerick sensibility: curious, modest, musical, and wry. He had that typical Shannonside ability to mix poetry with plain talk - to quote an ancient proverb and then crack a joke in the same breath.
He could stand in a farm kitchen in west Clare and find the Homeric in a local song. But he could also stand in a Limerick pub and find the poetic in the laughter of friends. “Every city has its sound,” he said once, “and Limerick’s is half melody, half mischief.”
That blend of lyricism and wit infused his later work on RTÉ Radio 1, where he became a household name through his Sunday morning programme, Mo Cheol Thú. The title - meaning You are my music - came from a phrase of affection in Irish. It was a declaration, really, of his philosophy: that music isn’t just notes or instruments, but people.

The Sound of Sunday Morning
If you were raised in Ireland from the 1970s to the early 2000s, chances are you heard Mo Cheol Thú wafting through the kitchen as the rashers sizzled and the kettle steamed. Every Sunday morning, Ciarán Mac Mathúna greeted his listeners like old friends. There were no loud jingles or studio gimmicks, no false urgency, just that familiar Limerick voice, unhurried, tender, and rich with wonder.
He played tunes gathered from every corner of Ireland, weaving them with snippets of story, folklore, and memory. Sometimes he’d quote a poet; sometimes he’d tell you about a fiddler in Ballinakill or a singer he’d met “down a boreen you’d never find twice.” It was all one seamless tapestry - a living conversation between past and present. Listeners didn’t just tune in; they visited. And for emigrants in London, Boston, or Sydney, the sound of Mo Cheol Thú was the sound of home.

The Collector of a Vanishing Ireland
By the time Ciarán began his fieldwork, the Ireland of the hearth was already fading. Rural electrification was changing the soundscape; emigration was emptying the towns and townlands. He knew he was capturing something fragile - a music that might not survive another generation.
But Mac Mathúna never mourned what was lost; he celebrated what was still alive. “Change is natural,” he once said. “But the song carries through.”
His recordings, thousands of them, are now preserved in the RTÉ archives - a vast treasury of reels, ballads, and sean-nós songs. They are as valuable as any manuscript in a library, yet filled with the voices of ordinary people: farmers, fishermen, schoolteachers, children. He always insisted those voices were Ireland. “The history of a country,” he said, “is not just in its books - it’s in the lilt of how its people speak.”

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Recognition and Reluctance
Limerick has always produced artists who wear their greatness lightly, and Ciarán was no exception. He won Jacob’s Awards, the Freedom of the City of Limerick, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Limerick, but he remained a modest man. Fame embarrassed him. When the Limerick Leader once described him as “The keeper of Ireland’s soul,” he laughed and said, “I’m just keeping her company.” That humility endeared him to his colleagues and his audience alike. He saw himself not as a celebrity, but as a custodian - a man holding open a door between generations.

The Farewell Broadcast
After 35 years, Mac Mathúna announced his retirement in 2005. His final Mo Cheol Thú aired on Christmas Day, a fitting farewell for a man who had become part of Ireland’s Sunday mornings. His last words were simple and full of grace: “I’m going home now.”
He passed away four years later, in December 2009, aged 84. When news of his death reached Limerick, the city paused. Tributes poured in from across the world - from musicians, broadcasters, poets, and listeners who felt they had lost a friend.
At his funeral, traditional musicians played him out softly, without fanfare, just as he would have wanted. There was music from Clare and Kerry, but also from Limerick, the city that had given him his first tune.

The Limerick Legacy
Today, you can still hear Mac Mathúna’s field recordings in archives, on documentaries, and sometimes, unexpectedly, on the radio.
Each clip is a window back to a kitchen in Clare, a fair in Limerick, a festival in Connemara. Each is a reminder that this Limerick man helped save the sound of Ireland. His influence is everywhere.
The revival of traditional music owes him a quiet debt. Young broadcasters still study his pacing, his tone, his empathy.
And Limerick’s reputation as a cradle of cultural talent - from the written word to the spoken one - feels richer because of him.
At the University of Limerick, where his honorary degree hangs in the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, his spirit lingers in the very mission of the place: to cherish, teach, and renew the music of Ireland. It’s a legacy no award could measure.

The Voice That Still Listens
He once said, “Every song is a story, and every story is a song. You only have to listen closely enough to hear the difference.” That line could well be his epitaph, though perhaps Limerick doesn’t need a monument for him.
His monument is the music that still rises from the county’s hills and streets, the songs sung in kitchens and pubs, the quiet pride of a city that gave Ireland its greatest listener. In an age of noise, Ciarán Mac Mathúna taught us the value of the pause - the space between the notes where the heart of Ireland still beats - Mo cheol thú, Ciarán, from Limerick, with love.