Looking forward to the gig tomorrow night. Been too long since my last Christy gig but Sligo is a good place to get back on the road. Looking forward to hearing some of the new songs in the set. Great to see Dec, Seamie and Jimmy there too. Safe journey to you.
Christy's reply
take a walk up to Queen Maeve’s Bed if you have time…..then lie down and sleep in the grass should the Sun be shining…Maeve herself will whisper in your ear and life will never be the same again
The Biden buck iswho I was referring to Christy, but he has probably gone underground lookin for Shergar by now.i just got to see your interview on the late late and it was great.the song lily has a great way about it, the chorus is heart wrenching, your reference to rope and binded twine, around the lower half of the county, the farmers refer to it as bailing twine,
“My mothers blood runs thru my veins, and Daddy’s just the same.
I close my eyes and see them ,as they walk the curragh plains.
As the sun goes down in the town ,,all safe in the bed.
I’ll take a walk and have a talk with the lily’s in my head. , ”
I have added and takin out parts of your songs over the years Christy and try to keep the vibe, the above verse is working into Lily, I hope you don’t mind, it add a nice feel to it maybe, Take care and have fun , summer is here , thank God, Fin
Christy's reply
do whatever you gotta do to make the song work for you Fin…most songs are written to be sung
In my Boyhood days it was all Binder Twine…this was before a bale of hay was ever heard tell of
binder twine was used to tie down haycocks and tie sheaves of freshly cut wheat barley and corn..theses sheave would stand in the fields before being gathered in to wherever the thrashing took place…thrashing time was always exciting…The Combine Harvester finished all that
Irish Ropes was the biggest employer in Newbridge in my boyhood..at one time there were over a thousand employed there….after the rope and twine they began to weave Tintawn Carpet and after that a new line called Cushlawn…its all gone now and the Whitewater Shopping centre occupies the site
I live in hope, Christy. If you do come in April, when would dates be announced? I was lucky enough to get front row seats last time, and it was marvellous to feel part of the interaction between you and Declan and young Jimmy; I wasn’t, of course, but it felt like i was.
Christy's reply
soon as I know the backroom team will post it here
Great stuff Christy. Since I posted, I’ve managed to find it, and I appear at the end in the audience at the Glasgow Concert Hall. WIll definitely get it when it’s released.
I thought the documentary was very entertaining, and very moving in places – it’s hard to believe time goes so fast. It was good to put a face to some of the names in your songs, like Whacker.
I hoped there’d be a snippet of you singing Butterfly, but it wasn’t to be. But it won’t stop me asking you again next time you’re in Glasgow.
All the best Christy.
Christy's reply
Butterfly always emerges when the time is right,,,hopefully, next April we will be back along The Clyde and on over to Auld Reekie
Kept looking at the Gigs page these last months hoping you would add a North-East Of England date for this year……hey ho…..perhaps next year. Love “LILY” by the way……Steven & Louise
Christy's reply
there is a date pencilled in towards the end of next April….hopefully that will materialise and we can visit Tyneside once again
Christy, I’ve been hearing about the documentary on RTE earlier this year, called Journey. I haven’t been able to see it yet. Is it going to be available on DVD?
Thanks
Christy's reply
Yes John, it will be available on DVD in the near future and will include extra footage
Hi Christy,
Maybe you or some of your readers may be interested in seeing this 4 minute interview with Dave Lordan on his book The Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains.
Enjoy!
Hi Christy,
I just wanted to say thank you for your recent performance here at the National rehabilitation hospital. You brought some great jot to our patients here who are still talking about it. The time you gave after the show was fantastic and some of the resulting photos are now treasured memories for the patients ranging from the very youngest to the oldest. I am the one who gave you a cd of the song Easter Lillie after the performance but in the mayhem I never told you what it was about. I wrote the song based on an interview with Nora Connelly about the night before her father, James Connolly was executed in 1916. It showed another side to the story. The one of those left behind and how incredibly sad it must have been for them. The story is told through the eyes of Nora’s Mother Lillie. Its sung my own daughter Shannon. I hope you get time to listen to it and maybe some day you might give it a bash. Thank you once again for a wonderful evening in the NRH. Kindest regards, Dave
Christy's reply
Thanks to everyone involved for making our visit to Rochestown Ave so special…..everyone weighed in,the clients, their famiies, the staff and all the Volunteers..it was a magic evening….I will carry the memory in my heart with gratitude…I hope ye are all doing well…
ps must not forget the Chef who fed us all so well after the concert
pps thanks for sharing the song
Thinking of you today Veronica, you are not forgotten,you are a lily that bloomed and was taken much to soon.
Christy, tell The Joe lad I said Hello, as only we irish can, Dumper Trumper is talking shit , non stop, and he has ears listening too his shit , which is not funny at all lad.Bon Jour went well for our lads in France, give it nine months and a day , and baby’s will be coming into this world from all directions.
I have listened to lily a fair few times and this is what gets the head straight , almost all of the songs have been hummed and sang , the lost tribe is hard to get going as it is to me a spoke tongue vibe, and not easy to rise., that said, I love the image it gives me when I hear it. I love mandolin mountain, the gardener has a changes way about it, or January man feel,, john was a very special person , for I have not heard a song from his collection of songs that I did not love and , green grows the laurel is just class. It’s to me special., hope all is well with the family and please keep the Biden fella as long as ye can, give him a sample of oour pure contaminated water, powder breast milk in the tea, and a slice of oil cake , it’s the new vibe I hear, then show him a fairy ring and fuck him in, good man yourself, all the best buddy
Christy's reply
to which of the many “Joes” in my life am I to carry your greeting ? glad to hear that you may sing some of the songs from LILY..thats what its all about
Just back home from our trip to Westport, highs and lows along the way…. Such a high after the concert , an unbelievable night. Ger delighted to hear City of Chicago and Spancil Hill ….as perfect as could be. As has been said the new stuff from Lily is already settled in to the set list and sounding great.
