The Rolling Wave: The Willie Clancy Summer School, in pictures

The Willie Clancy Summer School took place in Miltown Malbay in Co. Clare last July.

The school, which is named after the famous piper Willie Clancy welcomed 1,600 students into the town and they spent six days attending classes on fiddle, harp, whistle, uilleann pipes, flute, banjo and many other instruments.

Photographer Tony Kearns has been taking photos at the Willie Clancy Summer School since 1992 and and is a familiar figure at all events during the week, from the classes to the recitals and the concerts and - not forgetting - the less formal (though no less magical) moments in unexpected places every day.

Together with Barry Taylor, he published a book about the summer school in 2003 called A Touchstone for the Tradition – The Willie Clancy Summer School, followed by a second book of summer school photographs entitled Music and Light.

Aoife Nic Cormaic met Tony at the Willie Clancy Summer School last summer; she asked him to choose some photographs from his huge collection which might represent some important aspect of the summer school for him. They spoke about the reasons people keep coming back to Miltown Malbay every year, the remarkable focus of even the youngest students and about some of the legendary figures Tony has photographed over the years - people like Ben Lennon, Tommie Peoples, Siobhán Peoples, Catherine McEvoy, Paddy Jones, Junior Crehan and so many more.

If you would like to see some of Tony Kearns' work about traditional music and the Willie Clancy Summer School, go here.

Listen to more from The Rolling Wave here.