Cathal Gannon
(1910-1999)
Harpsichord maker, restorer of antique pianos
and horologist in Dublin, Ireland
BIOGRAPHY
Cathal Gannon was born in the suburbs of Dublin, Ireland, on 1st August, 1910 into a working-class family of carpenters, many of whom worked in the famous Guinness Brewery. His education, in two local schools, was rudimentary and at the age of fifteen he started working as an apprentice carpenter in the Brewery. His apprenticeship involved learning to make office furniture and attending evening classes in nearby colleges, where he was able to improve his education in a more congenial atmosphere. A love of music and the arts had been encouraged by two maiden aunts – his parents had bought an upright piano and he had learned to play it at the Read Pianoforte School – and consequently, when his apprenticeship was completed and he was on the dole for some years, he spent much of his spare time buying pictures, books, antiques and old clocks and watches in the various auction rooms and antique shops in Dublin city centre, most of which are now all gone. He also read voraciously, acquiring a great deal of out-of-the-way and interesting information. During this period, the mid 1930s, he became a member of several Dublin-based societies, most notably the Old Dublin Society, and there befriended well-known people such as Professor Kevin B. Nowlan (then just a teenager) and Grace Plunkett (née Gifford), the widow of Joseph Mary Plunkett (who had been executed after the Easter Rising of 1916). Grace and Cathal were close friends for many years. At around this time, Cathal was also introduced to Carl Hardebeck, a noted arranger of Irish traditional music. At a later stage in Cathal’s life, he met the Hon. Desmond Guinness and his wife Mariga, founders of the Irish Georgian Society, which he subsequently joined.
Cathal’s interest in
harpsichords began in an unusual way. Whilst reading a series of articles about
Tibet in a magazine, he stumbled across an article, which, he believed, was by Violet Gordon Woodhouse, a famous British
harpsichordist and clavichord player of the period. The article was about the
revival of the harpsichord, which interested young Cathal greatly. He asked
permission to examine the harpsichords on display in the National Museum,
Dublin, but was given no encouragement by the staff, who regarded the
fourteen-year-old boy as a nuisance. He was finally allowed to see the
instruments when he was in his early twenties. Dismayed, he concluded that they
were too expensive to buy and too complicated to make.
Whilst on holidays in
Glengarriff in the West of Ireland during August, 1936, Cathal met his future
wife, Margaret Key from Harrow in London; they married in 1942.
Whilst in London with Margaret,
who was visiting her parents, Cathal went to the Benton
Fletcher collection of keyboard instruments, which was then in Chelsea, and
measured a harpsichord by Jacob and Abraham Kirckman (1777) that had taken his
fancy. Back home in Rialto, he managed to make a copy of the instrument in a
tiny conservatory at the back of his house. It was used for the first time in
public in 1959 and was praised in the national press. Thanks to the good offices
of the musician John Beckett, the Guinness Brewery provided Cathal with a
special workshop in which he made five harpsichords and restored several
antique pianos.
Cathal’s Brewery career, which
was enlivened by the colourful characters he encountered and the pranks he
played on them, came to an end when he retired in 1970. He continued to make
many more harpsichords and restore more pianos during the years to come.
Because of his unusual hobby, many interesting people sought him out; he was
the subject of several RTÉ radio programmes and of four television
programmes, including The Late Late Show.
He befriended many people and musical evenings were held at the family home in
Castleknock, one of the Dublin suburbs. Cathal’s best friend was a school
teacher named William Stuart, who through Cathal became interested in antique
watches and founded an Irish branch of the Antiquarian
Horological Society. Through William, Cathal met many more interesting
people, including the artist, writer and consevationist, Peter Pearson.
In 1978, Trinity College Dublin gave Cathal an
honorary MA degree for his contribution to the authentic performance of early
music in Ireland. Two years later, Cathal was invited to travel with the New Irish Chamber Orchestra to China, where
he tuned and maintained one of his harpsichords and celebrated his seventieth
birthday. In 1989, a second honorary MA was given to him, this time by Saint Patrick’s College, Maynooth.
Cathal celebrated his eightieth birthday with a surpise party held in William
Stuart’s house in Celbridge; some fifty people attended it.
At this stage in his life,
he finally took things easy and settled down to a proper retirement. A series
of minor strokes followed, which eventually led to dementia and ultimately to
his death in May, 1999. He left the world as he had entered it – to the sound
of music.
For
more information on the harpsichords made by Cathal, click here.
Established
in May 2003, the Cathal Gannon Early Music Room is in the Royal Irish
Academy of Music in Dublin. Cathal’s first harpsichord is currently in
storage at the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin.
To
watch Cathal, his instruments and his son Charles on ‘Nationwide’, transmitted
on RTÉ 1 on Wednesday, 17th January, 2007, click here.
To
listen to John Bowman’s Sunday morning programmes on RTÉ Radio 1 of the 12th,
19th and 26th November, 2006, featuring a 1983 interview with Cathal, click here.