The lows were on the green fields of France, a brave effort but just short in the end. . .
Christy's reply
Glenties Gortahork Falcarragh,Ardara,Dunbeg,Carndonagh Fintown,Killybegs,Letterkenny,Narin, Pettigo, Rossknowlagh,Donegal,Bundoran,Ballyshannon,Buncrana,Ballybofey..played and/or stayed in all these fine places and a few more besides…some great listeners and some right quare hawks up yonder in the far Northwest…thank you both for all your support,,,sad to hear about Leo Ó Braonáin..what a lovely man ….he leaves a great legacy of love after him
The Dubs march on, for everyone else it was a “nearly” weekend…. The Lillys nearly beat our Lake County…. Our Rugby boys nearly beat South Africa, our Soccer players nearly snuffed the French.As Joxer and the Boys head home they can be proud of their time in France. Yes we can party without been troublemakers.
Delighted to read the Great reports of your 2 Gigs in the West…….and “Lightning Bird” kicked off in Wespot,,, a brilliant Song.
It is to your eternal credit that you continue to perform at such a high standard all of the time….. we are indeed privileged listeners.
Ride on
Patsy
Christy's reply
greetings to all Linnets who fly around the broad street
CM (71)
Na Forbacha was spectacular, my favorite gig yet .I predicted that if you sung Joxer you would say Robby Brady and you did, fair play.I think you and the group played in very good harmony together .Don’t forget your shovel was dynamite, I loved shine on you crazy diamond I could tell that was a huge effort .It was Oíche Tine Sheáin that night and all the bonfires were lit it was so class on the way home watching them on Aran , Carraroe , Lettermore, Spideál , Inverin , Caislean and practically every where.
Did you see that big wall before the Connemara coast after liberty stream ? The reason it was there was to charge people taxes going into Galway and the money paid for those walls and big shots to line their pockets ..some things never change .
I have a question for you , did you pass my crossroads near Casla? I heard from a not very credible source (my cousin Padraig) that you drove slowly passed my crossroads and he said he almost crashed his car and had a heart attack when you waved at him . Hmm is this the same fella that told me he spent a night in Donald Trump’s 100 foot yacht down in Galway docks? Sailed it out past Oileán Áráinn too according to him.!
I really hope you come to Connemara again please do .. I was very sad when I knew you were in Mayo.
CS(11 6/8)
P.S did you ever hear Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash sing “Girl from North Country? ,”. Something special about it.
Christy's reply
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is a classic song…it reminds me of “An Bunan Buí”…I love to sing it bit tis not every night that t’would work…I have not sung “The Yellow Bittern” for 35 years and its one of my favourite songs….
I missed the big wall for I was asleep in the car from Athlone to Teach Furbo….
I cant answer your question about Casla…on the Friday trip from Furbo to Westport I was working on a song, phoning home, reading the Brexit, thinking about the Friday night gig, watchin out for Joe Biden,
Yes, I heard Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash….just recently I saw a brilliant film from New York…”The Highwaymen” playing some huge venue ( Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings plus a brilliant Band)..its the first time I ever really connected with Johnny cash..he showed a side of himself that I had not witnessed before….Johnny and Bob did a fair auld job on “Girl from North Country” ( was she from Cavan or Donegal ? !!!)…
Hi C,,,, I don’t understand how ye keep raising the bar,,,, well I guess you’ ve new songs,,, and new members in the band and Declan is expanding his own musical adventure,,,,but really the gigs do keep getting better and better,,,, its so wonderful,,,,to see and hear the magic unfold every night,,,, Go raibh mile , mile maith agaibh go leir,,,, Beir bua agus beannacht,,, H
Christy's reply
its refreshing to have a new bunch of songs to play….also to have a back repertoire of songs to dip in and pick a few out for revival… Sheamie is bringing new colours to the pictures, Declan is forever developing his sounds and varying his licks…I like the 4 voices coming in together..this is something I have never worked on before and intend to develop…then I also have the upcoming outings with the Trad Outfit to contemplate …apart from all this , an essential ingredient is the wonderful audience that turns up to hear the songs, to provide the air that sustains us in our efforts…we are indeed fortunate to have such great listeners…your tickets keep the wagons rolling…your listening keeps us on our toes
the Killarney festival is shaping up very well…. looking forward to playing there…also gonna hang around and have a listen…I have long since loved Killarney…recorded the Ride On album there..wrote “Tyrone Boys” there, wrote “They never came home” there too…used to play a residency there in the 80s..every Thu night in the Gleneagles..I still remember the struggle we had with the late Maurice O Donoghue to get the bar closed during the set but, fair play to him, he was one of the first to let me do it…
the boys in France played their hearts out today, they can hold their heads on high..it seems like the start of a new chapter in Irish Soccer…
but now we can focus on the Football and Hurling..alive alive o….
Thank you for the Ed Vuillamy piece. I have had to make some awful choices today. What to do when you realise that someone you care about shows a side to themselves that is utterly unpalatable. My friend Paula said today it’s like realising that the person you love most is an abuser but you lack the courage to leave. I am grateful Christy that I was in Ireland when this betrayal happened in a country that I was once so grateful to for making me who I am. I am no longer grateful. The second choice was like choosing your favourite child. Furbo or Westport. Furbo because the gig was sheer perfection in every way. Westport because I heard the Ballad of Patrick Murphy in a way I’d not heard before. It’s nuance I say to Michael. You need to develop nuance Michael. Thank you for the mention of the scoundrel Farmer. The dedication was like getting through to Hank Marvin. Unsolicited and unexpected is always the most delicious. And thank you for a shirt. It makes it real. Not a dream. We went to Croagh Patrick and got as far as the man himself but the devotions were too much to ask of me. I need to take a vow of abstinence around the cakes and pies to climb that mountain. To you and to your wonderful band of divine fellows, thank you. xx
Christy's reply
I first went to England in 1961 aged 16 to work for 3 months…since then not a years has passed without a visit…in 1966 I moved there and stayed for 5 years…I have had nothing but good experiences there ( the few blemishes were of my own making)..I feel very close to England and to many of the citizens whom I encountered….the exit vote has not changed any of the good things I feel… I seldom encountered the right wingers, the facists, the little englanders, the empire loyalists,…I did witness racism on the football terraces and also encountered mild aspects of racism myself but have witnessed a lot worse in Ireland in recent years….it is sad to see divisions emerge, splits that have been carefully planned and manouvred….I hope it all works out for you..that you fine peace..
Furbo was very special for the band..we felt we hit the spot on Thurday, in Westport had a few hitches but , thankfully, the audience did not seem to notice
thanks to you and all the good listeners that keep this show on the road…and a feck for all our foes
re St Patrick…
You heard ,I suppose, long ago
how the snakes in a manner most antic
he marched to the County Mayo
and ordered them into The Atlantic
Hence never use water to drink
the people of Ireland determine
with mighty good reason I think
for St Patrick has filled it with vermin…..
…………and snakes and other such things
(From “St Patricks Arrival” on the album “The Iron Behind The Velvet” 1978)
A wise man once said the thing we fear the most is often the thing we most need to do.
Just back again from Tobernalt. I was staring into the well water there. Reflections of the overhead branches dancing in the sun kissed water.
And for a moment…..could it be? A shadow of the Lost Tribe of Wicklow Mountain , hiding in the dark crevices?
You have staged the other Lilies. Will those who were Lost be found on CM stage in Sligo this Thursday?
Please.
jimwalshireland
June 25, 2016 at 10:43 am
Location: In the queue outside the Radisson Blu, Sligo waiting for Thursday
Dear Christy,
I can’t wait till Thursday next. Looking forward to yez bringing Lily alive and well into the rainbows of Sligo.
If ye have a half hour to spare, you might like to make a 5 minute detour to Tobernalt, near Sligo I’m not much for the statues of Christianity but this Holy Well has been a place of peace long before St Patrick blessed these ancient shores. There’s a dríocht about the place – a strangeness about the rosarie beads dripping like autumn leaves from the trees there. It’s got a special serenity.
I’m grateful for the gratitude of finding peace and finally leaving the Dark Days (and nights) in the past. I am grateful for your song, Cry Like A Man. It was one a few shining lights that lit my way out of the darkness. Thank you.
I too am looking forward to returning to the Hazelwood…even more so then usual as this time we will have Sheamie O’Dowd alongside us….he brings a whole array of new colours to the sound…he sits in and absorbs the spirit of the songs..be they light or dark, frivolous or sincere,Sheamie understands and plays it as he hears it….Up Sligo!
I’ll not make it to Tobernalt this time….our gig days are long as there is much to be done..so much that it takes all day to do it..better to visit the Holy Well when time is looser and there are no distractions..easier then to absorb the Draíocht, to seek the spirit,to hear the water drip…see you adup near Coney Island
dagrab
June 25, 2016 at 5:52 am
Location: Manchester...an English city that voted to remain in the EU
Hi Christy,
I hope you enjoyed playing in Westport.A lovely spot and venue.For many reasons,i’d love to have been there.
I deliberately didn’t post here yesterday and I hope that by doing so now,i don’t abuse the privilege of having such an open minded forum-where fellow readers/listeners,as followers of your music,are likely to share many of my core values.
Yesterday was a depressing,confusing day here-for those of us whose modus operandi is more focused on compassion,inclusivity and tolerance.To be told by a succession of right wing ‘politicians’,ego maniacs,acolytes and gobshites that they have now ‘reclaimed’ my country for me and that there is now ‘independence’ was a nauseating experience.Made more depressing for the message it sends to the world and the boost it gives to the right as it masses ranks across Europe.But,there are those of us who disagree and will do our utmost to hold on to the values that sustain us.
For once,no music was played in my house all day.Not even Dylan lyrics summed up the mood.But somewhere in the angry,mashed up brain cells,something was resonating.it was very late when I finally made the connection.The sentiments are timeless,the words almost a century old.In ‘The Second Coming’,WB Yeats,summed up my current feelings.I hope that some readers here will (re)connect with this poem.Especially people who might have few links with England or its electorate.Millions of us oppose the tyrants who now have this country by the balls.For many of us,the unity of basic human values will,hopefully see us through.
Rant over and time for some music.First up ‘Yellow Triangle’…
As ever,Christy-thanks for this forum and all you do.
Dave
Christy's reply
Dave, these are dark days in many ways,
our corner of the world is rearranging itself in a disorderly manner…..
no one knows whats going down, one part of me fears the worst, another part hopes a peaceful outcome…I fluctuate in my ignorance, lost just now but I’m gonna get up, draw the curtains and take in the day….
Connemara and Westport went well….one man last night complained that the room was too crowded and hot..the other 500 got on with it and raised us up to play their songs…..
a friend shared this piece which was written by Ed Vulliamy……
Sometimes, it is much more stressful to be right than wrong. Before the Euro football tournament in Switzerland in 2008, two championships ago, I offered a column to my newspaper about how this was a metaphor what the continent will soon look like: without England, and probably – in the long run – better off for being so. Europe could get on with the tournament without English fans, just as it can now get on with the thornier matter of rescuing the European Union without Margaret Thatcher’s whinging handbag, Tony Blair’s hubristic alliance with the Bush administration and David Cameron’s pestering, which has now become the suicide of his own, belatedly-professed cause. The piece was turned down – people thought, not without reason, that I was as mad as Trojan Cassandra.
