by George Houde
Irish American Post Chicago Bureau

Their parents threw out the television set and filled the family living room with musical instruments. That would have included violins — fiddles in Lakefield, Ontario — guitars, drums, and anything else that would be used to produce Irish music and its related genres. Toss in a piano. 

That’s how Leahy, the high-energy, high talent musical family from a small Canadian town really got its start. They didn’t watch television, didn’t dull their senses and brains with cathode rays, and so began to entertain themselves by picking up the instruments and learning to play them. 

And they learned to dance. Step-dance actually, taught by their mother who also taught piano. She was a champion step-dancer. Dad was the fiddle instructor in the Celtic-Canadian style. They enjoyed great success when the ensemble hit the road in the early 1980s and were the subject of a 1985 Academy Award winning documentary, The Leahys: Music Most of All. In the 1990s, the family musicians went their separate ways for a time, but eventually reunited and now seem headed for greater success and recognition. A television special is in the works. 

Leahy recently undertook their ambitious "Get On the Bus" tour with high-profile stops but also lesser venues such as Hemmens Cultural Center in Elgin, Ill., where they were enthusiastically received. Typical of the response to their energy-filled performances was that of concert-goer Mike Turner, who asked, "How can one family have so much talent."

It was simple, said Erin Leahy after the show. 

"Mom and dad threw the TV out and filled the room with instruments," said Erin, keyboardist and vocalist. 

The parents had their own band and would bring in their young children to perform. They began performing across Canada and word spread about the Leahy Family, which later was shortened to simply Leahy. 

"It was great," recalled Erin.

In 1997, Leahy won two Juno Awards — the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys — for their self-titled album, which went platinum in their homeland and hit the No. 4 spot on the world music chart. They took home another Juno in 1998. Leahy was back in industrial strength, doing what they do best. Performing on that year's Juno awards show, they caught the attention of rising country music superstar Shania Twain.

Twain asked the family to tour with her, persuading her recording company that they were the group she wanted. 

"She resisted pressure from her label to pick someone else and wanted something that would be a good fit," recalled Erin. "It was initially five shows in Canada, then 12, and we wound up doing the whole tour - two years and 176 shows."

They generated a sense of camaraderie that resulted in jokes and experiences that only friends can get away with. On the last night on the road, in Dublin, Ireland, Twain and a few others hit the Leahy bunch in their collective faces with shaving cream pies in an uproarious moment. 

New projects are on the horizon. A PBS special is planned, some of it to be derived from the "Get On The Bus" tour. The group used the tour to work on some new material to be included in the show. The special will become available on DVD. 

In spite of the glitter of the bright lights and tours of Europe, the family still calls Lakefield home. That‘s the small town 100 miles northeast of Toronto where in 1825 their great-great grandfather Michael Leahy arrived from Ireland carrying with him traditions they keep alive today. 

(Leahy appeared in a special on Milwaukee Public Television, Aug. 11. Viewers who support MPTV's decision to air Celtic music programming like Leahy will receive "thank you" gifts for their donation, including tickets to Leahy's Nov. 15 concert at Milwaukee Theatre, the new Leahy CD and DVD featuring exclusive bonus material, including extra songs, interviews and additional performance footage with Shania Twain—available exclusively through public television. Viewers can make a donation by calling 414.297.8000 or visiting www.mptvfriends.org.