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Tag Archives: Dónal Lunny


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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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Birth of Matt Molloy, Flautist & Member of The Chieftains

Matt Molloy, Irish musician and member of The Chieftains, is born on January 12, 1947, at Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon, a region known for producing talented flautists. Coming from a strong musical background, he is considered as one of the most brilliant Irish musicians, his style that adapts piping techniques to the flute has influenced many contemporary Irish flute players.

As a child, Molloy begins playing the flute at age 8 and by the age of 18 he wins the All-Ireland Flute Championship and has a string of successes in National Fleadh Cheoil and Oireachtas. He moves to Dublin in the mid 1960s where he starts playing in the music scene and becomes acquainted with Paddy Moloney.

During the burgeoning folk scene of the 1970s, Molloy is a founding member of the famous Irish traditional band, The Bothy Band. After the Bothy Band, he appears briefly with the reformed group, Planxty. He joins The Chieftains in 1979, replacing Michael Tubridy. The Chieftains 9: Boil the Breakfast Early is his first album with The Chieftains.

Over the course of his career, Molloy has released several highly acclaimed solo albums and has worked with other accomplished musicians. He has teamed up with Paul Brady, Tommy Peoples, Micheál Ó Súilleabháin, Dónal Lunny and the Irish Chamber Orchestra among other artists.

In addition to playing, Molloy owns a pub on Bridge Street in Westport, County Mayo, called Matt Molloy’s, where he has recorded a live session album. His pub is well known for having sessions including many different musicians.

The flutes used in traditional Irish music are called concert flutes. These are the standard instruments found in orchestras during the 19th century, prior to the introduction of Boehm system flutes circa 1843. They are conical-bore, transverse flutes, typically constructed of blackwood. They are played using ‘simple system’ (keyless) fingering or ‘old system’ (four to eight keys) fingering. They have a more robust and breathy tone compared to metal flutes.

In addition to the flute, Molloy plays the tin whistle, though not very often. The tin whistle is a vertical fipple-flute. The fipple is the duct in the mouthpiece that directs air to produce sound. The first tin whistles of the 1800s were rolled plates of tin forming a tube, with a wooden block in the mouthpiece carved to form the fipple. Today’s tin whistles are made of metals including nickel-silver, brass and aluminum. They have a range of two octaves, and are made in a wide range of keys.


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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)


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Birth of Andy Irvine, Musician & Singer-Songwriter

Andrew Kennedy Irvine, known as Andy Irvine, Irish folk musician and singer-songwriter, is born on June 14, 1942 in St. John’s Wood, London, England to an Irish mother from Lisburn, County Antrim, and a Scottish father from Glasgow. He is a founding member of popular bands Sweeney’s Men, Planxty, Patrick Street, Mozaik, LAPD and Usher’s Island. He plays the mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, harmonica and hurdy-gurdy.

Irvine has been influential in folk music for over five decades, during which he records a large repertoire of songs and tunes he assembles from books, old recordings and folk-song collectors rooted in the Irish, English, Scottish, Eastern European, Australian and American old-time and folk traditions. He sets these songs to new music and also writes songs about his personal experiences or the lives and struggles of his heroes, including Tom Barker, Michael Davitt, Mother Jones, Douglas Mawson, Raoul Wallenberg, and Emiliano Zapata.

Imbued with a sense of social justice, Irvine often selects or writes songs that are based on historical events and presented from the victim’s perspective. Some of these songs chronicle the abject living and working conditions imposed on groups of people such as the emigrants, the brutalized migrant workers, the exploited textile strikers or coalminers. Other songs recall the archetypal experiences of single individuals – the woman seduced by an unfaithful man or disowned by her father, the destitute young man ostracized or murdered on the order of his sweetheart’s rich father, the down-on-his-luck farmer or the unemployed worker, the young man inveigled by the army’s recruiting sergeant, the scapegoats. Irvine’s songs also denounce worker deaths and industrial diseases, and lament the plight of hunted animals. His repertoire includes humorous songs, but also bittersweet ones of unrequited love, or of lovers cruelly separated or dramatically reunited. He also sings about famous racehorses, men or women masquerading in various disguises, a fantastical fox preying on young maidens, and the violent lives of outlaws.

As a child actor, Irvine hones his performing talent from an early age and learns the classical guitar. He switches to folk music after discovering Woody Guthrie, also adopting the latter’s other instruments, the harmonica and mandolin. While extending Guthrie’s guitar picking technique to the mandolin, he further develops his playing of this instrument and, later, of the mandola and the bouzouki, into a decorative, harmonic style and embraces the modes and rhythms of Bulgarian folk music. Along with Johnny Moynihan and Dónal Lunny, Irvine is one of the pioneers who adapts the Greek bouzouki into an Irish instrument. He contributes to advancing the design of his instruments in cooperation with English luthier Stefan Sobell, and he occasionally plays a hurdy-gurdy made for him in 1972 by Peter Abnett, another English luthier.

Although touring mainly as a soloist, Irvine has also enjoyed great success in pursuing collaborations through many projects that have influenced contemporary folk music. He continues to tour and perform extensively in Ireland, Great Britain, Europe, North and South America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.


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Birth of Irish Folk Singer Christy Moore

Christopher Andrew “Christy” Moore, Irish folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist, is born in Newbridge, County Kildare, on May 7, 1945.

