{"id":282496,"date":"2026-01-13T19:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282496\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T19:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:25:07","slug":"renowned-cork-singer-sean-o-se-dies-aged-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/282496\/","title":{"rendered":"Renowned Cork singer Se\u00e1n \u00d3 S\u00e9 dies aged 89"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The death has occurred of renowned <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/cork-news\/\">Cork<\/a> singer, educator and raconteur Se\u00e1n \u00d3 S\u00e9, who has died three days shy of his 90th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>He was a native of Ballylickey, which he described as \u201cthree miles outside Bantry to the west, on the Glengarrif Road, the most easterly inlet in Bantry Bay\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was known affectionately as \u201cde Pucker\u201d or \u201cAn Pocar\u201d, a play on the song  An Poc Ar Buile, which he made famous in a surprise 1962 hit single.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Educated at Col\u00e1iste \u00cdosag\u00e1in, Ballyvourney, and St Patrick&#8217;s College, Dublin, he worked as a primary school teacher in counties Wicklow and Cork, finishing his career as principal of St Mary\u2019s on the Hill in Knocknaheeny, Cork city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">A gifted tenor, he came to prominence as a singer in the 1960s with Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Riada&#8217;s group Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed Chualann, and he went on to tour internationally with Comhaltas Ceolt\u00f3ir\u00ed \u00c9ireann.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">His natural gift for storytelling and his unique style of speaking, which was a fluent and melodious blending of both Irish and English words and phrases, made him a worthy successor to the seancha\u00eds of old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Growing up in an all-Irish-speaking home, he didn\u2019t utter his first word of English until he went to school at the age of six.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cMy mother was a native Irish speaker from Ballingeary and my father\u2019s people Gaelic leaguers from Adrigole with \u2018learned-Irish\u2019,\u201d he told  The Echo last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI live in an English-speaking part of the country now. However, if I go to any Gaeltacht area, the Irish comes back immediately. And I love that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Steeped in history, local, national and international, he loved the land and the sport and the people of his native Ireland, and the Cork he loved above all other places.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Predeceased last year by his wife Eileen, Mr \u00d3 S\u00e9 is survived by their children \u00c1ine, Con and \u00cdde. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death has occurred of renowned Cork singer, educator and raconteur Se\u00e1n \u00d3 S\u00e9, who has died three&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[781,4488,18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-282496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-irish-examiner-instagram","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115889433996722441","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}