Paddy Killoran

Patrick J. "Paddy" Killoran (1903-1965) was an Irish traditional fiddle player, bandleader and recording artist. He is regarded, along with James Morrison and Michael Coleman, as one of the finest exponents of the south Sligo fiddle style in the "golden age" of the ethnic recording industry of the 1920s and 1930s. Killoran was born September 21, 1903 and grew up in the townland of Emlaghgissan near Ballymote, County Sligo, Ireland. His father Patrick played the flute and his mother Mary the concertina but the young Killoran was also influenced by local fiddle master Philip O'Beirne, who had earlier tutored Michael Coleman. As a teenager, Killoran was a volunteer with the Ballymote-based 3rd Battalion of the south Sligo Brigade of the Irish Republican Army during the war for independence.In 1925, Killoran emigrated to New York City where he lodged with James Morrison in his Columbus Avenue apartment on Manhattan's West Side. A 1927 newspaper ad for "Morrison's Orchestra" offered "Irish music by P. Killoran and J. Morrison, celebrated violinists," giving 507 West 133d Street in west Harlem as the contact address. Killoran soon launched his own career as a soloist and bandleader. A publicity photo of Killoran's quartet c. 1928 includes button accordionist D. Casey, tenor banjo player Richard Curran and second fiddler Denis Murphy. By the next year, Killoran was performing on a weekly radio program sponsored by the Pride of Erin Ballrooms, located at the corner of Bedford and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. At the Pride of Erin, and later at the Sligo Ballrooms at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, Killoran's "Irish Orchestra" provided music for Irish dancing, while Jack Healy, another Ballymote native, led a group for "American" dancing. Healy, as a singer and tenor sax player, also performed and recorded with Killoran's group, the membership of which over the course of the 1930s included fiddler Paddy Sweeney (another Sligo native), fiddle and clarinet play