Tipperary folk legend Liam Clancy died at about midday last Friday, aged 74, at the Bons Secours Hospital, in Co Cork, surrounded, as he would have wished, by his beloved wife Kim and daughters Siobhan and Fiona.
He had lost his long battle with pulmonary fibrosis, the same disease which his brother Bobby died of, on September 6th in 2002.
I first met Liam many years ago, when this country was a less greedy and a more saner place, near the harbour in Greystones, Co.Wicklow. If my sliding memory serves me correctly I had listened, spellbound, the previous night, as he recited some poetry, possibly in the Beach House which overlooked the grey harbour wall. As we passed he possibly recognised me from the small crowd the night before and we stopped to chat about poetry for a time, during which period he recited “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” written by Scottish-born singer and songwriter Eric Bogle in 1971.
This ballad is possibly one of the greatest songs ever written demonstrating the total futility of war. Now through this actor’s lips came the passionate, clear and stark retelling of the events of the battle of Suvla Bay, its aftermath and the passionate indictment of all war in general. Liam, in his telling, brought a tear to his own eye and indeed the eyes of those few of us lucky enough on that day to happen on this unscheduled meeting with him.
Liam Clancy, was just 21 when he left his native Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, for New York city. With him went his older brothers Tommy and Paddy and of course later they would be joined by Tommy Makem and Bobby Clancy.
The Clancy Brothers took up singing in local bars and other venues and soon became part of the then emerging Greenwich Village vagabond folk movement, which then existed. Greenwich Village would soon be identified as the bohemian capital and the birthplace of the Beat movement where musicians and artists would enjoy the company of like-minded people.
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