Musical journey turns ‘full circle’ for Derry Feis choir adjudicator

When Ciaran Kelly mounts the adjudicator’s platform on March 31 at Ardnashee School and College, it will perhaps represent the completion of a musical cycle in terms of his long term and competitively successful involvement with Feis Dhoire Cholmcille.

Ciaran will return to his native city on Holy Tuesday to judge the Choral Section of this year’s feis. It was a section, among many others, that as a boy and young man he took part in on many occasions.

The school’s taking part in this year’s choir competitions can rest assured that the adjudicator they will perform for is very eminently qualified not only to award prizes, but to offer expert critiques aimed solely at improving their future performances.

Since 2022 Ciaran has been the Head of Music at The King’s Hospital School in Dublin as well as director of Cór Linn, The Guinness Choir and the NSO Youth Choir. A graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in both Music Performance and Choral Conducting, Ciaran has studied under renowned figures such as Dr Veronica Dunne, Blánaid Murphy, Neil Ferris, Robert Houlihan and Geoffrey Spratt.

The Derry man continues to conduct, compose, adjudicate, produce and record and collaborates with ensembles and artists across the island and beyond. Under Ciaran’s direction Cór Linn achieved success at the Derry International Choir Festival in 2024 and in the same year he founded and led the National Concert Hall Youth Choir Summer School, bringing together young singers from across Ireland. Also in 2024, Ciaran’s composition ‘A Child of the Universe’, for youth choir, harp, and string quartet, was premiered at New Music in Dublin.

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“I mainly sang at Derry Feis, but I also did a bit of everything. I played piano and went to the McGinley School of Music and I played clarinet there too. I was with Sandra Biddle for speech and drama. There wasn’t an awful lot I didn’t compete in. The only thing I wasn’t involved in was Irish dancing. I left that to my sisters.

"If there was a competition going, I was probably in it and that was from the age of six until my teens. I started singing with James MacCafferty and when he passed away, I was with his daughter Una for a while and then I went over to Gwen Appleby in my teenage years,” Ciaran said.

With his parents, aunts, uncles and other relatives involved in much to one extent or other, there is little surprise that this had an influence on the young Ciaran Kelly.

“My uncle Donal Doherty at that time is in charge of the City of Derry International Choir Festival. When I was younger, he was running the St Eugene’s Cathedral Boys Choir and that was a bit part of my getting into music. Through my family it was very much encouraged as a good way to supplement academic pursuits.

“I was fortunate enough to be relatively good when I was younger and to have good performance opportunities, not just in Derry, but I did performances on TV, and I just loved performing. My experiences in the choirs, in Codetta and in the Youth Choir, I loved choral singing especially. I didn’t know at that stage exactly what shape it would take, but I definitely knew that this was what I was going to pursue,” Ciaran added.

Ciaran pictured with a huge array of prizes that he won across several disciplines at feiseanna.

Ciaran’s competitive years at Derry Feis and other competitions ran approximately over a decade long span from around 1994 to 2003.

He continued: “We were there constantly during Derry Feis week. I remember competing at the Guildhall in the first few years, in the Minor Hall and in the Main Hall. I can vividly remember competing for the James MacCafferty Medal in the Moore’s Melodies competition on the large stage. We definitely competed at St Columb’s Hall as well and my sisters danced in the Rialto too, before it became Primark.

“I genuinely loved it. People sometimes raised their eyebrows when I said I love competitions and being in the feis, but I loved it. Aside from the competitive side of things, it was a matter of working on material from the September before. You can’t just get up and sing your song or play a piece without preparing.

"More than that it was about seeing friends you may not have seen that often or just once in a while at different competitions. I loved, maybe with the exception of the Monday mornings. Famously, they always seemed to put the clarinet competitions on first thing on a Monday morning, and it was hard to play without being warmed up. It was always freezing in the Minor Hall in the Guildhall, so you had to get up and sort of squeak your way through it. But that was the only exception.

“I always loved the Friday nights when they had the special award competitions. Even when those moved into the studio in the Millennium Forum, there was still always something special about it. You felt like a grown up because you were there at nighttime and it was a senior competition. If it wasn’t myself competing, it was my sisters, if it wasn’t them, we were there watching someone else”.

Ciaran’s competitive exploits weren’t confined to feiseanna. Here he is in 1995 pictured with the cup he won in the Grand Final of the Junior Section at the Mosney Talent Show.

Given his journey and obvious love for the institution, coming to home next month to adjudicate at Feis Dhoire Cholmcille certainly seems to have struck more than a musical chord with Ciaran.

“It’s funny how these things connect themselves. I am head of music at the King’s Hospital School in Dublin, and I hadn’t worked in schools until just after Covid and my career went in a slightly different direction. And I am fortunate that I have this job and work with school choirs and be more active in the school choir community in Dublin.

“I have connected with choirs from St Mary’s and Thornhill at Feis Ceoil in Dublin, so it’s been very nice in the last couple of years to connect with those choirs from Derry. So, to get back up home and be in a familiar place and hear choirs that I would have been so familiar with during my childhood will be great”, said Ciaran.

The choral expert concluded: “Looking back over the last 100 years of Derry Feis, we can see how the city has changed so much and in so many different ways. But Derry Feis has been this staple thing that we all know. It’s one of those things that you can absolutely depend on to be there at Easter week. It creates a buzz in the city, and everybody recognises that gorgeous logo and the gorgeous imagery of the medals that are presented.

“It’s one of those things that brings everyone together because it gives nothing but positivity. That’s borne out in the numbers of little youngsters that are still going to the McGinley School, the MacCafferty School and all the other schools of arts. The feis represents something for those children to work towards and look forward to. The amount of people that have come through the feis, not just the star names, but those who have continued to perform into their adulthood is immense.

Ciaran Kelly pictured with his sisters Dearbhaile and Orlaith displaying their haul of prizes won at Derry Feis.

“It is impossible to deny what the feis provides for younger people in the city and further afield. It’s hard to believe it’s been over 100 years, but long may it continue. Although I haven’t been a part of it for 20 years, I’ve certainly watched from afar by staying connected with kids who have competed after my time and have gone onto to good success”.

Feis Dhoire Cholmcille Choral Section runs this year on Holy Tuesday, 31 March. The main section of the feis runs from Tuesday 6 April to Friday 10 April at St Columb’s Hall and The Playhouse, Artillery Street. Competition details can be found at www.derryfeis.com.