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Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Christy Moore


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Death of Séamus Ennis, Musician, Singer & Music Collector

Séamus Ennis (Irish: Séamas Mac Aonghusa), Irish musician, singer and Irish music collector, dies in Naul, County Dublin, on October 5, 1982. He is most noted for his uilleann pipe playing and is partly responsible for the revival of the instrument during the twentieth century, having co-founded Na Píobairí Uilleann, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to the promotion of the uilleann pipes and its music. He is recognised for preserving almost 2,000 Irish songs and dance-tunes as part of the work he does with the Irish Folklore Commission. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest uilleann pipers of all time.

Ennis’s father, James, works for the Irish civil service at Naul, County Dublin. In 1908, James Ennis is in a pawn shop in London and purchases a bag containing the pieces of a set of old uilleann pipes. They were made in the mid nineteenth century by Coyne Pipemakers of Thomas Street in Dublin. In 1912, he comes in first in the Oireachtas competition for warpipes and second in the uilleann pipes. He is also a prize-winning dancer. In 1916, he marries Mary Josephine McCabe, an accomplished fiddle player from County Monaghan. They have six children, Angela, Séamus, Barbara, and twins, Cormac and Ursula (Pixie) and Desmond. Séamus is born on May 5, 1919, in Jamestown in Finglas, Dublin. James Ennis is a member of the Fingal trio, which includes Frank O’Higgins on fiddle and John Cawley on flute, and performs regularly with them on the radio. At the age of thirteen, Séamus starts receiving lessons on the pipes from his father. He attends a Gaelscoil, Cholmcille, and a Gaelcholáiste, Coláiste Mhuire, which gives him a knowledge of the Irish language that serves him well in later life. He sits in an exam to become Employment Exchange clerk but is too far down the list to be offered a job. He is twenty and unemployed.

Colm Ó Lochlainn is editor of Irish Street Ballads and a friend of the Ennis family. In 1938, Ennis confides in Colm that he intends to move to England to join the British Army. Colm immediately offers him a job at The Three Candles Press. There Ennis learns all aspects of the printing trade. This includes writing down slow airs for printed scores – a skill which later proves important. Colm is director of an Irish language choir, An Claisceadal, which Ennis joins. In 1942, during The Emergency, shortages and rationing mean that things become difficult in the printing trade. Professor Seamus Ó Duilearge of the Irish Folklore Commission hires the 23-year-old to collect songs. He is given “pen, paper and pushbike” and a salary of three pounds per week. Off he goes to Connemara.

From 1942 to 1947, working for the Irish Folklore Commission, Ennis collects songs in west Munster; counties Galway, Cavan, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry; the Aran Islands and the Scottish Hebrides. His knowledge of Scottish Gaelic enables him to transcribe much of the John Lorne Campbell collection of songs. Elizabeth Cronin of Ballyvourney, County Cork, is so keen to chat to Ennis on his visits that she writes down her own songs and hands them over as he arrives, and then gets down to conversation. He has a natural empathy with the musicians and singers he meets. In August 1947, he starts work as an outside broadcast officer with Raidió Éireann. He is a presenter and records Willie Clancy, Seán Reid and Micho Russell for the first time. There is an air of authority in his voice. In 1951, Alan Lomax and Jean Ritchie arrived from the United States to record Irish songs and tunes. The tables are turned as Ennis becomes the subject of someone else’s collection. There is a photograph from 1952/53 showing Ritchie huddled over the tape recorder while Ennis plays uilleann pipes.

Late in 1951, Ennis joins the BBC. He moves to London to work with producer Brian George. In 1952, he marries Margaret Glynn. They have two children, the organist Catherine Ennis and Christopher. His job is to record the traditional music of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and to present it on the BBC Home Service. The programme is called As I Roved Out and runs until 1958. Meeting up with Alan Lomax again, he is largely responsible for the album Folk and Primitive Music (volume on Ireland) on the Columbia Records label.

In 1958, after his contract with the BBC is not renewed, Ennis starts doing freelance work, first in England then back in Ireland, with the new TV station Teilifis Éireann. Soon he is relying totally on his musical ability to make a living. About this time, his marriage breaks down and he returns to Ireland. He suffers from tuberculosis and is ill for some time. In 1964, he performs at the Newport Folk Festival. His father gives him the pipes he had bought in 1908. Although most pipers can be classed as playing in a tight style or an open style, Ennis is in between. He is a master of the slow air, knowing how to decorate long notes with taste and discreet variation.

Two events will live in legend among pipers. The first is in Bettystown, County Meath, in 1968, when the society of Irish pipers, Na Píobairí Uilleann, is formed. Breandán Breathnach is playing a tape of his own piping. Ennis asks, “What year?” Breandán replies, “1948.” Ennis says, “So I thought.” For a couple of hours the younger players perform while Ennis sits in silence. Eventually he is asked to play. Slowly he takes off his coat and rolls up his sleeves. He spends 20 minutes tuning up his 130-year-old pipes. He then asks the gathering whether all the tape recorders are ready and proceeds to play for over an hour. To everyone’s astonishment he then offers his precious pipes to Willie Clancy to play a set. Clancy demurs but eventually gives in. Next, Liam O’Flynn is asked to play them, and so on, round the room. The second unforgettable session is in Dowlings’ Pub in Prosperous, County Kildare. Christy Moore is there, as well as most of the future members of Planxty.

Ennis never runs any school of piping but his enthusiasm infuses everyone he meets. In the early 1970s, he shares a house with Liam O’Flynn for almost three years. Finally, he purchases a piece of land in Naul and lives in a mobile home there. One of his last performances is at the Willie Clancy Summer School in 1982. He dies on October 5, 1982. His pipes are bequeathed to Liam O’Flynn. Radio producer Peter Browne produces a compilation of his performances, called The Return from Fingal, spanning 40 years.

