Hi Christy,
Delighted to hear you have released Music to Our Ears by poet Johnny Broderick, as a spoken word tribute to esteemed President Michael D Higgins. Absolutely love him and First Lady Sabine. He absolutely is ‘a national treasure, treasured’ Looking forward to hearing it. Go well Christy Free Palestine
Christy's reply
ceart go leór mo cara….marcaidh ar aghaidh….how I miss the auld seimhithes
Really looking forward to tonight. My wife Carole and I have flown in from Newcastle UK for tonight’s gig! My wife bought me this as a 60th present.
Wish you all the best and hope you have a great 80th year of celebrations!
Christy's reply
Canny Lad Canny Lass…..I’m forever following the blue star..dreamin of The Marsden Rattlers, High Level Ranters, Hedgehog Pie, Prudhoe, Hebburn & Jarrow
I’m sitting looking up at my ticket from Barrowlands 2014 framed with your broken plectrum from the gig – Mick handed it down to me from the stage after the dust had settled that night. We had asked you through here for a blast of Spancil Hill that night for my mate Paul from Tipp and by God you came back out and you gave it holly. We sailed down Gallowgate that night after the gig.
I’ve seen you many many times back on the old sod since but tonight is only my second time seeing you in my home county – