Celebrating the genius of Dublin fiddle legend Tommie Potts

He was the firefighter who cheated death, the shy Liberties man who transformed Irish music, and the fiddle player whose 1972 album The Liffey Banks is still hunted down by collectors worldwide.

Now, more than fifty years after that recording, the life and genius of Tommie Potts is being celebrated in two landmark new publications from the Irish Traditional Music Archive.

Potts, born in 1912 in Watkins Buildings in the Coombe, grew up surrounded by music. His father John, a piper from south Wexford who moved to Dublin to work in the Guinness Brewery, made their home a magnet for traditional musicians. In this environment, Tommie developed not just technical mastery of the fiddle, but a style that was unlike anyone before or since — lyrical, searching, unpredictable, and endlessly curious.

That singular style reached the wider world with the release of The Liffey Banks in 1972, a Claddagh Records album that has become a touchstone in Irish music. For many, it remains a revelation — proof that the tradition could carry both deep roots and restless invention in the same breath. An enigmatic presence, Potts fascinated fellow musicians and confounded critics, while quietly inspiring future generations. In his later years, his artistry was rediscovered and championed by composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin.

Now, two major works aim to capture his story and preserve his music. The Sorrowful and the Great, written by ITMA’s Seán Potts, traces Tommie’s extraordinary life from his formative years in the Liberties to the haunting memory of the Pearse Street fire tragedy of 1936, when three of his fellow firefighters died and he survived. It explores his friendships with Clare greats such as Willie Clancy and PJ Hayes, the making of The Liffey Banks, and his lasting influence on musicians like Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Martin Hayes, Paddy Glackin, Peter Browne and Noel Hill.

Alongside it comes The Unbroken Music of Heaven, a collection of Tommie’s most distinctive arrangements and compositions from the ITMA archive, transcribed and annotated with care by violinist Aoife Ní Bhriain. A lifelong admirer of Potts, Ní Bhriain brings to the work not just scholarship, but devotion, illuminating the intricacy and originality of his playing for new audiences and musicians alike.

ITMA Chief Executive Liam O’Connor said the two books were a fitting tribute to a man whose contribution to Irish music was immeasurable. “As one of most significant figures in the history of Irish music, elevating the legacy of Tommie Potts by producing a biography and a book of transcriptions worthy of the artist fits perfectly within the vision of ITMA to advance appreciation, knowledge, and the practice of Irish traditional music. The launch of these two publications marks the start of a very exciting new series for ITMA entitled ‘A Portrait of an Artist’, celebrating our great traditional artists,” he said.

Both books are now available to purchase from itma.ie/shop, with The Sorrowful and the Great also published in a special limited hardback edition.