Séamus Ennis Road in his native Finglas is named in his honour. The Séamus Ennis Arts Centre in Naul is opened in his honour, to commemorate his work and to promote the traditional arts. He is also the subject of Christy Moore’s song “The Easter Snow.” This is the title of a slow air Ennis used to play, and one after which he named his final home in Naul.


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Birth of Banjo Player Gerry O’Connor

Gerry O’Connor, traditional tenor banjo player, is born on July 21, 1960, in Nenagh, County Tipperary. As Earl Hitchener, music critic for The Wall Street Journal, says, O’Connor can be considered at the moment “the single best four-string banjoist in the history of Irish Music.” He also plays mandolin, fiddle, guitar and tenor guitar.

O’Connor releases four solo albums and his third one, titled No Place Like Home, is named by The Irish Times as Number 1 Traditional/Folk album of the year in 2004. After the sudden death of banjo player Barney McKenna on April 5, 2012, he joins The Dubliners to complete their planned tour, until the final shows at Vicar Street in Dublin, on December 28-30. McKenna himself says about Gerry O’Connor: “He’s my best pupil ever.” Together with Eamonn Campbell, Patsy Watchorn and Seán Cannon, O’Connor keeps touring in 2013 as The Dublin Legends.

In addition to his solo performances and recordings, O’Connor is a member of Four Men and a Dog. He also works on Michael Flatley‘s Lord of the Dance soundtrack and guests over the years with many famous Irish artists such as The Waterboys, Mary Black, Arcady, Moya Brennan, Luka Bloom, Sharon Shannon and performs for U.S. President Bill Clinton in Belfast during his historic visit to Ireland. More recently he guests on Christy Moore‘s album Folk Tale (2011).

O’Connor is one of four musicians brought together by blues rock singer/guitar player Joe Bonamassa to perform on a variety of instruments in an acoustic concert at the Vienna State Opera on July 3, 2012. None of the five had ever worked together nor even met until they arrive in Vienna, where three days later they put on a live performance. The event is released on March 12, 2013, on CD and DVD/Blu-Ray, titled An Acoustic Evening At The Vienna Opera House, and in 2014 is broadcast as a PBS special.

O’Connor mainly plays CGDA tuned tenor banjo, instead of the usual Irish tuning GDAE. He plays a David Boyle banjo on almost every tour since 1996, but usually records with an Epiphone Recording A banjo.


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Birth of Liam O’Flynn, Uilleann Piper & Traditional Musician

Liam O’Flynn, Irish uilleann piper and Irish traditional musician, is born on September 15, 1945, in Kill, County Kildare. In addition to a solo career and as a member of Planxty, he records with Christy Moore, Dónal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, The Everly Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Mike Oldfield, Mary Black, Enya and Sinéad O’Connor.

O’Flynn is acknowledged as Ireland’s foremost exponent of the uilleann pipes and brings the music of the instrument to a worldwide audience. In 2007, he is named TG4 Musician of the Year at the Gradam Ceoil TG4, considered to be the foremost recognition given to traditional Irish musicians.

O’Flynn is born to musical parents. His father, Liam, is a teacher and fiddle player. His mother, Maisie (née Scanlan), who comes from a family of musicians from County Clare, plays and teaches piano. From an early age, he shows musical talent, and is encouraged to pursue his interest in the uilleann pipes by the piper Tom Armstrong. At the age of 11, he begins taking classes with Leo Rowsome. He is also influenced by Willie Clancy and Séamus Ennis. In the 1960s, he begins to receive recognition of his talent, winning prizes at the Oireachtas na Gaeilge and the Fleadh Cheoil. During his early years, he is sometimes billed as Liam Óg Ó Flynn.

In 1972, O’Flynn co-founds the Irish traditional music group Planxty, alongside Christy Moore, Andy Irvine and Dónal Lunny and remains a member throughout the band’s various incarnations. While Seán Ó Riada and The Chieftains had reinvigorated Irish traditional instrumental music in an ensemble format during the 1960s, Planxty builds on that foundation and takes it one step further. They bring a punch and vitality to acoustic music that draws heavily on O’Flynn’s piping virtuosity.

As O’Flynn grows in his skill as a musician and as he begins to meet pipers like Willie Clancy and Séamus Ennis, he becomes acutely aware of his position in the tradition of piping. His subsequent close friendship with Ennis, which starts as a master/pupil relationship, teaches him that there is much more to being a piper than playing tunes. He notes, “Seamus Ennis gave me much more than a bag of notes.”

“When I’m playing, I’m certainly lost within it. The only way to describe it, is that it’s like looking inwards. I think when a performer engages with the audience, and vice versa, it’s like a spell is cast and a terrific passage of feelings moves from the musician to the audience and back again.”

Following the break-up of Planxty in 1983, O’Flynn finds work as a session musician with such prominent artists as The Everly Brothers, Enya, Kate Bush, Nigel Kennedy, Rita Connolly, and Mark Knopfler. He also works on film scores, including Kidnapped (1979) and A River Runs Through It (1992). He is adventurous enough to work with avant-garde composer John Cage, but his most natural alliance is with neo-romantic composer Shaun Davey.

The Bothy Band are natural successors to the original Planxty, and one of its members, Matt Molloy, who subsequently joins The Chieftains, plays with The Chieftains’ fiddler Seán Keane on O’Flynn’s album, The Piper’s Call, which is performed in the 1999 BBC Proms season at the Royal Albert Hall. He also works on projects with Seamus Heaney, mixing poetry with music.

O’Flynn’s name is mentioned in Christy Moore’s song “Lisdoonvarna.”

O’Flynn dies in a Dublin hospital on March 14, 2018, following a long illness. His cremated remains rest at Newlands Cross Cemetery and Crematorium in Dublin.

The Liam O’Flynn Award is awarded each year by the Arts Council and the National Concert Hall to recognise individual creativity in Traditional Irish music. Awardees include Úna Monaghan, Barry Kerr, Jack Talty, Louise Mulcahy and Strange Boy (aka Jordan Kelly).


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Birth of Paul Brady, Irish Singer-Songwriter

Paul Joseph Brady, Irish singer-songwriter and musician, is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on May 19, 1947. Interested in a wide variety of music from an early age, his work straddles folk and pop.

Brady is raised in the small town of Strabane in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on the border with County Donegal, Republic of Ireland. His father Seán Brady and mother Mollie Brady (née McElholm) are schoolteachers. He is educated at Sion Mills Primary School, St. Columb’s College, Derry and University College Dublin (UCD). He is featured in the documentary film The Boys of St. Columb’s.

Brady begins learning piano around age six and by the age of eleven he has begun to play guitar, spending hours of his school holidays learning every song that the Shadows had recorded. He is also influenced by Chuck Berry.

In 1963, Brady begins performing as a piano player in a hotel in Bundoran, County Donegal. In October 1964, he attends University College Dublin and performs with a number of R&B groups, covering songs by the likes of Ray Charles and James Brown. The first of these is the Inmates (late 1964–about April 1965), which evolves into the Kult (about April–December 1965), featuring Brady, Jackie McAuley (ex-Them, and future Belfast Gypsies and Trader Horne), Brendan Bonass, and Dave Pennefather. He can be seen in the documentary film Charlie Is My Darling waiting outside Dublin‘s Adelphi Cinema for the Rolling Stones‘ concert of September 3, 1965. He next joins Rootzgroup (late 1965–May 1966) and Rockhouse (about May–December 1966).

During Brady’s time at college in Dublin, the country sees a huge rise in interest in traditional Irish music. He joins the popular Irish band The Johnstons when Michael Johnston leaves in May 1967. They move to London in 1969 and subsequently to New York City in 1972 to expand their audience. Despite some success, he returns to Ireland in 1974 to join the Irish group Planxty, the band that subsequently launches the solo careers of Andy Irvine, Liam O’Flynn, Dónal Lunny, and Christy Moore.

When Planxty disbands in late 1975, Brady forms a duo with Irvine from 1976 to 1978, a partnership that produces the successful album, Andy Irvine/Paul Brady. The next few years see him establish his popularity and reputation as one of Ireland’s best interpreters of traditional songs. His versions of ballads like “Arthur McBride” and “The Lakes of Pontchartrain” are considered definitive and are still popular at concerts today. In 1975 in New York, he records three albums for Shanachie Records as guitar accompanist to resident Irish fiddlers Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds and John Vesey. He also records a 1976 album, The High Part of the Road, for the same label with Irish fiddler Tommy Peoples.

In 1978, Brady releases his first solo album, Welcome Here Kind Stranger, which wins him critical acclaim and is voted the “Folk Album of the Year” by Melody Maker magazine. However, it proves to be his last album covering traditional material. He decides to delve into pop and rock music and releases his first album of this genre in 1981, Hard Station.

Brady releases a number of successful solo albums throughout the 1980s: True for You (1983), Back to the Centre (1985), and Primitive Dance (1987). By the end of the decade, he is recognised and accepted as a respected performer and songwriter. His songs are being covered by a number of other artists, including Santana and Dave Edmunds.

When Tina Turner hears a demo of his song “Paradise Is Here,” she records it for her Break Every Rule album of 1986. By now, he is a favourite songwriter among such artists as Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt, who does a duet with him on his 1991 album, Trick or Treat. A couple of his songs soon appeared on Raitt’s album Luck of the Draw, including the title track.

Dylan is sufficiently impressed by Brady’s work to name-check him in the booklet of his 1985 box set, Biograph. The actual quote is “(…) people get too famous too fast these days and it destroys them. Some guys got it down – Leonard Cohen, Paul Brady, Lou Reed, secret heroes, John Prine, David Allen Coe, Tom Waits. I listen more to that kind of stuff than whatever is popular at the moment. They’re not just witchdoctoring up the planet, they don’t set up barriers (…)”.

In 1991, Brady reaches number 5 in the Irish Singles Chart with Nobody Knows.

Since his Hard Station album (1981), Brady is on various major labels until he creates his own label, PeeBee Music, in the late 1990s. He releases three albums in the 1990s: Trick or Treat, Songs & Crazy Dreams (a remixed compilation of earlier songs) and Spirits Colliding, which are met with critical acclaim. Trick or Treat is on Fontana/Mercury Records and receives a lot of promotion. As a result, some critics consider it his debut album and note that the record benefits from the expertise of experienced studio musicians, as well as producer Gary Katz, who works with the rock group Steely Dan. Rolling Stone, after praising his earlier but less-known solo records, calls Trick or Treat Brady’s “most compelling collection.”

Brady goes on to record several other albums, fifteen in total since going solo in 1978, and collaborates with a number of other established musicians including Bonnie Raitt and Richard Thompson. In 2006, he collaborates with Cara Dillon on the track “The Streets of Derry” from her album After the Morning. He also works with Fiachra Trench.

