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Poignant last interview with Liam Clancy in Irish America magazine

The luck of the Irish

By
TOM DEIGNAN,
Irish America Magazine April/May 2009
Published Friday, December 4, 2009, 4:00 PM
Updated Monday, December 7, 2009, 8:13 AM

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Liam Clancy


As Liam Clancy remembers it, being asked to perform on The Ed Sullivan Show did not seem like a big deal.

“We just did not understand the significance,” he told Irish America in a recent interview, during a publicity tour to promote a brilliant re-release of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing live at New York City’s Carnegie Hall in 1963.

Two years before that historic performance, as Clancy recalls, they were a group of slightly shady characters best known in that bohemian redoubt, Greenwich Village.

“Irish-Americans weren’t really interested in us,” said Liam, the youngest of the Clancy brothers. “Pete Seeger played with us. A lot of people said: ‘They’ve got a Communist up there.’ So most of our audience were folkies and liberal Jews.”

That all changed in March of 1961. The Clancys and Makem had already moved uptown to the Blue Angel on East 55th Street, a more respectable establishment frequented by TV talent scouts.

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6 Comments

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Downunderyan | Dec 09, 2009, 06:21 AM EST
Ni bheidh a leithead ann aris/their likes will never be around again. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam uile/May each and every one of the Clancy's and Tommy Makem rest in peace. They were Riverdance before the Riverdance phenomenon of the 1990's. Their memory and achievements will live on through their corpus of recordings and performances.

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kennymcg | Dec 07, 2009, 06:41 PM EST
The Clancy Brothers are gone, but their tradition lives on! Anyone on Cape Cod in the states can have their fill at The Olde Inne in West Dennis on Dec. 17th. A Christmas Sojurn with Aiofe Clancy and Robbie O'Connell is on tap. They will not only sing some of those great songs, but tell stories of their father and uncles. Great craic, and great Guinness at my local.

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Dompedro | Dec 07, 2009, 06:12 PM EST
it's a little of your life gone, even if the only one of the group I ever even spoke to was Makem, a few years before his death at our festival here in Denver ..... and it was during a period when our festival committee was very concerned about political correctness, not wanting to offend anyone by actions such as pipe bands flying tiny Irish flags from their pipes and being very concerned about Noraid and pictures of Michael Collins, nine o'clock Sunday evening, sun going down and Makem singing "The Dark Rosaleen" for his final gesture --- not sure the naysayers got it bought my first Clancy Bros and Tommy record in the winter of 1956 - '57 -- "The Rising of the Moon" -- from Pete Seeger who was out on a college tour (ever listened to the music background?) - gave it to my Dad

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carrickcourt | Dec 07, 2009, 09:16 AM EST
Liam, we will miss you. The last of the Clancy lads will be remembered fondly by this family. My dad Jack acted with Liam's brother Tom Clancy at the Cleveland (Ohio) Playhouse in the late 1940's. My dad recalls the play he was in with Tom required Irish "accents", which Tom and my dad Jack (first generation Irish-American) helped their fellow actors with. There is another connection with the lads Clancy. There is album jacket for the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem showing them in front of a shop in Carrick-on-Suir in Co. Tipperary. The name on the store is my family name, which is very English. We could not understand why the lads were photographed in front of this shop until we learned that the lads got their Aran sweaters (jumpers) from this shop.

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kickstar | Dec 06, 2009, 04:34 AM EST
Two Great Irish Artistes dead back to back Liam Clancy and now Richard Todd.

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kickstar | Dec 06, 2009, 04:32 AM EST
Two great Irish Artistes dead back to back Liam Clancy and Richard Todd.

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