seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Planxty (band)


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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 takes 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-1994

Riverdance, 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 who’s 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.