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Birth of Pete St. John, Irish Folk Singer-Songwriter

Peter Mooney, Irish folk singer-songwriter known professionally as Pete St. John, is born in Inchicore, Dublin on January 31, 1932. He is best known for composing “The Fields of Athenry.”

St. John is the eldest of six children born to Tommy and Lottie Mooney. He is educated at Scoil Muire Gan Smál and Synge Street CBS. He emigrates to Ontario, Canada in 1958 where he takes what labouring jobs he can find. Within six months he meets a woman named Gert Gorman who has an electrical contracting company in the United States. She and her husband sponsor him to move to Washington, D.C., where he is able to work as an electrician. He marries his sweetheart, Susie Bourke, who is from a well-known Dublin theatrical family with links to both the Gaiety and the Olympia theatres. They have two sons, Kieron and Brian. He travels widely and becomes involved in the peace movement and the civil rights movement. He remains in the United States until 1970, returning to settle in Collins Avenue in north Dublin.

The Dublin city that St. John returns to is a changed place from the one he had grown up in and proves to be the spur that inspires his songwriting. He chooses “St. John” as his nom de plume, inspired by a middle name he had been given while at school when all the boys in his class were assigned saints’ names. In 1975, he is running a theatre in Petticoat Lane on Marlborough Street, and while fixing an alarm outside a window on the first floor, the ledge on which he is leaning gives way, resulting in a bad fall. He breaks his elbow and hip and spends six months in the hospital recuperating. It is during this time that he takes to songwriting in earnest.

St. John is an extrovert who loves people. He is a voracious reader with a particular interest in Irish history. His son Kieron recalls his father writing “The Rare Aul Times” during this recovery period and singing it to his family. The Dublin City Ramblers is the first band to cover the song, but it is Danny Doyle’s version that achieves a real breakthrough, spending eleven weeks in the Irish Singles Chart, reaching No. 1 in 1978.

In 1978, St. John writes “The Fields of Athenry,” a tale of a man exiled to Botany Bay for stealing food to feed his family during the Famine. It has been recorded by several artists, charting in the Irish Singles Chart on a number of occasions. A recording by Paddy Reilly, which is released in 1982, remains in the Irish charts for 72 weeks.

St. John pays close attention to the melding of lyric and melody and has particular form in writing memorable melodies that sound timeless, resonating deeply with listeners across all walks of life. His songs sometime express regret for the loss of old certainties, for example, the loss of Nelson’s Pillar and the Metropole Ballroom, two symbols of old Dublin, as progress makes a “city of my town.”

St. John describes his chosen craft with affection. “Songs are magic carpets. They can tell a story over and over again without boring the pants off the listener and maybe take us out of ourselves for a few moments of peaceful escapism. With easy to remember melody lines, the words can tell of times and events in our daily lives that are worth noting or remembering.”

St. John’s songbook consists of hundreds of compositions, including “The Ferryman,” “Waltzing on Borrowed Time” and “The Furey Man” and are recorded by over 2,500 artists. He is a founding member of the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) and is always generous and supportive of younger writers, some of whom he continues to mentor well into his 80s.

St. John is surprised and delighted at the affiliation that emerges between “The Fields of Athenry” and rugby and football sporting events. He is present in Croke Park in 2007 when Ireland beats England in the Six Nations, and where the song is sung three times over. It is a song often heard in Anfield in Liverpool, and at Glasgow Celtic games, and reverberates around the stadium at Chicago’s Soldier Field when Ireland beats the All Blacks on November 5, 2016.

St. John wins several awards, including the Irish Music Rights Organisation “Irish Songwriter of the Year.”

St. John lives life to the fullest, and while he suffers ill health in his later years with both diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, he never loses his zest for life. His son Kieron describes his father with affection as a man who had nine lives and lived them all to the fullest. He lives independently at home until his admission to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin. He dies peacefully there at the age of 90 on March 12, 2022. After his funeral, Paddy Reilly and Glen Hansard perform “The Fields of Athenry” at Beaumont House in Dublin as a tribute.


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Birth of Irish Folk Singer Patsy Watchorn

Patsy Watchorn, Irish folk singer notable for being a member of the Dublin City Ramblers and later The Dubliners, is born in Crumlin, Dublin, on October 16, 1944.

Watchorn first comes to prominence in 1969 as the lead singer of The Quare Fellas, a Dublin-based ballad group. They evolve into the Dublin City Ramblers in the early 1970s and with Watchorn as their lead singer they have hits with songs such as “The Rare Ould Times” and “The Ferryman,” both of which are written by Pete St. John.

Watchorn also writes and sings the Irish Football Team anthem, “We are the Boys in Green” (Home & Away album), with The Dublin City Ramblers for the teams European Championship campaign in Germany and again for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. The lyrics change slightly in both releases in 1988 and 1990.

In 1995, Watchorn leaves The Dublin City Ramblers and makes a number of solo albums. He joins The Dubliners in 2005, taking Paddy Reilly‘s place. He is well received throughout Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and the United States. He appears on their Tour Sampler EP in 2005, as well as the double album Live at Vicar Street (2006). He plays the banjo, bodhrán and spoons. He cites Luke Kelly, former lead singer with The Dubliners, as his favourite singer.

When The Dubliners announce their retirement in 2012 after finishing their 50 Years Anniversary Tour, Watchorn decides to keep on touring with former band members Seán Cannon and Eamonn Campbell and banjo player Gerry O’Connor under the name of “The Dublin Legends.”

On April 28, 2014, Watchorn posts a message on his website, stating that he has “decided to take a break from the music business for a while” and will not be touring the rest of 2014 with The Dublin Legends. He later admits this is due to ill health and that doctors had advised him that touring would do further damage to his health.

Watchorn’s distinctive and passionate vocals have made him a huge rock on the Irish folk scene. In his solo projects in the mid- and late-1990s, after his departure from The Dublin City Ramblers, he has session men who used to play alongside him and he uses the stage name “Patsy Watchorn, agus a Cháirde” (which means “and his Friends” in Irish).


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Birth of Paddy Reilly, Irish Folk Singer

Patrick ‘Paddy’ Reilly, Irish folk singer and guitarist, is born in Rathcoole, County Dublin, on October 18, 1939. He is one of Ireland’s most famous balladeers and is best known for his renditions of “The Fields of Athenry,” “Rose of Allendale,” and “The Town I Loved So Well.”

Reilly has two sisters, Jean and Linda. Linda sadly dies at the young age of 26, when he is still a teenager. His father works in the Swiftbrook Papermills, the main employer for the area, and whose claim to fame is to have produced the paper on which the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic was printed. His mother is a homemaker and both are fond of a singsong, especially at house parties.

Reilly releases his version of “The Fields of Athenry” as a single in 1983. It is the most successful rendition of this song, remaining in the Irish charts for 72 weeks.

For years a solo performer, Reilly joins The Dubliners in 1996 as a replacement for long-time member Ronnie Drew who had left the group to embark on a solo career. He leaves the group in 2005 and is replaced by Patsy Watchorn. He then moves to New York City where he owns a number of pubs, including Paddy Reilly’s on 29th Street and 2nd Avenue. After living in New York for several years, he returns to Ireland.


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Death of Irish Folk Musician Tommy Makem

Thomas “Tommy” Makem, internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller, dies in Dover, New Hampshire, on August 1, 2007, following a lengthy battle with lung cancer.

Makem is born in Keady, County Armagh, on November 4, 1932. He is best known as a member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He plays the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sings in a distinctive baritone. He is sometimes known as “The Bard of Armagh,” taken from a traditional song of the same name, and “The Godfather of Irish Music.”

Makem’s mother, Sarah Makem, is an important source of traditional Irish music, who is visited and recorded by, among others, Diane Guggenheim Hamilton, Jean Ritchie, Peter Kennedy and Sean O’Boyle. His father, Peter Makem, is a fiddler who also plays the bass drum in a local pipe band named “Oliver Plunkett,” after a Roman Catholic martyr of the reign of Charles II of England. His brother and sister are folk musicians as well. Makem, from the age of eight, is member of the St. Patrick’s church choir for 15 years where he sings Gregorian chant and motets. He does not learn to read music but he makes it in his “own way.”

Makem starts to work at 14 as a clerk in a garage and later he works for a while as a barman at Mone’s Bar, a local pub, and as a local correspondent for The Armagh Observer.

Makem emigrates to the United States in 1955, carrying his few possessions and a set of bagpipes from his time in a pipe band. Arriving in Dover, New Hampshire, he works at Kidder Press, where his hand was accidentally crushed by a press in 1956. With his arm in a sling, he leaves Dover for New York City to pursue an acting career.

The Clancys and Makem are signed to Columbia Records in 1961. The same year, at the Newport Folk Festival, Makem and Joan Baez are named the most promising newcomers on the American folk scene. During the 1960s, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem perform sellout concerts at such venues as Carnegie Hall, and make television appearances on shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. The group performs for President John F. Kennedy. They also play in smaller venues such as the Gate of Horn in Chicago. They appear jointly in the UK Albums Chart in April 1966, when Isn’t It Grand Boys reaches number 22.

Makem leaves the group in 1969 to pursue a solo career. In 1975, he and Liam Clancy are both booked to play a folk festival in Cleveland, Ohio, and are persuaded to do a set together. Thereafter they often perform as Makem and Clancy, recording several albums together. He once again goes solo in 1988. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he performs both solo and with Liam Clancy on The Irish Rovers‘ various television shows, which are filming in Canada and Ireland.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Makem is a principal in a well-known Irish music venue in New York, “Tommy Makem’s Irish Pavilion.” This East 57th Street club is a prominent and well-loved performance spot for a wide range of musicians. Among the performers and visitors are Paddy Reilly, Joe Burke, and Ronnie Gilbert. Makem is a regular performer, often solo and often as part of Makem and Clancy, particularly in the late fall and holiday season. The club is also used for warm-up performances in the weeks before the 1984 reunion concert of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, the after-party for Bob Dylan‘s legendary 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration at Madison Square Garden in 1992 is held at the Irish Pavilion.

In 1997 Makem writes a book, Tommy Makem’s Secret Ireland, and in 1999 premiers a one-man theatre show, Invasions and Legacies, in New York. His career includes various other acting, video, composition, and writing credits. He also establishes the Tommy Makem International Festival of Song in South Armagh in 2000.

Tommy Makem dies in Dover, New Hampshire, on August 1, 2007, following a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He continues to record and perform until very close to the end. Paying tribute to him after his death, Liam Clancy says, “He was my brother in every way.” He is buried next to his wife at New Saint Mary Cemetery in Dover.


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Birth of Eamonn Campbell of The Dubliners

Eamonn Campbell, Irish musician who is a member of The Dubliners from 1987 until his death, is born in Drogheda, County Louth on November 29, 1946. He is also in The Dubliners when they record their 25th anniversary show on The Late Late Show hosted by Gay Byrne.

Campbell is known as a guitarist and has a rough voice similar to the late founding member of The Dubliners, Ronnie Drew. He tour with three other ex-Dubliners as “The Dublin Legends,” now that the group name has been retired with the death of Barney McKenna. Although originally from Drogheda in County Louth, he later lives in Walkinstown, a suburb of Dublin.

It was Campbell’s suggestion that The Dubliners work with London-based Irish band The Pogues in the mid-1980s, thus giving them their second biggest UK hit to date, “The Irish Rover.” Their biggest hit is “Seven Drunken Nights” which reaches number 7 in the charts in 1967 and an appearance on Top of the Pops.

Campbell produces all of The Dubliners’ albums from 1987 onwards, as well as albums for many other Irish artists, including Foster and Allen, Brendan Shine, Daniel O’Donnell and Paddy Reilly. He plays locally with the Delta Showband, The Bee Vee Five and the Country Gents before joining Dermot O’Brien and the Clubmen and first meets The Dubliners when both acts tour England together in 1967. In the mid to late 1970s he more or less retires from the road and becomes involved in the growing Irish recording scene, first as a session musician and later moving to production.

In 2002, Campbell puts a complaint to a commission to inquire into sexual abuse as he says he was abused by the Christian Brothers as a child. In an interview he says “I felt emotional with hate at what this arsehole had got away with. He was abusing the whole class. I still haven’t heard anything back.”

Campbell is the Grand Master for the 2009 Drogheda St. Patrick’s Day Parade. In his younger years he teaches guitar lessons at the “Music Shop” in Drogheda. His granddaughter Megan Campbell is a Republic of Ireland international footballer.

While on tour in the Netherlands with The Dublin Legends, Campbell feels unwell during his final performance. He returns to his hotel at around 1:00 AM and goes to bed. He dies during the early hours of the morning of October 18, 2017. His body is flown back to Dublin where his funeral takes place on October 26, 2017.

(Pictured: Eamonn Campbell during the Festival Interceltique de Lorient in 2014 | This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)


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Birth of Irish Folk Musician Tommy Makem

Thomas “Tommy” Makem, internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller, is born in Keady, County Armagh, on November 4, 1932. He is best known as a member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He plays the long-necked 5-string banjo, tin whistle, low whistle, guitar, bodhrán and bagpipes, and sings in a distinctive baritone. He is sometimes known as “The Bard of Armagh,” taken from a traditional song of the same name, and “The Godfather of Irish Music.”

Makem’s mother, Sarah Makem, is an important source of traditional Irish music, who is visited and recorded by, among others, Diane Guggenheim Hamilton, Jean Ritchie, Peter Kennedy and Sean O’Boyle. His father, Peter Makem, is a fiddler who also plays the bass drum in a local pipe band named “Oliver Plunkett,” after a Roman Catholic martyr of the reign of Charles II of England. His brother and sister are folk musicians as well. Makem, from the age of eight, is member of the St. Patrick’s church choir for 15 years where he sings Gregorian chant and motets. He does not learn to read music but he makes it in his “own way.”

Makem starts to work at 14 as a clerk in a garage and later he works for a while as a barman at Mone’s Bar, a local pub, and as a local correspondent for The Armagh Observer.

Makem emigrates to the United States in 1955, carrying his few possessions and a set of bagpipes from his time in a pipe band. Arriving in Dover, New Hampshire, he works at Kidder Press, where his hand was accidentally crushed by a press in 1956. With his arm in a sling, he leaves Dover for New York City to pursue an acting career.

The Clancys and Makem are signed to Columbia Records in 1961. The same year, at the Newport Folk Festival, Makem and Joan Baez are named the most promising newcomers on the American folk scene. During the 1960s, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem perform sellout concerts at such venues as Carnegie Hall, and make television appearances on shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. The group performs for President John F. Kennedy. They also play in smaller venues such as the Gate of Horn in Chicago. They appear jointly in the UK Albums Chart in April 1966, when Isn’t It Grand Boys reaches number 22.

Makem leaves the group in 1969 to pursue a solo career. In 1975, he and Liam Clancy are both booked to play a folk festival in Cleveland, Ohio, and are persuaded to do a set together. Thereafter they often perform as Makem and Clancy, recording several albums together. He once again goes solo in 1988. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he performs both solo and with Liam Clancy on The Irish Rovers‘ various television shows, which are filming in Canada and Ireland.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Makem is a principal in a well-known Irish music venue in New York, “Tommy Makem’s Irish Pavilion.” This East 57th Street club is a prominent and well-loved performance spot for a wide range of musicians. Among the performers and visitors are Paddy Reilly, Joe Burke, and Ronnie Gilbert. Makem is a regular performer, often solo and often as part of Makem and Clancy, particularly in the late fall and holiday season. The club is also used for warm-up performances in the weeks before the 1984 reunion concert of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, the after-party for Bob Dylan‘s legendary 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration at Madison Square Garden in 1992 is held at the Irish Pavilion.

In 1997 Makem writes a book, Tommy Makem’s Secret Ireland, and in 1999 premiers a one-man theatre show, Invasions and Legacies, in New York. His career includes various other acting, video, composition, and writing credits. He also establishes the Tommy Makem International Festival of Song in South Armagh in 2000.

Tommy Makem dies in Dover, New Hampshire, on August 1, 2007, following a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He continues to record and perform until very close to the end. Paying tribute to him after his death, Liam Clancy says, “He was my brother in every way.” He is buried next to his wife at New Saint Mary Cemetery in Dover.