Biography:Teresa Halpin
Teresa Halpin
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|---|---|
| Given name: | Teresa |
| Middle name: | |
| Family name: | Halpin |
| Place of birth: | Garryowen, County Limerick |
| Place of death: | |
| Year of birth: | 1894 |
| Year of death: | 1983 |
| Profile: | Composer, Musician |
| Source of information: | https://books.google.com/books?id=emzWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=%22Teresa+Halpin%22+++1894–1983&source=bl&ots=iqQPBz8FFU&sig=ACfU3U2X2AzcBRHhihlzJ 0dTlMONyMeMA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwjqKwidD1AhUomeAKHd ABUQQ6AF6BAgNEAM#v=onepage&q=%22Teresa%20Halpin%22%20%20%201894–1983&f=false |
Biographical notes
TERESA HALPIN (Treasa Ní Alpín) (1894–1983) was born in Garryown, County Limerick. Although little-known today, she was a champion fiddler and dancer, and her father, Joe, was also renowned dancer. In 1913, at the age of nineteen she competed against Michael Coleman (himself a teenager) in a competition and won, winning also the praise of Bridget Kenny (the "Queen of the Irish Fiddlers"). She was awarded a Feis Ceoil prize for her knowledge of "ancient" unpublished airs and performed throughout Ireland, in England, and in a coast-to-coast tour of the United States, and later taught Irish music and dance and adjudicated music and dance competitions. In 1923 she published a bilingual tutor book for the violin, Teagosc-Leabhar na Bheidhlíne. She and her husband (the translator of Dracula) are generally given the credit of having invented the two hand dance Rogha an Fhile, and she has also been credited with composing dances for the Gaelic League, in particular The Walls of Limerick [and The Siege of Ennis-JHowley], however, this has not been ascertained (unless The Walls of Limerick and The Siege of Ennis are post-1914, it may be unlikely that she could have invented them). c.f. her Parlophone recording "Mo Buchail Gael-Dubh/Dark and slender boy" backed with the Halpin Trio's rather sedate and staid "Over the Moor to Maggie" (1929), recorded in Dublin (Hear the recordings at ITMA [1]).