How Michael Doyle's fiddle crossed the Atlantic in a pillowcase in 1948 — and why he would never have it mended.
The story
“He had no case, so his mother sewed a pillowcase round it and he carried it on his knees the whole way. It cracked in a storm off Newfoundland. He never had it mended — he said the crack was where the sea got in. He said the tunes were the only thing he packed that didn't weigh anything.”
How it came down to us
Sean plays it now. He told it at Nana's ninetieth, and his niece Aoife wrote it down.