No one really saw it coming; especially not among the “opinion formers” who live in cosmopolitan London, rarely venturing to the post-industrial wasteland and nasty-minded suburbs of towns and cities in the Midlands and North.
I’ve presumed a ‘Brexit’ for ages, and for this reason – among others – sold my apartment in London to buy, with what I had left, a little place in Paris, hoping that Brits who pay property tax in the EU will keep a right of abode – half a million of them in Spain. With the result ringing in my ear today, Black Friday 24th June, I’ve made a dash for the Eurostar before they block the tunnel.
I did wonder (darkly) whether the murder of a highly sympathetic Labour MP by a neo-Nazi, brazenly related to the Xenophobic language of the ‘Leave’ campaign, would be enough to make wavering voters think twice about his words as he plunged the blade and pulled the trigger: ‘Britain First’. But it wasn’t – or if it was, it reduced what would have been an even bigger majority to leave.
This has been a long time coming; it has been the tea-leaves of little-Englishness during almost every recent national outburst, and in the national mindset, not just the repulsive antics of football fans and fascists. It has been there in what is not there: how many town or city or county council offices in Britain flew the flag of the EU, as they do in France, Italy or elsewhere? Almost none. How long has this been going on, “getting a better deal for Britain” in Brussels? Forever, almost since I cast my very first vote, in the referendum of 1975, to join the EU.
It has been in the tarot cards of successive bulimic royal occasions: Prince William’s wedding, royal babies, the Queen’s jubilee, the Queen’s 90th birthday. It propelled the spectacle of the Olympic games; the inward-looking nostalgia of the Oscar-winning film, ‘The King’s Speech’. Above all, it has screamed from the headlines since the crisis of migration and flight of refugees – described by the supposedly Europhile Prime Minister as a “swarm”.
David Cameron did not have to call the referendum that now carves his legacy as the idiot Prime Minister who took Britain out of Europe, apparently against his wishes but having himself set the Little-England ball rolling with his pre-referendum foot-stamping against the EU. But he did and he let the genie out of the bottle, as best expressed by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper The Sun – which has never lost an election. It backed Margaret Thatcher venomously. When it abandoned its usual Conservative stance to support the Labour Party, Labour won. When it returned to its Tory fold, the Tories won again. Now, the The Sun has again backed – and perhaps help forge – the winner.
What has Cameron (and most of the people who voted for him as Prime Minister, now for ‘Brexit’) unleashed? Scotland will probably secede. Perhaps, unthinkably, Northern Ireland, so that Cameron will have achieved what the IRA has failed to in 100 years. Will there be a referendum in Poland, then Hungary, maybe even Austria? Will Marine Le Pen feel a step closer to being empowered to do the same? Probably not, but the buffoons of British nationalism will fuel their tanks.
There is no vindication in having seen this coming. There is only anger and sadness. At the dogged, small-minded isolation that a small majority of Britons have yearned for, now got and inflicted on the rest of us. At the fact that my daughters are stuck on this now soggy little island – and have no right of abode or labour in Europe, unlike their peers who can live and work from Sweden to Sicily, Poland to Portugal, without hindrance.
Anger at the elite, cut off from the country outside London, which brought this on themselves, and on Britain. Even when they argued to remain in Europe, the government never appealed to the wider, bigger issues of what Jean Monet began in the 1940s in Europe, to make the second half of the 20th Century so different from the first – only about Britain’s interests within it, and about money. One could invoke Umberto Eco’s great dictum of “I Legioni dei Imbecilli” were it not for the elite’s complicity in all this.
Anger at the Labour Party for being culpably silent over all that has been lost – access to the human rights court, pollution controls – and lost the post-working class to ‘Brexit’. Okay, so it was not easy to vote with the IMF, the banks, the financial mafia – but the internationalist foundations of the EU are cogent too, and were lost in the miserably mediocre discourse.
Anger at the stupidity of people for believing all those lies about how money sent to Europe would somehow end up in our national health service and schools. Angry at what will happen next in the Eton civil war between Cameron and his likely successor, the absurdly terrifying Boris Johnson, a British Berlusconi, a British Trump – feigning maverick, but in reality the system on legs.
If this is what “Britain First” looks like, count me out. My passport has always been a badge of shame, on the slipstream of Empire, but now it has become an outright embarrassment, a symbol of imbecility, and needs changing.
“Wanted: Internationalist male writer and journalist – 60-something but not a bad catch – seeks eligible single or divorced Italian, Irish, Polish, French, etc. female with similar interests in literature, politics and music for hasty marriage and purposeful but dolce vita in the European Union. Will promise to be grateful forever”.
I have Campbell relatives in Cape Breton that I have never actually met. But you have got to love this. If I have posted this before, my apologies. Going to do the Trans-Canada trail next year. And the money I save from camping out, I will spend on a ticket to fly to Ireland. But I gotta hit Cape Breton first aha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4r1Gv4z42U
Absolutely amazing tonight. Great mix of songs. Some start with Lightning Bird. The songs off Lily feel like you have been gigging them for a long time, in fact it feels as if the songs were penned with you specifically in mind to sing them such is the level of perfection . City of Chicago was special too. At times tonight it was spellbinding and difficult to know whether to concentrate on yourself or Dec , Seamie or Jimmy. Whatever you are doing….keep doing it.
Landed in the west, thru the showers…..looking forward to the gig. Be good to hear the new songs live . No sign of the Buck from Islandeady so far….thank God.
