Attendees of the Wareham Free Library’s summer concert series got a glimpse into the “vast and wonderful” world of traditional Irish music on Monday, Aug. 5 as Wareham fiddler Fern Tamigini-O'Donnell played for an enraptured crowd. 

Tamigini-O'Donnell is a Wareham Free Library regular, she said; “I’ve been going here since I was born — all of 20 years.”

However, this was her first time up on the library’s summer stage. Library Director Patrick Marshall said Tamigini-O'Donnell “has been coming to the library for… ever!”, but he didn’t know she was a musician until recently.

Tamigini-O'Donnell took the audience through a selection of light and lively fiddle tunes, sharing an infectious enthusiasm for the Irish tradition with contextual notes between each piece. 

She shared with the audience that she’d recently been to a music festival in County Clare, Ireland; “I could totally feel the music and the land,” she said. 

Her performance was the last of a series of summer concerts at the Wareham Free Library. 

Marshall said the library raised around 520 pounds of dry food for Damien’s Place Food Pantry through donations made by concert attendees, and that it had around 100 people per week in the audience. 

He added the series had an “eclectic” collection of artists this summer, saying that the library tries to get a good mix of people who have performed there before and newcomers.