Brady performs Irish language songs as a character in the 2002 Matthew Barney film Cremaster 3. He also plays tin whistle on the single “One” by Greg Pearle in 2008, from the album Beautiful You, a collaboration between Greg Pearle and John Illsley. This song is featured in the 2008 film Anton, directed by Graham Cantwell.

Brady’s fifteenth studio album, Hooba Dooba, is released in March 2010.

In 2017, a friendship is struck with Theo Katzman (Vulfpeck) and Brady tours Ireland in 2019 as half of this duo with Joe Dart, also of vulfpeck, Louis Cato and Lee Pardini. He continues to tour, record and collaborate with other artists. In 2019, Jimmy Buffett begins performing a cover of Brady’s hit, “The World is What you Make It.” In September 2019, Brady joins Buffett on his tour stops in both Dublin and London.

Brady releases the album Unfinished Business on his own label, PeeBee Music, licensed to Proper Music UK, in 2017.

While Brady and Andy Irvine’s planned tour of their 1976 album Andy Irvine/Paul Brady is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they finish the tour in 2022. Musicians to join them on the tour include fiddle player Kevin Burke and multi-instrumentalist Dónal Lunny, both of whom had played on the original album.

In 2009, Brady receives an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster, in recognition of his services to traditional Irish music and songwriting.


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Death of Charles Donnelly, Poet & Republican Political Activist

Charles Patrick Donnelly, Irish poet, republican and left-wing political activist, is killed on February 27, 1937, fighting on the republican side during the Spanish Civil War.

Donnelly is born in Killybrackey, near Dungannon, County Tyrone, on July 10, 1914, into a family of cattle breeders. His father, Joseph Donnelly, sells his farm in 1917 and the family moves to Dundalk and opens a greengrocer‘s shop. Joseph Donnelly becomes quite prosperous, running his shop, dealing cattle and buying and selling property in the Dundalk area. In addition to Charles, the Donnellys have five other sons and two daughters. His mother, Rose, dies in 1927, when he is 13 years old.

Donnelly receives his early education in the Christian Brothers school in Dundalk. When he is fourteen in 1928, the family moves again, this time to Dublin, where his father purchases a house on Mountjoy Square in the north inner city. He enrolls in O’Connell School on North Frederick Street but is expelled after only a few weeks. He spends the next few months wandering the streets of Dublin during school time before his father discovers what had happened. Also at this time, he meets and is befriended by radical political activists from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Communist Party of Ireland and the left-Republican group Saor Éire.

Donnelly’s father and aunts get him an apprenticeship with a carpenter, but he gives this up after a year to enroll in University College Dublin (UCD) in 1931, where he studies Logic, English, History and the Irish language. In university he begins writing poetry and prose for student publications but fails his first-year examinations. At this time, he also becomes deeply involved in radical left-wing and republican politics. He drops out of university in 1934, having failed his first-year exams three times and joins the radical group, the Republican Congress. There he befriends veteran republicans Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. He also becomes involved in a romantic relationship with another republican activist, Cora Hughes, Éamon de Valera‘s goddaughter and later partner of George Gilmore. In July 1934, he is arrested and imprisoned for two weeks for his role in picketing a Dublin bakery with other Congress members. After this, his father expells him from the family home and he spends a period sleeping in parks around Dublin.

The Republican Congress splits at its first annual meeting in September 1934, but the 20-year-old Donnelly is elected to the National Executive of the truncated organisation. Thereafter, he writes for the Congress newspaper on political and social questions. In January 1935, he is again arrested for assaulting a Garda at a Congress demonstration and is imprisoned for a month. In February 1935, he leaves Ireland for London. In the British capital he forms the first Republican Congress branch in London and becomes its first chairman. He finds employment variously as a dishwasher in pubs and cafes and as a reporter with an international news agency. While in London he remains a regular contributor to the Republican Congress newspaper and various left-wing publications. Together with two other poets, Leslie Daiken and Ewart Milne, he is one of the founders of a duplicated publication called Irish Front, the London journal of the Republican Congress. Daiken admits that many of the Irish Front editions are written almost entirely by Donnelly.

Eoin McNamee recalls Donnelly as “a frail looking Dublin man with a Tyrone background…he was something of an intellectual and clearly the theorist of the Irish Republican Congress in London at that time. He was well versed in Marxism, wrote for the Congress and Communist press, and frequently appeared on left-wing public platforms.”

In July 1936, on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Donnelly urges the Republican Congress to send fighters to the International Brigades. He himself returns to Dublin with the intention of organising such a force. By the end of 1936, he has gone again to London and joins the Brigades. He reaches Spain on January 7, 1937, and at Albacete, meets up with an Irish contingent, led by Frank Ryan, known as the Connolly Column, who had come to Spain to fight on the Republican side. He and his comrades are attached to the American Lincoln Battalion. On February 15, after receiving only rudimentary military training, the Lincoln Battalion is thrown into the Battle of Jarama, near Madrid. Donnelly reaches the front on February 23, where he is promoted to the rank of field commander. On February 27, his unit is sent on a frontal assault on the Nationalist positions on a hill named Pingarrón. The object of the attack is to take the enemy trenches and ultimately to drive them across the Jarama River. He and his unit are pinned down by machine gun fire all day. In the evening, the Nationalists launch a counterattack.

A Canadian veteran recalls, “We ran for cover, Charlie Donnelly, the commander of an Irish company is crouched behind an olive tree. He has picked up a bunch of olives from the ground and is squeezing them. I hear him say something quietly between a lull in machine gun fire: Even the olives are bleeding.” The line later becomes famous.

