Background
Although his mother played the fiddle, Martin, the youngest of her ten children, was the only one to become a musician.
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Martin Mulvihill
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He composed roughly 25 tunes in the Irish traditional style. He began his study of music at the age of nine. From a violin player in the neighboring town of Glin, he learned the rudiments of the fiddle and how to read and write music
From his mother he learned the Irish traditional style.
His early repertoire was learned both from written sources such as Roche, Ker, and O"Neill"s 1001, and from local musicians. Mulvihill continued playing music during this time, expanding his skills to include button accordion and piano accordion.
The latter became his main instrument for several years. In 1965 the Mulvihill family relocated to New York City.
He began teaching music lessons part-time, but as his reputation grew this quickly became his full-time occupation.
He taught in Philadelphia, Washington, District of Columbia, and New New York Former students include Eileen Ivers, Mary Rafferty (of Cherish the Ladies), Willie Kelly and Patrick Clifford. In 1984, Mulvihill was honored with a National Education Association National Heritage Fellowship.
In 1986, he published a book, "First Collection of Traditional Irish Music"
On 21 July 1987, while on vacation in Ireland, he suffered a heart attack and died.
