Tigh Mhichil: in memoriam Archives

Dara Ban Mac Donnchadha (1939-2008), RIP

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on September 22, 2008 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leaba i measc naomh na hÉireann go raibh aige.

O what a loss. The one and only sean-nós singer Dara Bán Mac Donnchadha passed away on 4 July 2008. No more details are yet known at the moment.

I saw him sing in Conamara in 2005, which left an unforgettable impression. May he rest in peace.

David Hammond (1928-2008), RIP

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Mícheál

on September 12, 2008 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leaba i measc naomh na hÉireann go raibh aige.

Davy passed away on Monday, 25 August 2008. Keith Baker of the BBC News writes, on 26 August, 'Writer, singer, teacher, songwriter, historian, musician, film-maker, broadcaster - he was all these things and more.

'And if the word genius can be applied to someone with such an astounding range of gifts and accomplishments, who played an enormously influential role in Irish artistic life for more than 50 years, then it is the proper description for Davy Hammond.'

And Fintan O'Toole writes, on 30 August for the Irish Times, on this Belfast singer: 'Hammond's work was broad, generous, open-minded and fluid. It embodied those qualities that, far from being cosily apolitical, were the very heart of a genuine political possibility.

'The key to that surely lay in song. The Ulster song tradition is one of Europe's great cultural treasures. Three things about it seem important to what Hammond stood for. One is plainness. Though sectarian stereotypes need to be avoided, there is an obvious difference between the baroque, wonderfully ornamented singing of Gaelic sean-nós and the generally more direct, unadorned style more typical of Ulster. That difference clearly has something to do with the religious cultures of Catholicism and Presbyterianism. The second aspect is that Ulster song is hybrid, mongrel and impure. Its mix of Scottish, English and Gaelic elements is its great glory. And thirdly, the tradition is infused with a passionate sense of place. The love of locality is heady, ardent and full of yearning.

'These three qualities infused Hammond's work. He had the plainness - in the form not of dour severity, but of a deeply honest distrust of deathly rhetoric. He drew from the way different traditions fed into the strength of Ulster song an optimism about hybridity and impurity as qualities not to be feared but to be celebrated. And he had that ardent sense of locality that runs through the songs. He knew and loved both the rural and the urban worlds of Ulster and could recognise in people of every community the same love of the place, even when it was buried under layers of rage and resentment.

'After that terrible evening in Belfast, Seamus Heaney wrote the beautiful poem, The Singer's House, for Hammond, a gesture that reminds me of the way, in the Gaelic tradition, a friend clasps the hand of a sean-nós singer half way through a long song and winds it gently to encourage him through the hard passages. Heaney used the story of how the souls of drowned people inhabited the bodies of seals who would be drawn in toward the shore to hear a human song. The poem concludes with the line, addressed directly to Hammond: "Raise it again, man. We still believe what we hear." With Hammond, hearing was believing, not just in his own gift for openness, but in the possibility of a better, more civil country.'

I can't forget Paula Carroll's comment on Davy's song 'I Wish My Love Was A Red, Red Rose' in Arty McGlynn's first album McGlynn's Fancy (1979), in which Arty played a guitar quite like 'light' and Davy sang beautifully.

[Musician, song collector, teacher, broadcaster and film-maker Davy Hammond in his Belfast home in the 1990s. Photograph: Frank MIller. (Irish Times)]

Christie Hennessy (1945-2007), RIP

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Mícheál

on February 2, 2008 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leaba i measc naomh na hÉireann go raibh aige.

Christie passed away in London on the morning of 11 December 2007. 'He died of asbestosis, an illness believed to be linked to years spent working on building sites in London as a young man.' (BBC News, 11 December 2007)

After playing his evergreen masterpiece, 'Remember Me' (originally in the 1993 album A Year in the Life), Pat Costello of Clare FM commented, 'Another victim of our version of the Industrial Revolution, I suppose, in its own way'.

Christie Hennessy was born in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland.

His song 'Don't Forget Your Shovel' was covered by Christy Moore (in 1983 album The Time Has Come and made into a humorous video) and sampled by Nizlopi. Moore attached this comment: 'Christy Hennessy made one of the great albums, he is the sweetest singer, the gentlest of men,....... his honesty and charm very often unsettles interviewers, they dont have the wherewithal to embrace his affection and generosity,,,, he is a prince among us'. Frances Black sang his 'All The Lies That You Told Me'. Máire Brennan sang his 'Jealous Heart' in her 1992 album Máire.

[The above was originally posted on Monday, 31 Dec 2007, but was long gone due to system troubles. Here I re-post it for reference and in remembrance.]

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Dara Ban Mac Donnchadha (1939-2008), RIP

David Hammond (1928-2008), RIP

Christie Hennessy (1945-2007), RIP

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