ANOTHER family with an Armagh connection is the Quinn family of Long Island, whose patriarch, Louie Quinn, came from Newtownhamilton in Armagh.

Louie Senior was a very fine Irish fiddler who played a huge role in promoting and preserving traditional Irish music not only in New York but also around the country through his friendship with so many great musicians, and also his organization skills through the Irish Musicians Association, a forerunner in many places for Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann in North America.

He got his family involved in Irish music and dance in a big way out on Long Island, and the oldest boy, Sean, has continued to teach music both in the public school system and with Irish music pupils on the fiddle.

Sean Quinn will be the special guest of the November Blarney Star concert series at NYU's Glucksman Ireland House (1 Washington Mews on lower Fifth Avenue at Washington Square Park on Friday, November 14 at 9 p.m.

Appearing with him will be accompanist Gabriel Donahue from Athenry, Co. Galway who has also worked with Sean as his CD producer for his release a few years ago, Stick to the Tar, and the latest CD due out this month, The Mountain's Still Standing, which will be launched that night at the Greenwich Village locale.

Along with his brothers, Louie Junior, Brian, and Kevin, Sean Quinn has worked with a number of very fine local New York Irish musicians, and many of them appear on the new CD, including Brian Conway, Billy Furlong, Patty Furlong, Dom Lavin, Joanie Madden, Billy McComiskey, Jerry O'Sullivan, Eamonn O'Rourke and his children Chris and Heather Quinn.

The 17 tracks provide a polished variety to the recording, with the usual Quinn mastery over the reels, jigs, hornpipes, slip jigs, polkas, waltz, marches and an air that he laid down.

Reaching back to his Druid days (a popular pub band with one of his brothers), he breaks out in song on the CD along with his daughter Heather keeping it in the family. As in the last CD, all the music is composed by Sean Quinn, who as a young man was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with the prolific Cavan composer Ed Reavy Senior because his father Louie Senior was one of Reavy's great champions on both sides of the Atlantic.

In fact, it is hard to imagine anyone outside of Felix Dolan, who had spent as much time around so many great Irish immigrant musicians like Reavy, Paddy Killoran, Lad O'Beirne, Paddy Reynolds and others who rode the Atlantic tidal wave to America and kept the music alive from the forties to the seventies before the next generation took over.

More details on the concert can be found at www.blarneystar.com.

Incidentally, Sean Quinn is appearing this night because the previously scheduled artist was to be Kathleen Collins, the iconic East Galway fiddler who was the first American to win an All-Ireland fiddling championship broke her hand and is unable to perform at present and will be rescheduled.

But in a very happy coincidence this past weekend both Kathleen Collins and Sean Quinn were selected to be the 2009 Inductees into the CCE Mid-Atlantic Regional Hall of Fame. Collins was selected not only for her fiddle music but as a very popular set dance teacher in the greater New York area.

Quinn's contributions to Irish music have been many, including his many compositions and the classy teaching style that was a family trademark.

That induction ceremony will take place as part of the annual Hall of Fame Ceili Mor at the Mineola Irish American Center on Saturday, February 21 from 7 p.m.-midnight. Call chair Terry Rafferty at 201-288-4267.