Hi, I'm Frances O'Rourke. I play the accordion, fiddle and
mandolin and this is my website about Irish traditional
music in the Northwest of England. I live in Manchester
and I work as a freelance IT Consultant and musician.
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Photos taken by Tony
Kearns at Miltown Malbay, Clare 2003. On the left is Mick
Coyne on pipes and me and on the right is Mick, me and Eamon
Coyne. Click to enlarge. |
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| With Roger
Wilson on fiddle and Pete
Morton on vocals in Germany 1992. |
Hazel Fairbairn on fiddle, Frances O'Rourke and Rick Batey on
guitar at Northampton Irish Centre circa 1994. We were based
in Cambridge and called the Alien Ceilidh Company. |
Hazel (fiddle) still does ceilis in the Cambridge area and plays
with the band Horace
X of which I was a founder member. One of our first gigs
was supporting Ivo
Papasov at the Boatrace in Cambridge. |
Going down a storm at Corby Irish Centre, St Patrick's Day
1990.
Click to enlarge. |
At my grandparents' house in Lisnaskea, Fermanagh in the 1970s.
I played the whistle a lot as a child as my dad always had
a whistle in his inside pocket. My dad - Tom O'Rourke played
uilleann and highland bagpipes, and my Granda Tommy played
fiddle and bagpipes. My uncles Jim and Frank O'Rourke were
fiddlers. Granny's brother Peter Berry played the flute.
Click to enlarge.
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| Dad on highland pipes |
Dad playing the fiddle in my bedroom |
Dad playing uilleann pipes in Fermanagh |
Dad's workshop in Corby |
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