Mary Monaghan Warwick Qld. 1987
Recorded by Tony Heffernan
A cassette recording of the single-row accordion playing of 93 year old Mrs Mary Monaghan at Warwick, came my way through Tony Heffernan, who who was a neighbour and friend of Mary's. Tony’s father Barry was a friend of Andy Grant and he had learned to play with Andy during the 1970s.
We don’t have many details of Mary’s life and she passed away soon after this recording. She may or may not have been from the district and it has been difficult to get any details about her. She talks a little on playing the accordion and says that her sister who lives in Southport Queensland would have been the person to meet as she had kept playing when Mary had drifted from the music – for whatever reasons, family or dislocation – and that she hadn’t really played much for the previous fifty years. She was ninety three years old when recorded in 1987 making her born in 1894 and a young girl during the years of the first world war.
Tony Heffernan was learning the accordion and asked her to put some tunes on tape for him. The tape is of very poor quality – recorded on a very bad cassette recorder – but Mary put down twenty-two items for Tony with only two repeats. Tony doesn’t attempt to solicit different types of tunes for specific dances the tape was meant for him to learn some tunes from. There are very few breaks on the recording with Tony urging Mary to keep playing and she obliges by firing off tune after tune through the recording. There are very few breaks in the tape and she plays with humour, verve, and skill considering she was ninety-three years of age.
She plays waltzes, jigs and jig time set tunes, reels, marches, highland and plain schottisches, polkas and other tunes and and there is some dialogue about herself and about learning the accordion.
This recording has a spontaneity of its own and is an interesting and valuable resource. The single row style with use of the bass spoons displays a great example of the single-row style so popular before the arrival of the two row accordions early this century.
There are two tunes from Mary on the Mp3 Audio page.
Photos and text by Lionel O'Keefe 2006