In the name of the father

This weekend, Peadar Ó Riada makes a rare trip from his home in Co Cork to celebrate his father Seán's work, writes Siobhán Long

Gene pools can be a blessing and a curse. Peadar Ó Riada should know. As the son of Seán Ó Riada, he has inherited an implacable appetite for experimentation (and not just of the musical kind either; he's an accomplished film-maker, too), and a thick skin, which shields him against the worst excesses of his father's acolytes and detractors.

Seán Ó Riada would have been 75 years old on August 1st, and to mark the occasion, the National Concert Hall's ESB Beo Celtic Music Festival is hosting a special concert, Ó Riada@75. Peadar is charged with the task of identifying the repertoire and convening a vast swathe of musicians who have had long associations with his father, including members of Ceoltóirí Chualann, Seán Ó Sé and the renowned Cór Chúil Aodha. Peadar refers constantly to his father by his first name, as he might an old friend, and he is insistent that his father would enjoy such a birthday gathering as is planned for tomorrow in Earlsfort Terrace.

"Seán was a very convivial man," he smiles, "and he'd probably enjoy it very much. We have Seán Potts and Seán Óg Potts playing, and they're one of two father-and-son combinations playing on the night. My own son is singing in the choir too. I think that's important because it underscores the idea of continuity, of the music passing 'ó ghlúin go glúin', from generation to generation."

With a wide repertoire representing different phases in the often sparce, eloquent arrangements that typified Ceoltóirí Chualann, ranging from the early Reacaireacht An Riadaigh to the live recording of Ó Riada Sa Gaiety, as well as choral arrangements which Ó Riada wrote for Cór Chúil Aodha. Peadar Ó Riada is adamant that without his father's music, the tradition would inhabit a vastly different landscape today.

"The public face of Irish music back in the 1950s was that of the céilí band," he says, "which had adapted the saxophone, the drum kit, the guitar and piano. It was heading inevitably toward the middle of the road. I can even remember back then that musicians such as Willie Clancy and Denis Murphy wouldn't have been allowed to play in many places. They used to hide their instruments because the music was regarded as being backward and regressive. When Seán happened, attitudes slowly began to change, which we're still benefiting from, 40 years later."

One of Seán Ó Riada's most widely-known works is his soundtrack for Mise Éire, a feature-length film released in 1959. Peadar shares with his father a keen interest in film and has made a number of documentaries including the series Ceol Na Talamhan.

"I've inherited one trait for sure from my father and that's the magpie trait," he says, again smiling as though sharing an insider joke with his father. "I have a tendency to fiddle with everything, experimenting with things to see how they work. And that's how I am with music, too. Once it's done, I don't want to return to it any more. So when I record something I'm not really interested in marketing it. Seán was like that too. He didn't tend to repeat his experiments, and neither do I."

Peadar Ó Riada is dogmatically defensive about his decision to live in Cúil Aodha, in the Cork Gaeltacht, and his minimal forays into the urban sprawl of the Pale are a reflection of his disdain for what he sees as the fickleness of life beyond his chosen environment.

"I've chosen to live far from what we might call 'Western culture'," he says, his disdain for urban life evident in the tone of voice. "I live on the side of a mountain, I cut my turf with a sleán and I can do whatever I like because there's nobody hounding me or watching me. The value system in Cúil Aodha is completely different. It's a fertile place for people to think laterally, whereas Western culture is dominated by vertical thinking: mathematics, top dog, God, Bush, generals, armies, numbers. 'How many pupils have you in your class? The quota is wrong there.' Instead, the question should be: 'how well do you teach?' It's numbers, numbers, numbers.

"That way of living forms the mind into a straitjacket," Ó Riada continues, warming to the topic. "Where I live, people are of the land. People work very hard, and they don't care what people think of them. They speak Irish because they want to, not because somebody's giving them money to do it. Writing poetry and music, passionate about sport, and about culture generally: it's a totally different value system.

"And the sad thing is that so many people in this country have lost touch with that part of themselves, because it's in all of us. They've become encapsulated in a film of Western prophylactic."

• Peadar Ó Riada, Seán Ó Sé and members of Ceoltóirí Chualann will perform in the National Concert Hall as guests of the ESB Beo Celtic Music Festival tomorrow at 8pm