A few minutes later, as his unit retreats, Donnelly is caught in a burst of gunfire. He is struck three times, in the right arm, the right side and the head. He collapses and dies instantly. His body lay on the battlefield until it is recovered by fellow Irish Brigadier Peter O’Connor on March 10. He is buried at Jarama in an unmarked grave with several of his comrades.

Written by Donnelly’s brother Joseph, a collection of his work, Charlie Donnelly: the Life and Poems, is published in 1987 by Dedalus Press. On the eve of the 71st anniversary of his death, February 26, 2008, he is commemorated with the unveiling of a plaque at his alma mater, UCD, attended by 150 people. The commemoration, organised jointly by a group of UCD students and the Donnelly family, is hosted by the School of English and also includes a lecture by Gerald Dawe on Donnelly’s life and poetry. In April 2008, the UCD branch of the Labour Party is renamed the Charlie Donnelly Branch in his honour.

Donnelly’s friend Blanaid Salkeld commemorates him in her poem “Casualties,” writing “That Charlie Donnelly small and frail/ And flushed with youth was rendered pale/ But not with fear, in what queer squalor/ Was smashed up his so-ordered valour.” A 1976 documentary about the Civil War by Cathal O’Shannon is entitled Even the Olives are Bleeding.

Donnelly is survived by a brother, Joseph, who manages to get many of his poems published in 1987; only five or six are published during his lifetime. Discussing his work, Colm Tóibín says it “mixed an Audenesque exactitude with a youthful romanticism… his poem “The Tolerance of Crows” belongs in any anthology of modern poetry.” In 1992, Donnelly has work included in Dedalus Irish Poets: An Anthology from Dedalus Press.

In 1992 New Island Books publishes Even the Olives Are Bleeding: The Life and Times of Charles Donnelly by Joseph O’Connor. The book is launched by future Irish President Michael D. Higgins.

Donnelly is commemorated in the Christy Moore song Viva La Quinta Brigada.


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Eamonn Casey, Former Bishop of Galway & Kilmacduagh, Returns from Exile

Eamonn Casey, Irish Catholic prelate who serves as bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh from 1976 until his resignation 1992, returns to Ireland on February 5, 2006, following fourteen years in exile. He fled Ireland after he admitted to fathering his son, Peter.

Casey is born on April 24, 1927, in Firies, County Kerry. He is educated in Limerick before training for the priesthood at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. He is ordained a priest for the Diocese of Limerick on June 17, 1951, and appointed Bishop of Kerry on July 17, 1969.

Casey holds this position until 1976, when he is appointed Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh and apostolic administrator of Kilfenora. While in Galway, he is seen as a progressive. It is a significant change in a diocese that had been led for nearly forty years by the very conservative Michael Browne, bishop from 1937 to 1976. He is highly influential in the Irish Catholic hierarchy and a friend and colleague of another highly prominent Irish priest, Father Michael Cleary.

Casey works aiding Irish emigrants in Britain. In addition, he supports the Dunnes Stores‘ staff who are locked out from 1982 to 1986 for refusing to sell goods from apartheid South Africa.

Casey attends the funeral of the murdered Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Óscar Romero. He witnesses first-hand the massacre of those attending the funeral by government forces. He then becomes a vocal opponent of United States foreign policy in Central America, and, as a result, opposes the 1984 visit of United States President Ronald Reagan to Ireland, refusing to meet him when he comes to Galway.

In 1992 it is reported that, despite the vow of chastity undertaken by Catholic clergy, Casey has a sexual relationship in the early 1970s with American woman Annie Murphy. When Murphy becomes pregnant, he is determined that the child should be given up for adoption in order to avoid any scandal for himself or the Catholic church. By contrast, Murphy is determined to accept responsibility for her child, and she returns to the United States with their son, Peter, who is born in 1974 in Dublin. He makes covert payments for the boy’s maintenance, fraudulently made from diocesan funds and channeled through intermediaries. In order to continue the cover up of his affair with Murphy and his fraudulent activities, he refuses to develop a relationship with his son, or acknowledge him. Murphy is very disappointed by this, and in the early 1990s contacts The Irish Times to tell the truth about Casey’s hypocrisy and deception. Having been exposed, he reluctantly admits that he had “sinned” and wronged the boy, his mother and “God, his church and the clergy and people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry,” and his embezzlement of church funds. He is forced to resign as bishop and flees the country under a cloud of scandal. He is succeeded by his secretary, James McLoughlin, who serves in the post until his own retirement on July 3, 2005.

Murphy publishes a book, Forbidden Fruit, in 1993 revealing the truth of their relationship and the son she bore by Casey, exposing the institutional level of hypocrisy, moral corruption and misogyny within the Irish Catholic Church.

Casey is ordered by the Vatican to leave Ireland and become a missionary alongside members of the Missionary Society of St. James in a rural parish in Ecuador, whose language, Spanish, he does not speak. During this time, he travels long distances to reach the widely scattered members of his parish but does not travel to meet his own son. After his missionary position is completed, he takes a position in the parish of St. Pauls, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England.

In 2005, Casey is investigated in conjunction with the sexual abuse scandal in Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora diocese, and cleared of any wrongdoing. In 2019, it emerges that he had faced at least three accusations of sexual abuse before his death, with two High Court cases being settled. The Kerry diocese confirms that it had received allegations against him, that Gardaí and health authorities had been informed and that the person concerned was offered support by the diocese.

Casey returns to Ireland on February 5, 2006, with his reputation in tatters, and is not permitted to say Mass in public.

In August 2011, Casey, in poor health, is admitted to a nursing home in County Clare. He dies on March 13, 2017, a month before his 90th birthday. He is interred in Galway cathedral’s crypt.

