Coneely, Patrick ("Paddy")

Born and lived in Newcastle, a district in the north of Galway; Blind (since infancy), he was an excellent performer, who, according to George Petrie (1789-1866), the eminent collector of Irish music, "could imitate and successfully rival the best of his predecessors whom he has heard"; Being in tolerably comfortable circumstances, "he played only for the gentry or comfortable farmer, and would not lower the dignity of his professional character by playing in a tap room or for the commonality, except on rare occasions, when he would play gratuitously and for the sole pleasure of making them happy"; He is one of the 29 "Famous performers on the Irish or Union Pipes in the 18th and early part of the 19th centuries" mentioned in O’Neill (Chapter XIX: p.194-216).