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A parting glass for Liam Clancy

By
NIALL O'DOWD,
IrishCentral.com Publisher
Published Saturday, December 5, 2009, 9:06 AM
Updated Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:51 PM

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There's a hell of a hooley in heaven tonight
There's a hell of a hooley in heaven tonight


“But since it falls, onto my lot, that I should rise and you should not. I'll gently rise and I'll softly call, good night and joy be with you all" –The Parting Glass

So farewell, Liam, troubadour and balladeer, Clancy brother, Makem and Clancy maker, folk music genius.

As a kid in the early 1960s I was dragged in front of a new-fangled device called the television and told to watch you and your brothers and Tommy Makem, all bedecked in your Aran sweats singing “Brennan on the Moor.”

It was my father’s way of dragging me away from those other bolts from heaven at the time, “The Beatles,” who he regarded with great suspicion.

I loved them but I grew to love you too. There was something about the swagger and the deep sense of pride in a native culture you touched in us all. Old ballads were taken off the shelf, dusted down and given an electric new energy. You reinvented Irish folk music and created a legend that will last forever.

You were unapologetic about the old songs, which some “modernists” claimed belonged on the scrap heap. Instead, you reinvented them and reinvented the culture along with them.

We named you in our magazine Irish America as one of the Irish of the Century in 2000 and you appeared with Tommy at our event at the Plaza Hotel. You stole the show, although President Clinton, Gregory Peck and Maureen O’Hara among others were there.

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2 Comments

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ardgehane | Dec 09, 2009, 09:53 PM EST
He's gone to that Great Pub in the Sky

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jacersisityourself | Dec 05, 2009, 07:48 PM EST
Nicely-written piece by Niall. I too have great memories of the Clancy Bros singing the songs he mentions and that different, strongly haunting voice of Tommy Makem’s slotting perfectly into the Clancy Bros voices’ melodic airs. Shure there’ll be a hooley in Heaven, maybe a buideal poitin or two as well. Thanks Niall for the memories of their singing and craic, beautiful happy stuff. Sad about the suffering in the end. May they all rest in peace, Amen.

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