Last Saturday night I was honoured to perform “Minds Locked Shut” on RTE 1, and to present the “People of the Year Award” to Jean Hegarty and Allanah Burke. They accepted it on behalf of the 28 Families who have been campaigning for 38 years seeking justice for the victims of the Bloody Sunday Murders in Derry in 1972. They accepted the award with dignity, graciousness and gratitude amidst applause and celebration. David Cameron’s apology in The House of Commons seems to have freed the hands of many. It has been a long road for those who lost their loved ones that January day in 1972.
The inclusion of the song “Lisdoonvarna” in “The Penguin Book of Modern Irish Verse” caused a bit of a stir. Never in my wildest dreams etc … it is indeed a wonderful thing to have the song considered and included. It has been something very unusual and different in the scheme of things. The Penguin came, laid and egg and moved on… so must we.
There will be a gig in Whelans of Dublin on October 19th. I want to play in memory of Derek Nally who passed recently. I wish to acknowledge his devotion to and passion for Live Music. He was a gentle man and he shared his love of music with thousands of us over the years. Details will be on the gig page soon … Get in quick! All proceeds will go to Derek’s young family.
I have commenced work on an album of my own work … over the years I have had a few of my own songs on various albums. I want to bring them together and present them as a collection. These past months I have been going over everything I can find; old copybooks and tapes. It is proving to be quite a journey … I’ll keep you posted.
I send best wishes to Mike Waterson in North East Yorkshire today. I first met him in 1968 at the family folk club in Hull. He gave me “The Lakes of Pontchartrain” and “Van Diemans Land” and he also wrote “A Stitch in Time”. Apart from that he has been a friend for four decades and I wish him a speedy recovery. The Watersons were one of the greatest bands I ever heard. Their gigs in the 60’s were spellbinding.
English gigs are fast approaching. I’m looking forward to Mersey, Tyne, Trent and Thames. The long promised CD version of “Paddy on the Road” is now in stock and will be available shortly. There is a Limited number available for sale. We will send you details when the shop is ready. This is the first album I recorded back in 1969. It was produced by the late Dominic Behan and is very different from everything which followed …
My Nephew Donnacha Rynne has produced a book called “Being Donnacha” … He talks about his life coping with Cerebral Palsy from birth and then Multiple Sclerosis which came on him in his 20’s. He is a remarkable man and this book may interest some of you. I wrote the song “In Praise of Mullaghmore” for Donnacha. There are 16 of his poems in the book which was edited by his friend Tom Prendergast. For those of you interested it is available here …http://beingdonnacha.tumblr.com/
At 10pm on the 10th October there will be a programme in the new series of “Geanntraí” on TG4 television which is our National Irish language television channel. They invited me to sing two songs & I chose “Lawless” and “Away You Broken Heart”. TG4 are the champions of Irish music and song and transmit more Irish music than all the other networks combined.
A few new gigs for your consideration;
4th December Community Centre, Shinrone, Co. Offaly (On sale Friday, 24th September)
5th December Park Hotel, Charleville, Co. Cork. (On Sale Friday, 24th September)
19th & 20th December Vicar Street, Dublin. (On sale later this month, see gig page)
3rd & 4th January Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin. (On sale later this month, see gig page)
12th & 13th April Edinburgh (On sale Friday, 24th September)
15th & 16th April Glasgow (On Sale Friday, 24th September)
18th April Birmingham (To be confirmed)
19th April Manchester (To be confirmed)
There are some more gigs in the pipeline for early next year, I’ll keep you posted.
Keep coming back.