Christy Moore review: Musical giant receives royal welcome at Cork’s Marquee
Sat, 27 Jun, 2026 – Joe Dermody
There were plenty nods to Leeside during Moore’s set, including a version of Johnny Jump Up, in tribute to his ailing friend Jimmy Crowley
The mesmerised crowd was wowed by the sheer scale of the heights reached by Christy Moore, a musical giant who thankfully still deems fit to walk among us.
From the capacity audience’s tumultuous volley of applause as he walked on stage, through to the inevitable standing ovation at the close, the royal welcome was fitting indeed for Ireland’s crowned king of folk.
And King Christy, the only artist to have featured here every year since the launch of the Live at the Marquee gigs in 2005 and rightly chosen by the people of Ireland as their greatest living musician in RTÉ’s People of the Year Awards back in 2007, isn’t about to abdicate the throne any time soon.
The most powerful live performer in Irish music history is still blessed with a peerless singing voice. Having marked his 81st birthday recently, Moore’s vocal clarity is extraordinary by any standards. Total recall, thousands of words delivered with his eyes closed. Flawless for two hours solid. He also has deep humour and humanity.
“You may have heard that Jimmy Crowley has been fighting an illness. Back in the 1970s, I did a world tour with Jimmy across the entire of West Cork […] We finished up in Kealkil, snowed in for a lock-in for three or four days. He taught me this song.” Johnny Jump Up, delivered a capella and with great humour.
We had a shout-out to Cork songwriters John Spillane and Martin Leahy, both there on the night (as was rugby legend Donal Lenihan), also to Ricky Lynch.
We had a medley of Jimmy McCarthy songs, among them The Contender and Bright Blue Rose.
“It’s great that Jimmy is back playing gigs, “ said Moore. “He’s playing the Opera House. I’m hearing that the gigs are great, by all accounts.”
For those who have attended Moore’s raucous annual series of Vicar Street shows, where audience interaction treads a thin line between panto and riot, this Marquee crowd is more reverent in its church-like veneration of this legend.
Nonetheless, while respectful, neither is this night banter-free. One fan shouted, “Hey, Christy”.
Christy says: “A round of applause for this fella. He has just woken up and realised it’s me he’s watching. He thought I was Paul Weller. No Style Council in here tonight, my friend.”
With an expansive back catalogue to choose from, you’ll always be in for a few surprises. He treats us to a selection from his chart-topping 2024 album, A Terrible Beauty, including Palestine and the brilliant Black & Amber, about a pub in the Dublin suburb of Inchicore, named after the Kilkenny people whose favourite stop this was “on their way up to Croker to try to wrestle the Liam McCarthy Cup from the Rebel [County]”.
In fact, Moore joked about the crowd’s attempts to clap along to Black & Amber, which he halted with a momentary pause and a squint of the eye.
“I heard one woman saying recently that they were disappointed they couldn’t clap along with me. ‘Him with his big bald head, I wouldn’t step foot in one of his concerts ever again’. So ye want to clap along? Here’s one.” Delerium Tremens, a riotous version, finishing with a new verse.
Moore had opened the night singing a chorus of The Big Marquee as he walked on; it’s his ode to the people of Cork, listing his favourite Corkonians, and a tribute to the Marquee itself.
When he got around to singing it, the stage lights momentarily cut out. When the lights came back up, he started over, adding “just as well the lights went off because I was singing it in the wrong fucking key”. When the Gods are with you!
Other hits included Ride On, Sonny, Black is The Colour, Missing You, Ordinary Man, Joxer, Lisdoonvarna, The Voyage and North & South (dedicated to the memory of his old friend Tommie O’Gorman).
Moore sang The Boy from Tamlaghduff, his tribute to Francis Hughes, who died in the Maze Prison hunger strikes in 1981. He introduced his song Veronica Guerin with a blistering attack on the criminals who murdered her.
The show had everything. We had the big hits, a section of very personal political songs, the comedy, the call-outs to six-year-old Oisin Kelleher over from England, as well as to Adam and Anna over from Wales just for the gig.
What more could you ask for? There’s a reason they call him a legend.