[2] Kennedy's uncle was married to the daughter of Robert Cinnamond, a singer from Glenavy, County Antrim, who was a frequent visitor in his family home.

His memory of [Cinnamond] was as a gentle soul singing "Dobbin's Flowery Vale", a version that Frankie plays.

[4] He learned his Irish as a young man in Belfast's Cumann Chluain Árd and travelled frequently to Donegal to perform at local sessions in Gweedore with Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh.

[6] They made their recording debut on Albert Fry's eponymous record in 1979 and later formed a short-lived group called Ragairne which also included Gearóid Ó Maonaigh, Ní Mhaonaigh's brother, on guitar, and was rejoined in 1981 by singer Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, later known as Enya.

At the time, Kennedy and Ní Mhaonaigh were earning their living by teaching at St. Oliver Plunkett National School in Malahide, north County Dublin.

[8] But live performances in 1984 and 1985, particularly in the United States, convinced them that there was an audience for "no-compromise traditional music played with heart and drive,"[6] and they were persuaded to give up teaching.

The flute-player Frankie Kennedy, of the traditional group Altan, was buried yesterday after a concelebrated Mass in Derrybeg Church, Gaoth Dobhair, Co. Donegal, attended by hundreds of musicians from Ireland, Britain, the Continent and North America.

Matt Molloy of the Chieftains led the communion with a slow air; Altan members Daithi Sproule, Paul Kelly, Dermot Byrne, Ciaran Curran and Ciaran Tourish blended with mazurkas from fiddler Johnny Doherty, and Paddy Glackin and Donal Lunny concluded on fiddle and synthesizer playing "Paddy's Rambles in the Park".

There wasn't anyone copying the next person – they ware all seeking music from the likes of Roger Sherlock, Cathal McConnell and Conal Ó Gráda, or going down the country.

His playing was smooth and somewhat less heavily ornamented than that of other popular Irish flute players like Matt Molloy.

But like Molloy, the use of flattened "blue notes" for expressive purposes "was a strong feature of Frankie Kennedy's playing with Altan.

In 2004 the school released a CD compilation of solo Irish flute played by a "who's who" of contemporary masters of the instrument, called An Ghaoth Aduaidh/The North Wind, in honour of Kennedy.