Christy's reply
like all of them all over Europe, he is busy chasing his tail today…poor man, trying to smile for the Biden photo as he wonders what the fuck is gonna happen now
Looking forward to the gig tomorrow night. Been too long since my last Christy gig but Sligo is a good place to get back on the road. Looking forward to hearing some of the new songs in the set. Great to see Dec, Seamie and Jimmy there too. Safe journey to you.
take a walk up to Queen Maeve’s Bed if you have time…..then lie down and sleep in the grass should the Sun be shining…Maeve herself will whisper in your ear and life will never be the same again
The Biden buck iswho I was referring to Christy, but he has probably gone underground lookin for Shergar by now.i just got to see your interview on the late late and it was great.the song lily has a great way about it, the chorus is heart wrenching, your reference to rope and binded twine, around the lower half of the county, the farmers refer to it as bailing twine,
“My mothers blood runs thru my veins, and Daddy’s just the same.
I close my eyes and see them ,as they walk the curragh plains.
As the sun goes down in the town ,,all safe in the bed.
I’ll take a walk and have a talk with the lily’s in my head. , ”
I have added and takin out parts of your songs over the years Christy and try to keep the vibe, the above verse is working into Lily, I hope you don’t mind, it add a nice feel to it maybe, Take care and have fun , summer is here , thank God, Fin
do whatever you gotta do to make the song work for you Fin…most songs are written to be sung
In my Boyhood days it was all Binder Twine…this was before a bale of hay was ever heard tell of
binder twine was used to tie down haycocks and tie sheaves of freshly cut wheat barley and corn..theses sheave would stand in the fields before being gathered in to wherever the thrashing took place…thrashing time was always exciting…The Combine Harvester finished all that
Irish Ropes was the biggest employer in Newbridge in my boyhood..at one time there were over a thousand employed there….after the rope and twine they began to weave Tintawn Carpet and after that a new line called Cushlawn…its all gone now and the Whitewater Shopping centre occupies the site
I live in hope, Christy. If you do come in April, when would dates be announced? I was lucky enough to get front row seats last time, and it was marvellous to feel part of the interaction between you and Declan and young Jimmy; I wasn’t, of course, but it felt like i was.
soon as I know the backroom team will post it here
Great stuff Christy. Since I posted, I’ve managed to find it, and I appear at the end in the audience at the Glasgow Concert Hall. WIll definitely get it when it’s released.
I thought the documentary was very entertaining, and very moving in places – it’s hard to believe time goes so fast. It was good to put a face to some of the names in your songs, like Whacker.
I hoped there’d be a snippet of you singing Butterfly, but it wasn’t to be. But it won’t stop me asking you again next time you’re in Glasgow.
All the best Christy.
Butterfly always emerges when the time is right,,,hopefully, next April we will be back along The Clyde and on over to Auld Reekie
Kept looking at the Gigs page these last months hoping you would add a North-East Of England date for this year……hey ho…..perhaps next year. Love “LILY” by the way……Steven & Louise
there is a date pencilled in towards the end of next April….hopefully that will materialise and we can visit Tyneside once again
Christy, I’ve been hearing about the documentary on RTE earlier this year, called Journey. I haven’t been able to see it yet. Is it going to be available on DVD?
Thanks
Yes John, it will be available on DVD in the near future and will include extra footage
Hi Christy,
Maybe you or some of your readers may be interested in seeing this 4 minute interview with Dave Lordan on his book The Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains.
Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/rdbK3CSsths
Recommended reading..thanks for posting
Hi Christy,
I just wanted to say thank you for your recent performance here at the National rehabilitation hospital. You brought some great jot to our patients here who are still talking about it. The time you gave after the show was fantastic and some of the resulting photos are now treasured memories for the patients ranging from the very youngest to the oldest. I am the one who gave you a cd of the song Easter Lillie after the performance but in the mayhem I never told you what it was about. I wrote the song based on an interview with Nora Connelly about the night before her father, James Connolly was executed in 1916. It showed another side to the story. The one of those left behind and how incredibly sad it must have been for them. The story is told through the eyes of Nora’s Mother Lillie. Its sung my own daughter Shannon. I hope you get time to listen to it and maybe some day you might give it a bash. Thank you once again for a wonderful evening in the NRH. Kindest regards, Dave
Thanks to everyone involved for making our visit to Rochestown Ave so special…..everyone weighed in,the clients, their famiies, the staff and all the Volunteers..it was a magic evening….I will carry the memory in my heart with gratitude…I hope ye are all doing well…
ps must not forget the Chef who fed us all so well after the concert
pps thanks for sharing the song
Thinking of you today Veronica, you are not forgotten,you are a lily that bloomed and was taken much to soon.
Christy, tell The Joe lad I said Hello, as only we irish can, Dumper Trumper is talking shit , non stop, and he has ears listening too his shit , which is not funny at all lad.Bon Jour went well for our lads in France, give it nine months and a day , and baby’s will be coming into this world from all directions.
I have listened to lily a fair few times and this is what gets the head straight , almost all of the songs have been hummed and sang , the lost tribe is hard to get going as it is to me a spoke tongue vibe, and not easy to rise., that said, I love the image it gives me when I hear it. I love mandolin mountain, the gardener has a changes way about it, or January man feel,, john was a very special person , for I have not heard a song from his collection of songs that I did not love and , green grows the laurel is just class. It’s to me special., hope all is well with the family and please keep the Biden fella as long as ye can, give him a sample of oour pure contaminated water, powder breast milk in the tea, and a slice of oil cake , it’s the new vibe I hear, then show him a fairy ring and fuck him in, good man yourself, all the best buddy
to which of the many “Joes” in my life am I to carry your greeting ? glad to hear that you may sing some of the songs from LILY..thats what its all about
Just back home from our trip to Westport, highs and lows along the way…. Such a high after the concert , an unbelievable night. Ger delighted to hear City of Chicago and Spancil Hill ….as perfect as could be. As has been said the new stuff from Lily is already settled in to the set list and sounding great.
The lows were on the green fields of France, a brave effort but just short in the end. . .
Glenties Gortahork Falcarragh,Ardara,Dunbeg,Carndonagh Fintown,Killybegs,Letterkenny,Narin, Pettigo, Rossknowlagh,Donegal,Bundoran,Ballyshannon,Buncrana,Ballybofey..played and/or stayed in all these fine places and a few more besides…some great listeners and some right quare hawks up yonder in the far Northwest…thank you both for all your support,,,sad to hear about Leo Ó Braonáin..what a lovely man ….he leaves a great legacy of love after him
The Dubs march on, for everyone else it was a “nearly” weekend…. The Lillys nearly beat our Lake County…. Our Rugby boys nearly beat South Africa, our Soccer players nearly snuffed the French.As Joxer and the Boys head home they can be proud of their time in France. Yes we can party without been troublemakers.
Delighted to read the Great reports of your 2 Gigs in the West…….and “Lightning Bird” kicked off in Wespot,,, a brilliant Song.
It is to your eternal credit that you continue to perform at such a high standard all of the time….. we are indeed privileged listeners.
Ride on
Patsy
greetings to all Linnets who fly around the broad street
CM (71)
Na Forbacha was spectacular, my favorite gig yet .I predicted that if you sung Joxer you would say Robby Brady and you did, fair play.I think you and the group played in very good harmony together .Don’t forget your shovel was dynamite, I loved shine on you crazy diamond I could tell that was a huge effort .It was Oíche Tine Sheáin that night and all the bonfires were lit it was so class on the way home watching them on Aran , Carraroe , Lettermore, Spideál , Inverin , Caislean and practically every where.
Did you see that big wall before the Connemara coast after liberty stream ? The reason it was there was to charge people taxes going into Galway and the money paid for those walls and big shots to line their pockets ..some things never change .
I have a question for you , did you pass my crossroads near Casla? I heard from a not very credible source (my cousin Padraig) that you drove slowly passed my crossroads and he said he almost crashed his car and had a heart attack when you waved at him . Hmm is this the same fella that told me he spent a night in Donald Trump’s 100 foot yacht down in Galway docks? Sailed it out past Oileán Áráinn too according to him.!
I really hope you come to Connemara again please do .. I was very sad when I knew you were in Mayo.
CS(11 6/8)
P.S did you ever hear Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash sing “Girl from North Country? ,”. Something special about it.
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is a classic song…it reminds me of “An Bunan Buí”…I love to sing it bit tis not every night that t’would work…I have not sung “The Yellow Bittern” for 35 years and its one of my favourite songs….
I missed the big wall for I was asleep in the car from Athlone to Teach Furbo….
I cant answer your question about Casla…on the Friday trip from Furbo to Westport I was working on a song, phoning home, reading the Brexit, thinking about the Friday night gig, watchin out for Joe Biden,
Yes, I heard Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash….just recently I saw a brilliant film from New York…”The Highwaymen” playing some huge venue ( Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings plus a brilliant Band)..its the first time I ever really connected with Johnny cash..he showed a side of himself that I had not witnessed before….Johnny and Bob did a fair auld job on “Girl from North Country” ( was she from Cavan or Donegal ? !!!)…
Hi C,,,, I don’t understand how ye keep raising the bar,,,, well I guess you’ ve new songs,,, and new members in the band and Declan is expanding his own musical adventure,,,,but really the gigs do keep getting better and better,,,, its so wonderful,,,,to see and hear the magic unfold every night,,,, Go raibh mile , mile maith agaibh go leir,,,, Beir bua agus beannacht,,, H
its refreshing to have a new bunch of songs to play….also to have a back repertoire of songs to dip in and pick a few out for revival… Sheamie is bringing new colours to the pictures, Declan is forever developing his sounds and varying his licks…I like the 4 voices coming in together..this is something I have never worked on before and intend to develop…then I also have the upcoming outings with the Trad Outfit to contemplate …apart from all this , an essential ingredient is the wonderful audience that turns up to hear the songs, to provide the air that sustains us in our efforts…we are indeed fortunate to have such great listeners…your tickets keep the wagons rolling…your listening keeps us on our toes
the Killarney festival is shaping up very well…. looking forward to playing there…also gonna hang around and have a listen…I have long since loved Killarney…recorded the Ride On album there..wrote “Tyrone Boys” there, wrote “They never came home” there too…used to play a residency there in the 80s..every Thu night in the Gleneagles..I still remember the struggle we had with the late Maurice O Donoghue to get the bar closed during the set but, fair play to him, he was one of the first to let me do it…
the boys in France played their hearts out today, they can hold their heads on high..it seems like the start of a new chapter in Irish Soccer…
but now we can focus on the Football and Hurling..alive alive o….
Thank you for the Ed Vuillamy piece. I have had to make some awful choices today. What to do when you realise that someone you care about shows a side to themselves that is utterly unpalatable. My friend Paula said today it’s like realising that the person you love most is an abuser but you lack the courage to leave. I am grateful Christy that I was in Ireland when this betrayal happened in a country that I was once so grateful to for making me who I am. I am no longer grateful. The second choice was like choosing your favourite child. Furbo or Westport. Furbo because the gig was sheer perfection in every way. Westport because I heard the Ballad of Patrick Murphy in a way I’d not heard before. It’s nuance I say to Michael. You need to develop nuance Michael. Thank you for the mention of the scoundrel Farmer. The dedication was like getting through to Hank Marvin. Unsolicited and unexpected is always the most delicious. And thank you for a shirt. It makes it real. Not a dream. We went to Croagh Patrick and got as far as the man himself but the devotions were too much to ask of me. I need to take a vow of abstinence around the cakes and pies to climb that mountain. To you and to your wonderful band of divine fellows, thank you. xx
I first went to England in 1961 aged 16 to work for 3 months…since then not a years has passed without a visit…in 1966 I moved there and stayed for 5 years…I have had nothing but good experiences there ( the few blemishes were of my own making)..I feel very close to England and to many of the citizens whom I encountered….the exit vote has not changed any of the good things I feel… I seldom encountered the right wingers, the facists, the little englanders, the empire loyalists,…I did witness racism on the football terraces and also encountered mild aspects of racism myself but have witnessed a lot worse in Ireland in recent years….it is sad to see divisions emerge, splits that have been carefully planned and manouvred….I hope it all works out for you..that you fine peace..
Furbo was very special for the band..we felt we hit the spot on Thurday, in Westport had a few hitches but , thankfully, the audience did not seem to notice
thanks to you and all the good listeners that keep this show on the road…and a feck for all our foes
re St Patrick…
You heard ,I suppose, long ago
how the snakes in a manner most antic
he marched to the County Mayo
and ordered them into The Atlantic
Hence never use water to drink
the people of Ireland determine
with mighty good reason I think
for St Patrick has filled it with vermin…..
…………and snakes and other such things
(From “St Patricks Arrival” on the album “The Iron Behind The Velvet” 1978)
A wise man once said the thing we fear the most is often the thing we most need to do.
Just back again from Tobernalt. I was staring into the well water there. Reflections of the overhead branches dancing in the sun kissed water.
And for a moment…..could it be? A shadow of the Lost Tribe of Wicklow Mountain , hiding in the dark crevices?
You have staged the other Lilies. Will those who were Lost be found on CM stage in Sligo this Thursday?
Please.
Dear Christy,
I can’t wait till Thursday next. Looking forward to yez bringing Lily alive and well into the rainbows of Sligo.
If ye have a half hour to spare, you might like to make a 5 minute detour to Tobernalt, near Sligo I’m not much for the statues of Christianity but this Holy Well has been a place of peace long before St Patrick blessed these ancient shores. There’s a dríocht about the place – a strangeness about the rosarie beads dripping like autumn leaves from the trees there. It’s got a special serenity.
I’m grateful for the gratitude of finding peace and finally leaving the Dark Days (and nights) in the past. I am grateful for your song, Cry Like A Man. It was one a few shining lights that lit my way out of the darkness. Thank you.
See you Thursday ????
https://youtu.be/6i0B4I-6SEI
I too am looking forward to returning to the Hazelwood…even more so then usual as this time we will have Sheamie O’Dowd alongside us….he brings a whole array of new colours to the sound…he sits in and absorbs the spirit of the songs..be they light or dark, frivolous or sincere,Sheamie understands and plays it as he hears it….Up Sligo!
I’ll not make it to Tobernalt this time….our gig days are long as there is much to be done..so much that it takes all day to do it..better to visit the Holy Well when time is looser and there are no distractions..easier then to absorb the Draíocht, to seek the spirit,to hear the water drip…see you adup near Coney Island
Hi Christy,
I hope you enjoyed playing in Westport.A lovely spot and venue.For many reasons,i’d love to have been there.
I deliberately didn’t post here yesterday and I hope that by doing so now,i don’t abuse the privilege of having such an open minded forum-where fellow readers/listeners,as followers of your music,are likely to share many of my core values.
Yesterday was a depressing,confusing day here-for those of us whose modus operandi is more focused on compassion,inclusivity and tolerance.To be told by a succession of right wing ‘politicians’,ego maniacs,acolytes and gobshites that they have now ‘reclaimed’ my country for me and that there is now ‘independence’ was a nauseating experience.Made more depressing for the message it sends to the world and the boost it gives to the right as it masses ranks across Europe.But,there are those of us who disagree and will do our utmost to hold on to the values that sustain us.
For once,no music was played in my house all day.Not even Dylan lyrics summed up the mood.But somewhere in the angry,mashed up brain cells,something was resonating.it was very late when I finally made the connection.The sentiments are timeless,the words almost a century old.In ‘The Second Coming’,WB Yeats,summed up my current feelings.I hope that some readers here will (re)connect with this poem.Especially people who might have few links with England or its electorate.Millions of us oppose the tyrants who now have this country by the balls.For many of us,the unity of basic human values will,hopefully see us through.
Rant over and time for some music.First up ‘Yellow Triangle’…
As ever,Christy-thanks for this forum and all you do.
Dave
Dave, these are dark days in many ways,
our corner of the world is rearranging itself in a disorderly manner…..
no one knows whats going down, one part of me fears the worst, another part hopes a peaceful outcome…I fluctuate in my ignorance, lost just now but I’m gonna get up, draw the curtains and take in the day….
Connemara and Westport went well….one man last night complained that the room was too crowded and hot..the other 500 got on with it and raised us up to play their songs…..
a friend shared this piece which was written by Ed Vulliamy……
Sometimes, it is much more stressful to be right than wrong. Before the Euro football tournament in Switzerland in 2008, two championships ago, I offered a column to my newspaper about how this was a metaphor what the continent will soon look like: without England, and probably – in the long run – better off for being so. Europe could get on with the tournament without English fans, just as it can now get on with the thornier matter of rescuing the European Union without Margaret Thatcher’s whinging handbag, Tony Blair’s hubristic alliance with the Bush administration and David Cameron’s pestering, which has now become the suicide of his own, belatedly-professed cause. The piece was turned down – people thought, not without reason, that I was as mad as Trojan Cassandra.
