Liam Clancy, folk singer

Published on Monday 7 December 2009 21:51

Born: 2 September, 1935, in Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary. Died: 4 December, 2009, in Cork, aged 74.

LIAM Clancy was the last surviving member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, the raucous Irish folk group who took the United States by storm in the early 1960s and were described at the time as "the most famous four Irishmen in the world".

They recorded close to 50 albums, selling many millions of copies, mostly featuring boisterous drinking, rebel or love songs such as The Irish Rover, Jug o'Punch and The Holy Ground (Fine Girl Ye Are).

As guitarist and lead vocalist, backed by Makem's rich baritone, Clancy influenced countless singers in Ireland and around the world, including a young Bob Dylan, who once said "I can't think of a better ballad singer I've heard in my life" and proceeded to rework some of the Clancy brothers' traditional Irish melodies for his own Americanised folk songs.

After appearing on the renowned Ed Sullivan Show in the US on St Patrick's Day, 1961, the four Irishmen wowed the nation, sparking a sale of knitted Aran "bawnee" fishermen's jumpers like the ones the Clancys' mum had sent them "to keep you cosy in New York" and which became as much part of their image as their sound.

The folk revival was under way, the anti-establishment protest movement was bubbling under the surface and their old songs of rebellion perfectly fitted the mood in New York's bohemian Greenwich Village, where they played the folk clubs at the same time as Dylan and Pete Seeger.

Dylan, until then influenced mostly by Woody Guthrie, was immediately enamoured with the Clancys' Irish melodies.

Having heard them perform Dominic Behan's The Patriot Game at the Fifth Peg club in Greenwich Village, he turned it into his protest song With God on Our Side and their The Parting Glass became his Restless Farewell.

Thirty years later, Dylan would invite Liam and the band to his 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in October 1992, where they came together for the first time in years and performed the Dylan song When The Ship Comes In.

William Clancy was born in Carrick-on Suir, Co Tipperary, in 1935, the youngest of nine siblings. As a teenager, he had aspirations to be an actor and in 1955, opting to call himself Liam, he helped found the Brewery Lane Theatre Group in his hometown, which is still going strong.

That same year, he came under the wing of a visiting American collector of folk songs, Diane Hamilton, who also happened to be from the wealthy Guggenheim family and who had showed up at the Clancy home to record traditional songs sung by Liam's mother.

Liam joined Hamilton in touring Ireland looking for old songs and it was during a visit just north of the border, to South Armagh in Ulster, that he met a young singer, banjo and tin whistle player, Tommy Makem. Two of Liam's elder brothers, Tom and Paddy, had emigrated to the US in 1947 after allegations that they were involved with the IRA so the two new friends, Liam and Tommy decided to join them to seek fame and fortune as actors.

For pocket money, the three Clancy brothers and Makem began singing in New York clubs, soon finding they could earn more through music than acting and, in 1956 in a small flat in the city's Bronx district, recorded their first album – a collection of Irish rebellion songs titled The Rising of The Moon.

Albums would follow thick and fast, popularised by that appearance on Ed Sullivan, others on Johnny Carson's Tonight show, topping the bill at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan and an invitation to the White House to sing for a "fellow Irishman" – John F Kennedy.

They paved the way for future Irish groups, notably the Dubliners and the Chieftains, as well as Scotland's The Corries – Ronnie Browne and Roy Williamson.

After Makem quit the group to go solo in 1969, he was replaced by another Clancy brother, Bobby, until the band disbanded in 1974. Hounded by financial problems, despite their success, Liam moved to Canada and got back on his feet with solo performances and his own TV series.

He and Makem hooked up again in 1975 as the duo Makem and Clancy, making several successful albums and popularising a little-known anti-war song, And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, written by Eric Bogle from Peebles, a decade before the Pogues recorded the most famous version. After he and Makem split up amicably in 1988, Liam continued, on and off, as a solo artist.

Clancy lived for the past 30 years in the Ring Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area), in Co Waterford. In 2002, he published his autobiography The Mountain of the Women: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour. Last year he recorded his final CD, The Wheels of Life, which featured guest appearances by Glasgow-born Donovan and Irish singer Mary Black.

Of his brothers, Tom died in 1990, Paddy in 1998 and Bobby in 2002. Makem died in 2007. Liam Clancy died of pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring of the lungs. He is survived by his wife Kim, sons Eben, Donal, Sean and Andrew, daughters Siobhn, Fiona and ine, and sisters Peg and Joan.