Paddy Fahey
Irish musician (1916-2019)
Paddy Fahey (or Fahy, 17 August 1916 – 31 May 2019) was an Irish composer and fiddler who was considered one of the finest living composers of tunes that are in the style of traditional Irish music.
Fahey was born 17 August 1916 in Kilconnell East Galway to John (Jack) Fahey and Julia Fahey (née Wolly). His genre is often referred to as "Draíocht". His music has been recorded by many of the finest traditional Irish musicians including Martin Hayes, Planxty, John Carty and Kevin Burke. In recent years, a few recordings featured Fahey's music prominently including recordings by Liz and Yvonne Kane and Breda Keville.
Fahey did not make a song book nor a commercial recording. There are some privately made recordings of Fahey which have been distributed among musicians since the 1970s. Transcriptions of his tunes are found in many tune collections and on Internet resources such as www.thesession.org.
Fahey never gave his music names. They tend to be simply named "Paddy Fahey's Reel No.1", "Paddy Fahey's Jig No.2", etc.
“Paddy Fahey” enters the record as irish musician (1916-2019). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Paddy, Fahey and Irish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3360337. The first chronological checks are 1916 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paddy Fahey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.