Pic: Liam Clancy Private Collection

The Clancy Brothers, in their various guises and formations, have been emphatic in the past 50 years in bringing traditional Irish and other folk songs to a worldwide audience. Their story is fascinating comprising of family, success and inevitable bust-ups.  Originally forming almost by chance, the band’s original line-up included Patrick “Paddy” Clancy, Tom Clancy, Bobby Clancy and the now last surviving member Liam Clancy.

The band included many others during their long reign including Tommy Makem who joined them from the start, Robbie O’Connell who took over from Makem, and various talented sons and nephews including the High King’s Finbar Clancy.

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem as they were known in the 60s revitalised old Irish folk and rebel songs for a hungry American audience. Folk was going through a significant revival at the time, encouraged by such legends as Bob Dylan (who was a big fan of Liam Clancy, calling him the greatest balladeer who ever lived). The band’s faster and more passionate renditions of classic tunes such as ‘The Foggy Dew’ and ‘The Rising of the Moon’ (also the title track to their first major album) were lapped up by the public and they were soon huge stars and appearing on prime-time tv.

Pic: Fionnbar Callanan

Known for wearing matching white woolen Aran sweaters, they were criticised by many in Ireland for commercialising Irishness. In fact, the band first donned their trademark sweaters before a famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. Their mother happened to have shipped over a bunch to the lads to protect them from New York’s harsh oncoming winter. Thanks to their Mammy thinking of them, they were both warm and neatly packaged for promotion by their management.

Today, Liam Clancy still tours the world having safely secured his legendary status. His story as a folk performer living a rock and roll life is undeniably fascinating.  So it is a good thing then that efforts are being made to document his adventure. On September 11th of this year, a new documentary feature film ‘The Yellow Bittern – The Life and Times of Liam Clancy’ is being released charting the rise to fame of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem while taking an in-depth look at the life of Liam Clancy throughout that time.

Pic: Courtesy CTL Films

Here are a couple of links if you want to find out more about Liam Clancy and the various line-ups that made up the Clancy Brothers:

Liam Clancy videos on Diddlyi

Wikipedia entry about The Clancy Brothers

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3. Getting To Know The Masters Of Traditional Irish Music
4. Temple Bar Tradfest 2010 Part 3
5. Championship Irish Dancers In ‘Christmas Around The World’