Tommie Potts: The Sorrowful and the Great | Limited Edition Signed Hardback

The Sorrowful and the Great is the first comprehensive biography of Tommie Potts' life and unique artistic process.

The special collector's limited edition hardback is signed and numbered by the author and includes a photograph of Tommie Potts inside the front cover.

Written by ITMA’s Seán Potts, Tommie’s grandnephew and son of the late Seán Potts, founder member of The Chieftains, the book charts the course of Tommie’s formative years in the fertile musical environment of his family home; the trauma he endured as a young firefighter surviving the Pearse Street tragedy of 1936; his powerful relationship with the great traditional musicians of county Clare; the story of The Liffey Banks LP; his friendship with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and an assessment of his legacy by the contemporary artists who encountered his genius during their lifetime.

Accompanying this biography is a sister publication – The Unbroken Music of Heaven - a selection of Tommie’s most exemplary arranged melodies and compositions housed in ITMA’s collections, painstakingly transcribed and beautifully annotated by the great violinist and fiddle player Aoife Ní Bhriain. It is available for purchase on itma.ie/shop