No one really saw it coming; especially not among the “opinion formers” who live in cosmopolitan London, rarely venturing to the post-industrial wasteland and nasty-minded suburbs of towns and cities in the Midlands and North.
I’ve presumed a ‘Brexit’ for ages, and for this reason – among others – sold my apartment in London to buy, with what I had left, a little place in Paris, hoping that Brits who pay property tax in the EU will keep a right of abode – half a million of them in Spain. With the result ringing in my ear today, Black Friday 24th June, I’ve made a dash for the Eurostar before they block the tunnel.
I did wonder (darkly) whether the murder of a highly sympathetic Labour MP by a neo-Nazi, brazenly related to the Xenophobic language of the ‘Leave’ campaign, would be enough to make wavering voters think twice about his words as he plunged the blade and pulled the trigger: ‘Britain First’. But it wasn’t – or if it was, it reduced what would have been an even bigger majority to leave.
This has been a long time coming; it has been the tea-leaves of little-Englishness during almost every recent national outburst, and in the national mindset, not just the repulsive antics of football fans and fascists. It has been there in what is not there: how many town or city or county council offices in Britain flew the flag of the EU, as they do in France, Italy or elsewhere? Almost none. How long has this been going on, “getting a better deal for Britain” in Brussels? Forever, almost since I cast my very first vote, in the referendum of 1975, to join the EU.
It has been in the tarot cards of successive bulimic royal occasions: Prince William’s wedding, royal babies, the Queen’s jubilee, the Queen’s 90th birthday. It propelled the spectacle of the Olympic games; the inward-looking nostalgia of the Oscar-winning film, ‘The King’s Speech’. Above all, it has screamed from the headlines since the crisis of migration and flight of refugees – described by the supposedly Europhile Prime Minister as a “swarm”.
David Cameron did not have to call the referendum that now carves his legacy as the idiot Prime Minister who took Britain out of Europe, apparently against his wishes but having himself set the Little-England ball rolling with his pre-referendum foot-stamping against the EU. But he did and he let the genie out of the bottle, as best expressed by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper The Sun – which has never lost an election. It backed Margaret Thatcher venomously. When it abandoned its usual Conservative stance to support the Labour Party, Labour won. When it returned to its Tory fold, the Tories won again. Now, the The Sun has again backed – and perhaps help forge – the winner.
What has Cameron (and most of the people who voted for him as Prime Minister, now for ‘Brexit’) unleashed? Scotland will probably secede. Perhaps, unthinkably, Northern Ireland, so that Cameron will have achieved what the IRA has failed to in 100 years. Will there be a referendum in Poland, then Hungary, maybe even Austria? Will Marine Le Pen feel a step closer to being empowered to do the same? Probably not, but the buffoons of British nationalism will fuel their tanks.
There is no vindication in having seen this coming. There is only anger and sadness. At the dogged, small-minded isolation that a small majority of Britons have yearned for, now got and inflicted on the rest of us. At the fact that my daughters are stuck on this now soggy little island – and have no right of abode or labour in Europe, unlike their peers who can live and work from Sweden to Sicily, Poland to Portugal, without hindrance.
Anger at the elite, cut off from the country outside London, which brought this on themselves, and on Britain. Even when they argued to remain in Europe, the government never appealed to the wider, bigger issues of what Jean Monet began in the 1940s in Europe, to make the second half of the 20th Century so different from the first – only about Britain’s interests within it, and about money. One could invoke Umberto Eco’s great dictum of “I Legioni dei Imbecilli” were it not for the elite’s complicity in all this.
Anger at the Labour Party for being culpably silent over all that has been lost – access to the human rights court, pollution controls – and lost the post-working class to ‘Brexit’. Okay, so it was not easy to vote with the IMF, the banks, the financial mafia – but the internationalist foundations of the EU are cogent too, and were lost in the miserably mediocre discourse.
Anger at the stupidity of people for believing all those lies about how money sent to Europe would somehow end up in our national health service and schools. Angry at what will happen next in the Eton civil war between Cameron and his likely successor, the absurdly terrifying Boris Johnson, a British Berlusconi, a British Trump – feigning maverick, but in reality the system on legs.
If this is what “Britain First” looks like, count me out. My passport has always been a badge of shame, on the slipstream of Empire, but now it has become an outright embarrassment, a symbol of imbecility, and needs changing.
“Wanted: Internationalist male writer and journalist – 60-something but not a bad catch – seeks eligible single or divorced Italian, Irish, Polish, French, etc. female with similar interests in literature, politics and music for hasty marriage and purposeful but dolce vita in the European Union. Will promise to be grateful forever”.
—
Ed Vulliamy
I have Campbell relatives in Cape Breton that I have never actually met. But you have got to love this. If I have posted this before, my apologies. Going to do the Trans-Canada trail next year. And the money I save from camping out, I will spend on a ticket to fly to Ireland. But I gotta hit Cape Breton first aha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4r1Gv4z42U
Absolutely amazing tonight. Great mix of songs. Some start with Lightning Bird. The songs off Lily feel like you have been gigging them for a long time, in fact it feels as if the songs were penned with you specifically in mind to sing them such is the level of perfection . City of Chicago was special too. At times tonight it was spellbinding and difficult to know whether to concentrate on yourself or Dec , Seamie or Jimmy. Whatever you are doing….keep doing it.
Landed in the west, thru the showers…..looking forward to the gig. Be good to hear the new songs live . No sign of the Buck from Islandeady so far….thank God.
like all of them all over Europe, he is busy chasing his tail today…poor man, trying to smile for the Biden photo as he wonders what the fuck is gonna happen now