Gathering to celebrate Mary’s life and legacy

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

“There’s no doubt that Mary lived a full life,” says Paddy Noonan about his late wife Mary McPartlan, who died on April 6, 2020, shortly after Ireland entered the initial Covid lockdown.

Leitrim-born Mary, who had made Galway her home for 40 years, had certainly had a rich life –  leaving a major legacy in her adopted city and further afield.

Most recently, she ran the Arts in Action Programme at NUI Galway, which hosted top musicians, writers and performers from all over the world in free events, which were primarily for students but also open to the public.

Before that, she’d been the driving force behind what became the TG4 Traditional Musician of the Year Awards. Back then, in the 1990s, while working as a concert promoter she brought some of the top names in trad and folk music to Galway; and she co-ordinated trips abroad for Irish musicians, including to Argentina in 1999.

Not content with all that, she was a fine singer herself, with three albums to her credit –  The Holland Handkerchief in 2004 and Petticoat Loose in 2008. A third, From Mountain to Mountain in 2015, explored the connections between Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains and her native Drumkeerin. All were highly praised.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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