Casey is the subject of Martin Egan’s song “Casey,” sung by Christy Moore. He is also the subject of The Saw Doctors‘ song “Howya Julia.”


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Birth of Michael O’Riordan, Founder of the Communist Party of Ireland

Michael O’Riordan, the founder of the Communist Party of Ireland who also fights with the Connolly Column in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, is born at 37 Pope’s Quay, Cork, County Cork, on November 12, 1917.

O’Riordan is the youngest of five children. His parents come from the West Cork Gaeltacht of Ballingeary–Gougane Barra. Despite his parents being native speakers of the Irish language, it is not until he is interned in the Curragh Camp during World War II that he learns Irish, being taught by fellow internee Máirtín Ó Cadhain, who goes on to lecture at Trinity College, Dublin.

As a teenager, O’Riordan joins the Irish nationalist youth movement, Fianna Éireann, and then the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA at the time is inclined toward left-wing politics and socialism. Much of its activity concerns street fighting with the quasi-fascist Blueshirt movement and he fights Blueshirt fascism on the streets of Cork in 1933–34. He is friends with left-wing inclined republicans such as Peadar O’Donnell and Frank Ryan, and in 1934, he follows them into the Republican Congress, a short-lived socialist republican party.

O’Riordan joins the Communist Party of Ireland in 1935 while still in the IRA and works on the communist newspaper The Irish Workers’ Voice. In 1937, following the urgings of Peadar O’Donnell, several hundred Irishmen, mostly IRA or ex-IRA men, go to fight for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War with the XVth International Brigade. They are motivated in part by enmity towards the 800 or so Blueshirts, led by Eoin O’Duffy who go to Spain to fight on the “nationalist” side in the Irish Brigade. He accompanies a party led by Frank Ryan. In the Republic’s final offensive of July 25, 1938, he carries the flag of Catalonia across the River Ebro. On August 1, he is severely injured by shrapnel on the Ebro front. He is repatriated to Ireland the following month, after the International Brigades are disbanded.

In 1938 O’Riordan is offered an Irish Army commission by the Irish Free State but chooses instead to train IRA units in Cork. As a result of his IRA activities during World War II, or the Emergency as it is known in neutral Ireland, he is interned in the Curragh internment camp from 1939 until 1943 where he is Officer Commanding of the Cork Hut and partakes in Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Gaelic League classes as well as publishing Splannc (Irish for “Spark,” named after Vladimir Lenin‘s newspaper).

In 1944 O’Riordan is founding secretary of the Liam Mellows Branch of the Labour Party and in 1945 is a founding secretary of the Cork Socialist Party, whose other notable members include Derry Kelleher, Kevin Neville and Máire Keohane-Sheehan.

O’Riordan subsequently works as a bus conductor in Cork and is active in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU). In 1946 he stands as a Cork Socialist Party candidate in the Cork Borough by-election and afterwards moves to Dublin where he lives in Victoria Street with his wife Kay Keohane of Clonakilty, continues to work as a bus conductor and remains active in the ITGWU.

In 1947, O’Riordan is a founding secretary of the Irish Workers’ League and general secretary thereafter, and of its successor organisation the Irish Workers’ Party from 1962–70.

In the 1960s, O’Riordan is a pivotal figure in the Dublin Housing Action Committee which agitates for clearances of Dublin’s slums and for the building of social housing. There, he befriends Fr. Austin Flannery, leading Minister for Finance and future Taoiseach Charles Haughey to dismiss Flannery as “a gullible cleric” while the Minister for Local Government, Kevin Boland, describes him as a “so-called cleric” for sharing a platform with O’Riordan.

In all O’Riordan runs for election five times, campaigning throughout for the establishment of a socialist republic in Ireland but given Ireland’s Catholic conservatism and fear of communism, he does so without success. He does, however, receive playwright Sean O’Casey‘s endorsement in 1951.

O’Riordan’s participation in the Spanish Civil War is always an important part of his political identity. In 1966 he attends the International Brigades’ Reunion in Berlin and is instrumental in having Frank Ryan’s remains repatriated from Germany to Ireland in 1979.

O’Riordan is a member of the Irish Chile Solidarity Committee and attends the 1st Party Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1984. He also campaigns on behalf of the Birmingham Six and attends their Appeal trial in 1990. He serves as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland (1970–83) and as National Chairman of the party (1983–88). He publishes many articles under the auspices of the CPI.

O’Riordan’s last major public outing comes in 2005 at the re-dedication of the memorial outside Dublin’s Liberty Hall to the Irish veterans of the Spanish Civil War. He and other veterans are received by President of Ireland Mary McAleese. He is also presented with Cuba’s Medal of Friendship by the Cuban Consul Teresita Trujillo to Ireland on behalf of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

In 1969, according to Soviet dissident Vasili Mitrokhin, O’Riordan is approached by IRA leaders Cathal Goulding and Seamus Costello with a view to obtaining guns from the Soviet KGB to defend Irish republican areas of Belfast during the communal violence that marks the outbreak of the Troubles. Mitrokhin alleges that O’Riordan then contacts the Kremlin, but the consignment of arms does not reach Ireland until 1972. The operation is known as Operation Splash. The IRA splits in the meantime between the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA and it is the latter faction who receives the Soviet arms. Mitrokhin’s allegations are repeated in Boris Yeltsin‘s autobiography.

O’Riordan’s book, Connolly Column – The Story of the Irishmen who fought for the Spanish Republic 1936–1939, is published in 1979 and deals with the Irish volunteers of the International Brigade who fought in support of the Spanish Republic against Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). An updated version of the book is reprinted in 2005 and is launched by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr. Michael Conaghan at a book launch at SIPTU headquarters, Liberty Hall. The book is the inspiration for Irish singer-songwriter Christy Moore‘s famous song “Viva la Quinta Brigada.”

