Local musician going for all-Ireland title

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/08/2010 (5887 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Irish eyes in Winnipeg will be smiling on a local musician competing in the world’s largest Irish traditional music festival this weekend.

Transconian Kyle Borley is entered in four categories in the Fleadh Cheoil (Gaelic for Festival of Music) Sunday in Cavan, a town in northeastern Ireland.

“I’m surprised by the number of foreign musicians here,” Borley, 22, said via his cellphone from the Emerald Isle. “There are people from Denmark and even Japan.”

Borley, who is English by ethnicity, performs Irish dance music on the concert flute, the tin whistle and the piccolo. He also sings traditional Irish songs.

He will compete on Sunday against 14 other entrants in the senior categories of all four areas.

“First- and second-place winners get to call themselves all-Ireland champions,” said Borley. “It’s a title that’s well recognized in Irish music.”

Winnipeg filmmaker Aaron Kim Johnston has got to know Borley through his father, Eric, a welding inspector at New Flyer Industries.

“I listened to a CD Kyle produced and was duly impressed,” Johnston said. “The kid’s got chops!”

The Fleadh (pronounced “flaw”), is part of a series of competitions run by the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, a non-profit group dedicated to the promotion of traditional Irish culture.

The first national event was held in 1951. It is held annually in a different Irish county. About 10,000 competitors are involved this year.

In June, at the North American Midwest Fleadh in Chicago, Borley won first place in three categories: over-18 tin whistle, miscellaneous piccolo and men’s English singing.

He also placed second in over-18 concert flute.

These results qualified him for the All-Ireland Fleadh in each of those categories.

“The majority of the winners are, of course, Irish, although there have been several notable Americans,” Borley said.

“I believe that if I win in Ireland, I will have been the first Canadian to have done so.”

Borley, an only child, got hooked on Irish music at around age 10 after listening to such East Coast Canadian acts as Great Big Sea.

For several years, he studied with Susan and Paul Hammer, well-known Irish music teachers in Winnipeg, and he likes to perform with friends.

A graduate of Transcona Collegiate Institute, Borley spent most of last year in Ireland pursuing his musical ambitions. After the Fleadh he will stay in Galway for another month.

morley.walker@freepress.mb.ca