After attending Newbridge College, Moore works as a bank employee and has a desire to express himself using traditional music. During a twelve-week bank strike in 1966, he goes to England, as do many striking officials, but he does not return when the strike is settled. Doing general labouring work, he frequents the folk clubs and the Irish music pubs where he meets Séamus Ennis, Margaret Barry, Luke Kelly, Martin Byrnes, and many other traditional musicians.

Moore’s first album, Paddy On The Road, a minor release of 500 copies, is recorded with Dominic Behan in 1969. In 1972, his first major release, Prosperous, brings him together with three musicians, Liam O’Flynn, Andy Irvine, and Dónal Lunny, who shortly thereafter form the Irish folk music band Planxty. For a short time they called themselves “CLAD,” an acronym of their names, but soon decide on Planxty.

After leaving Planxty in 1975, Moore continues his solo career, reforming his old band on occasion. He also forms the band Moving Hearts with Lunny and five other musicians in 1980. In 1987, he appears on Gay Byrne‘s The Late Late Show performing with The Dubliners for their 25th anniversary. In 2000, he publishes his autobiography, One Voice.

Moore’s earlier years of heavy drinking, sleeping dysfunctional hours, continual traveling, and often eating takeout foods results in a decline in health and several operations. Moore’s battle with alcohol and subsequent heart operations take their toll. At the end of the 1990s, Moore reduces his workload for medical reasons.

Moore releases his first new studio album in four years on April 17, 2009, entitled Listen, and promotes it through a series of live gigs. In December 2011, he releases the album Folk Tale. His most recent album, Where I Come From, is released in November 2013 and features a new protest song called Arthur’s Day. The album peaks at No. 3 on the Irish album charts.

Moore is best known for his political and social commentary which reflects a left-wing, Irish republican perspective, despite the fact that his mother was a Fine Gael county councillor and parliamentary candidate in Kildare. He supports the republican H-Block protestors with the albums H-Block in 1978, the launch of which is raided by the police, and The Spirit of Freedom. He also records songs by hunger striker Bobby Sands, including Back Home in Derry. Moore ceases support of the military activities of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1987 as a result of the Enniskillen bombing.

Political songs Moore has performed throughout his career include Mick Hanly’s On the Blanket about the protests of republican prisoners, Viva la Quinta Brigada about Irish volunteers who fought against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and Minds Locked Shut about Bloody Sunday in Derry.

In 2007, Moore is named Ireland’s greatest living musician in RTÉ‘s People of the Year Awards.


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“Riverdance” Performed for the First Time

riverdance-1994Riverdance, a theatrical show consisting of traditional Irish music and dance and featuring Irish dancing champions Jean Butler and Michael Flatley and a score composed by Limerick native Bill Whelan, is performed for the first time on April 30, 1994, as an interval performance act during the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest at the Point Theatre in Dublin.

Riverdance is rooted in a three-part suite of baroque-influenced traditional music called Timedance composed, recorded, and performed for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest, which is hosted by Ireland. At the time, Bill Whelan and Dónal Lunny compose the music, augmenting the Irish folk band Planxty with a rock rhythm section of electric bass and drums and a four-piece horn section. The piece is performed, with accompanying ballet dancers, during the interval of the contest, and later released as a Planxty single. Whelan has previously produced EastWind, an album by Planxty member Andy Irvine with Davy Spillane whose cross between Irish and Southeastern European folk music proves an influence on Riverdance. Thirteen years later, Bill Whelan is invited to do the intermission piece for another Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, and composes Riverdance. In the book The Humours of Planxty by Leagues O’Toole, Whelan says, “It was no mistake of mine to call it Riverdance because it connected absolutely to Timedance.”

The 1994 performance earns a standing ovation from the packed theatre of 3,000 people. As a result of this success, Riverdance is invited to perform at the prestigious Royal Variety Performance at Dominion Theatre, London, in the presence of Prince Charles on November 28, 1994.

At Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest and Eurovision Song Contest’s Greatest Hits events, the seven-minute performance is named as one of the most popular interval acts in the history of the contest.

An audio recording of Riverdance enters the Irish Singles Chart at number one on May 5, 1994, and remains there throughout the summer, eventually totalling a record eighteen weeks at #1. In response to the Rwandan genocide of May/June 1994, a video of the Eurovision interval performance is released by the Irish broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann under the title Riverdance for Rwanda with all proceeds going to the Rwanda Appeal Disasters Joint Appeal Committee.

The success of the Eurovision performance leads husband and wife production team John McColgan and Moya Doherty to consider how to develop the piece. They decide to produce and direct a stage show, expanding the Eurovision piece and Bill Whelan’s composition. In November 1994, tickets are sold in Dublin for the first full-length performance of Riverdance, which opens at the Point Theatre on February 9, 1995. The show runs for five weeks and is a sell out with over 120,000 tickets sold. It stars the original lead dancers from the Eurovision performance as well as many from the dance troupe featured in the Eurovision performance.

Riverdance continues to be performed all over the world, in a diminished format and in smaller venues. Current productions are geared towards smaller theatres, whereas past productions have been performed in large theatres and arenas. Sets have been simplified and some numbers contain fewer performers than in past productions.