In 1991, O’Riordan’s wife dies at the age of 81 at their home. He continues to live in their family home before moving to Glasnevin in 2000 to be close to his son Manus who lives nearby. He lives there until falling ill in November 2005 and is taken to the Mater Hospital. His health rapidly deteriorates, and he quickly develops Alzheimer’s disease. Soon afterwards he is moved to St. Mary’s Hospital in the Phoenix Park where he spends the final few months of his life, before his death at the age of 88 on May 18, 2006.

O’Riordan’s funeral at Glasnevin Crematorium is attended by over a thousand mourners. Following a wake the previous night at Finglas Road, hundreds turn up outside the house of his son Manus and traffic grounds to a halt as family, friends and comrades – many of whom are waving the red flag of the Communist Party of Ireland – escort O’Riordan to Glasnevin Cemetery. A secular ceremony takes place led by Manus O’Riordan, Head of Research at SIPTU, with contributions from O’Riordan’s family, Communist Party general secretary Eugene McCartan and IBMT representative Pauline Frasier.

The funeral congregation includes politicians such as Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte, his predecessor Ruairi Quinn, party front-bencher Joan Burton, Sinn Féin TD Seán Crowe and councillor Larry O’Toole, ex-Workers’ Party leader Tomás Mac Giolla and former Fianna Fáil MEP Niall Andrews. Also in attendance are union leaders Jack O’Connor (SIPTU), Mick O’Reilly (ITGWU) and David Begg (ICTU). Actors Patrick Bergin, Jer O’Leary, singer Ronnie Drew, artist Robert Ballagh, and newsreader Anne Doyle are also among the mourners. Tributes are paid by President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and Labour Party TDs Ruairi Quinn and Michael D. Higgins.


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Birth of Singer-Songwriter Luka Bloom

Kevin Barry Moore, Irish folk singer-songwriter best known as Luka Bloom, is born on May 23, 1955 in Newbridge, County Kildare. He is the younger brother of folk singer Christy Moore.

Moore’s parents are Andy Moore and Nancy Power, who had already raised three daughters and two other sons. He attends a Patrician Brothers primary school and later studies at Newbridge College, run by the Dominican Order. In college he forms the group Aes Triplex with his brother Andy and a school friend. He later attends a college in Limerick, but he drops out after a couple of years to pursue a music career.

In 1969, 14-year-old Moore embarks on a tour supporting his eldest brother, Christy Moore, at various English folk clubs. After the tour he spends all of his time practising and writing music. In 1976, Christy records one of his songs “Wave up to the Shore.” In 1977, he tours Germany and England as part of the group Inchiquin.

In 1978, Moore releases his debut album, Treaty Stone. In 1979, having normally played guitar using a finger-picking technique, he is afflicted with tendonitis and is forced to learn to play with a plectrum, which alters his guitar style. That same year, he moves to Groningen in the Netherlands. In 1980, he records and releases his second album, In Groningen. In 1982, he releases his third album, No Heroes, which contains songs all written by Moore himself. For three years, from 1983 to 1986, he is the front-man for the Dublin-based band Red Square. During this time, in 1984, his son Robbie is born.

In 1987, Moore moves to the United States and begins performing using the stage name of “Luka Bloom.” He chooses the name “Luka” from the title of Suzanne Vega‘s song about child abuse and “Bloom” from the main character in James Joyce‘s novel Ulysses. Initially he lives and performs primarily in Washington D.C., but in late 1987 he moves to New York City. The following year, he releases his first album – later withdrawn – under the name Luka Bloom.

In 1990, Bloom releases his album Riverside, which includes the song “The Man Is Alive.” The album is recorded in New York, with its lyrics reflecting his experiences living and performing in that city. In 1991, he returns to Dublin to record The Acoustic Motorbike, which includes a cover version of LL Cool J‘s “I Need Love.” The cover song is reviewed by Rolling Stone magazine, noting that “the prospect of a folksy Irish rocker covering a rap ballad may seem strange, but experimenting with different forms is precisely what keeps established traditions vital.”

In 1993, Bloom again returns to Ireland to record the album Turf, this time with producer Brian Masterson and sound engineer Paul Ashe-Browne. The album attempts to capture the sound of a live performance, and is recorded in front of an audience that is asked to remain as quiet as possible. In 1998, he releases Salty Heaven, an album inspired by his return to Ireland.

Bloom’s early albums showcase his frenetic strumming style, including “Delirious,” the debut track on Riverside, and his penchant for thoughtful cover songs, an affinity that he maintains even in more recent work. In addition to his LL Cool J cover, he also covers Elvis Presley‘s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” on the album The Acoustic Motorbike.

Released in 2000, Keeper of the Flame is an album of cover versions featuring renditions of ABBA‘s “Dancing Queen,” Bob Marley‘s “Natural Mystic,” and the Hunters & Collectors‘ “Throw Your Arms Around Me,” among others. His 2004 acoustic mini-album, Before Sleep Comes, is recorded while he is recovering from tendinitis. He states that the purpose of the album is “to help bring you closer to sleep, our sometimes elusive night-friend.”

In 2005, Bloom releases the album Innocence. Some of the songs feature a new-found interest in Eastern European Romani music and other world music. The album features him playing classical guitar, and the resonant plucking associated with that style of instrument. In his previous work, he relies almost exclusively on steel-stringed acoustic guitars that created his distinctive style. In 2007, he releases the album Tribe, a collaboration with County Clare musician Simon O’Reilly. O’Reilly composes the music and sends the recordings to Bloom for him to complete with lyrics and singing.

