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Frankie Kennedy (30 September 1955 – 19 September 1994) was a flute and tin whistle player born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was also the co-founder of the band Altan, formed with his wife Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh. The popular Frankie Kennedy Winter Music School was founded in 1994 in his honour.
He had three sisters and one brother.
Kennedy's uncle was married to the daughter of Robert Cinnamond, a singer from Glenavy, County Antrim, who was a frequent visitor in his family home.
His memory of was as a gentle soul singing "Dobbin's Flowery Vale", a version that Frankie plays. And he had all those northern versions of songs. Frankie used to say, "really I have no tradition," but he had a connection with the tradition which he didn't know himself.
Kennedy became interested in Irish traditional music when he was 18 years old, through the music of Horslips, Planxty, The Chieftains, and The Boys of the Lough. He learned his Irish as a young man in Belfast's Cumann Chluain Árd and travelled frequently to Donegal to perform at local sessions in Gweedore with Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh.
When Kennedy was eighteen he took a sixth form summer trip to the Gaeltacht of Gweedore in County Donegal. He went to a session one evening and there met a fifteen-year-old fiddle player named Mairéad, daughter of the session's leader Proinsias Ó Maonaigh. They were attracted to each other, and he wrote to her regularly after leaving Donegal.
He was advised by a friend that he should learn an instrument if he intended to court Mairéad, and so he got a whistle and taught himself to play. Later he learned the flute, a somewhat louder instrument, so that he could hear himself in sessions. His love for Mairéad coupled with perfectionist tendencies turned him into a well-respected flute player.
Kennedy and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh married in 1981.
The new couple continued to play at sessions in Donegal, and this formed the basis for their musical partnership. They made their recording debut on Albert Fry's eponymous record in 1979 and later formed a short-lived group called Ragairne which also included Gearóid Ó Maonaigh, Ní Mhaonaigh's brother, on guitar, and was rejoined in 1981 by singer Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, later known as Enya.
Joined by bouzouki player Ciarán Curran and Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, now known as Enya, on synthesizer, Kennedy and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh released a recording entitled Ceol Aduaidh on Gael-Linn records in 1983.
At the time, Kennedy and Ní Mhaonaigh were earning their living by teaching at St. Oliver Plunkett National School in Malahide, north County Dublin. But live performances in 1984 and 1985, particularly in the United States, convinced them that there was an audience for "no-compromise traditional music played with heart and drive," and they were persuaded to give up teaching.
During this time, the group added guitarist Mark Kelly and released in 1987 a record called Altan, named after a lake in Donegal, although the name Altan wasn't used for the band on that release. But the band's musical momentum was building rapidly, and they would release three records in three years as Altan between 1989 and 1991. Altan was produced by Dónal Lunny, who subsequently appeared as either a producer or guest musician on every Altan album which followed.
Kennedy was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a vicious form of cancer, in 1992. Despite his illness Kennedy continued to tour and record with Altan. The band released Island Angel in 1993, and continued to tour through 1994, the year of his death. Although Kennedy had experienced 18 months in remission, the cancer returned "full blast" afterwards. He died on 19 September at the age of 38 in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
Kennedy is buried in Gweedore, County Donegal.
Altan, in accordance with Kennedy's wishes, continued to record and perform after his death.
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