Poignant last interview with Liam Clancy in Irish America magazine

The luck of the Irish

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Between tunes, Makem gleefully cracks jokes about JFK – “big bad John in the White House” – as well as the American establishment.

“Hail Mary, full of grace –- the Masons are in second place!” Makem cracks.

Then there is the hilarious tune, “Mr. Moses Ri – Tooral – I Ay,” about a Jewish-Irish merchant who is arrested for posting a sign with his name written in Hebrew -– which is swiftly mistaken for Irish Gaelic by an ambitious British police officer.

“The song was written not so much to show the love between the Irish and the Jews so much as to show the stupidity of the British,” Makem cracks.

Finally, introducing the rebel ballad, “The Patriot Game,” a mention of the Irish Republican Army -– which, in 1963, had not yet earned the mythic status it later would when the Troubles heated up in the late 1960s -– earns lusty applause.

Loud applause for a guerilla army defined as terroristic by the British? This is not exactly what you’d expect at Carnegie Hall. But this is the new world the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem helped create.

Following Ed Sullivan and Carnegie Hall, it might seem as if The Clancys and Tommy Makem were suddenly famous. They even performed for JFK himself in 1963. But they were overnight sensations well over a decade in the making.

Along the way, they became famous in Greenwich Village pubs such as The White Horse as well as their “home away from home” (as Liam puts it) The Lion’s Head. Pete Hamill, Frank McCourt and so many others made The Lion’s Head the famous “bar for drinkers with writing problems.”

Along the way, Bob Dylan became a huge admirer of the Clancys, particularly Liam. At The White Horse, Dylan and Liam would imitate the other’s, uh, unique singing style. It’s great to have this Carnegie Hall recording, but a real treasure would be to hear Dylan imitating Liam, and vice versa, on “Eileen Aroon.”

In the end, the Clancys found a way to both change, and absorb, American musical styles. Thus, their work is truly Irish and American.

Meanwhile, it was not just Irish-Americans who were initially surprised by their work.

As Liam told Irish America: “Irish people in Ireland were surprised. They’d never heard these songs this way.”

When rock ’n’ roll eclipsed folk music in the late 1960s, the Clancys often went their separate ways. After a year’s notice, Tommy Makem left the group in 1969 to pursue a solo career. Bobby Clancy came back to fill his spot for a while and the four Clancy Brothers, sometimes with the addition of the two Furey Brothers, performed together on-and-off for the next couple of years. Tom found a lucrative career acting on TV, and Paddy devoted more time to his farm back in Ireland.

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