It will be a great honour for Féile Átha Dá Chab, Ballydehob Traditional Music, Song and Dance Festival 2008 to welcome button accordion and melodeon player, Bobby Gardiner, to Ballydehob for the second year of the festival. This will be a fabulous chance for budding players of these two instruments to listen to and learn from Bobby's playing, both in his workshop and at his performance at the concert over the weekend.
A native of the beautiful Burren area of Aughdarra, Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare, Bobby began his musical career at the age of eight, on an old German concertina, which was the instrument also played by his mother. Stuck pallets would sometimes result in emergency surgery when a goose's quill would substitute for a broken spring or a sticking plaster would repair an air leak. This experience led him to try the two-row button accordion. Most musicians then were self-taught and learned tunes from family, local musicians or by ear from the old 78 gramophone records of Michael Coleman, melodeon player P.J. Conlon and many others. Bobby's brother Mick and uncle Mick also played the meolodeon and accordion and his uncle Tom had a store of fiddle tunes.
After competing successfully in the under 15s at the Fleadh Ceoil in Dungarvan, he was asked to join the Kilfenora Céilí Band. He subsequently joined Malachy Sweeney's Céilí Band from Armagh and traveled the length and breadth of Ireland as a professional musician for five pounds a week!
In 1960, Bobby Gardiner emigrated to the U.S. and it was there that he made "Memories of Clare", his first L.P. of accordion music with Copley Records. This album has remained the best-loved of Bobby's many recordings ever since. In recent times, Bobby recorded a melodeon and lilting CD called "The Clare Shout".
Bobby was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1963 and stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey. On his weekends off, he would visit the Catskill Mountains in New York, which were a Mecca for traditional Irish music in those days. It was here in the Catskills that he met musicians such as Joe Cooley, Andy McGann and many other great players.
In 1970, Bobby returned to Ireland and within a few years was teaching the accordion in Tipperary, Waterford and Limerick. He has now been tutoring at University College Cork for 25 years. Bobby has also traveled extensively with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann on their numerous trips abroad and is a resident musician every summer with the Bru Boru group from Cashel, Co. Tipperary. He is currently focusing on his own playing.
Ó Lios Dúin Bhearna, Chontae an Chláir ó dhúchas, tá dea-chlú sa cheol gaelach bainte amach ag Bobby Gardiner le linn a ghairm fada. Sheinn sé an consairtín mar pháiste ach níorbh fhada gur bhog sé ar aghaidh go dtí an mileoidean agus níos déanaí arís go dtí an bosca ceoil dá-rangach. Tá réimse leathan de thaifeadadh déanta ag Bobby, ina measc tá ‘Memories of Clare’, a chéad ceirnín ar a bhfuil an-cháil, agus ceirnín a taifeadadh le déanaí, ‘The Clare Shout’, le ceol mileoidin agus portaireacht air. Le han-éileamh air mar mhúinteoir, tá Bobby Gardiner anois ina chónaí i gContae Thiobraid Árainn agus é ag múineadh i gColáiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh le 25 bliain anuas.
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