In February 2008, Bloom releases a DVD titled The Man is Alive, featuring footage filmed in Dublin and at his home in Kildare, a question and answer session with fans, the documentary My Name is Luka, and a CD of music taken from the two performances. In September of that year, he releases the album Eleven Songs, which features an expanded ensemble of instrumentation, giving the album a distinct sound within his catalogue.


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Thin Lizzy Reaches No. 1 with “Whiskey In The Jar”

Irish rock band Thin Lizzy reaches No. 1 on the Irish Singles Chart with its rendition of “Whiskey In The Jar” on December 19, 1972.

“Whiskey in the Jar” is the tale of a highwayman or footpad who, after robbing a military or government official, is betrayed by a woman; whether she is his wife or sweetheart is not made clear. Various versions of the song take place in County Kerry, Kilmoganny, Cork, Sligo and other locales throughout Ireland. It is also sometimes placed in the American South, in various places among the Ozarks or Appalachians, possibly due to Irish settlement in these places. Names in the song change, and the official can be a Captain or a Colonel, called Farrell or Pepper among other names. The protagonist’s wife or lover is sometimes called Molly, Jenny, Emzy, or Ginny among various other names. The details of the betrayal are also different, being either betraying him to the person he robbed and replacing his ammunition with sand or water, or not, resulting in his killing the person.

The song first gains wide exposure when Irish folk band The Dubliners perform it internationally as a signature song, and record it on three albums in the 1960s. In the United States, the song is popularized by The Highwaymen, who record it on their 1962 album Encore. The song has also been recorded by singers and folk groups such as Roger Whittaker, The Irish Rovers, Seven Nations, Off Kilter, King Creosote, Brobdingnagian Bards, Charlie Zahm, and Christy Moore.

Thin Lizzy’s 1972 single (bonus track on Vagabonds of the Western World [1991 edition]) stays at the top of the Irish charts for 17 weeks, and the British release stays in the top 30 for 12 weeks, peaking at No. 6, in 1973. This version has since been covered by U2, Pulp (first released on a 1996 various artist compilation album Childline and later on deluxe edition of Different Class in 2006), Smokie, Metallica (Garage Inc. in 1998, which wins a Grammy Award), Belle and Sebastian (The Blues Are Still Blue EP in 2006), Gary Moore (2006), Nicky Moore (Top Musicians Play Thin Lizzy in 2008), Simple Minds (Searching for the Lost Boys in 2009), Blaggards (Live in Texas in 2010) and Israeli musician Izhar Ashdot. The song is also on the Grateful Dead live compilation So Many Roads (1965-1995) disc five.


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Birth of Dónal Lunny, Irish Folk Musician & Producer

donal-lunny

Dónal Lunny, Irish folk musician and producer, is born on March 10, 1947, in Tullamore, County Offaly. He plays left-handed guitar and bouzouki, as well as keyboards and bodhrán. As a founding member of popular bands Planxty, The Bothy Band, Moving Hearts, Coolfin, Mozaik, LAPD, and Usher’s Island, he has been at the forefront of the renaissance of Irish traditional music for over five decades.

Lunny attends secondary school at Newbridge College and, in 1963, joins the Patrician Brothers’ school for the Intermediate Certificate year. As a teenager, he joins an occasional trio called Rakes of Kildare, with his elder brother Frank and Christy Moore. They play mostly in pubs and are also booked for a couple of gigs, one at Hugh Neeson’s pub in Newbridge for Easter Monday in 1966.

In 1965, Lunny enrolls at Dublin‘s National College of Art & Design where he studies Basic Design and Graphic Design. He also develops an interest in metalwork leading him to become a skilled gold-and-silversmith, although he only practises the craft for a short time before devoting his energies fully to music. During his time in Dublin, he plays in a band called The Parnell Folk, with Mick Moloney, Sean Corcoran, Johnny Morrissey and Dan Maher.

When Moving Hearts breaks up in 1985, Lunny diversifies and becomes a producer. He is closely involved in the establishment of a new Irish record label, Mulligan Records (acquired in 2008 by Compass Records), and produces and plays on many of its early releases.

Lunny is the producer and music director of the soundtrack of Bringing It All Back Home, a BBC Television documentary series charting the influence of Irish music throughout the world. He produces albums for Paul Brady, Elvis Costello, Indigo Girls, Sinéad O’Connor, Clannad, Maurice Lennon, Baaba Maal, and Five Guys Named Moe. He appears on the compilation albums The Gathering (1981) and Common Ground (1996). In 1994, he produces Irish Australian singer/songwriter Mairéid Sullivan’s first recording, Dancer.

Lunny pushes new boundaries with his band Coolfin (1998) which includes uilleann piper John McSherry. He appears at the 2000 Cambridge Folk Festival, and the album that commemorates it. In 2001 he collaborates with Frank Harte on the album My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte. He produces the album Human Child (2007) by Faeroese Eivør Pálsdóttir, which is published in two versions, one English and one Faeroese.

As an arranger, Lunny works for The Waterboys, Fairground Attraction and Eddi Reader. Journey (2000) is a retrospective album. During 2003–2005, he is part of the reunited Planxty concert tour. He also produces Jimmy MacCarthy‘s album entitled Hey-Ho Believe, which is released on November 12, 2010.

Lunny is the brother of musician and producer Manus Lunny. He has a son, Shane, whose mother is singer Sinéad O’Connor.

(Pictured: Dónal Lunny at the Craiceann Bodhrán Festival 2016, Inis Oirr)