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PAUL KEATING

Tommy Makem's legend will live on

By
Paul Keating

Published Tuesday, March 10, 2009, 6:22 PM
Updated Friday, December 4, 2009, 4:45 PM


Every Irish American who has ever listened to a note of Irish music probably has their defining moment when they realized what a hold the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had on them, conscious or otherwise. Mine came decades after they first blazed a trail on the scene destroying all notions of what Irish folk music was and would be. Like the Beatles, they impacted a generation of us Irish boomers who moved from radio to TV in the 1960s and made us proud to be Irish when these four lads splashed across the screen on The Ed Sullivan Show and launched a highly successful career on their 15 minutes of fame on the popular show that was the American Idol of its day, giving rise to so many wonderful performers.

But it took a reunion concert in 1984 at Lincoln Center by the Clancys and Makem to make me realize how much they touched us, informed us and entertained us as 3,000 devoted audience members sang virtually the entire program with Liam, Paddy, Tom and Tommy that night after a performing hiatus of 15 years as troupe.

Such was their legacy and one memory that sprang to mind when I heard of the passing of Tommy Makem last Wednesday, August 1 in New Hampshire.

The modern day "Bard of Armagh" Tommy Makem was 74 years old when he lost his battle with lung cancer in his adopted home of Dover, the mill town where he first arrived 52 years ago to see what America had to offer.

He wouldn't be long for the mill work that his relatives had undertaken upon emigration, suffering a hand injury that curtailed that career path and led him to New York to see if there was any theater work that could be found that would suit his talents. He would meet up with Liam Clancy whom he first met in his native Keady, in South Armagh when Clancy accompanied folklorist Diane Hamilton there who was interested in the folk songs and collections of Makem's mother, Sarah who had established her own reputation as a "song-catcher."

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Tommy Makem's legend will live on | Entertainment in Ireland and Around the World | IrishCentral


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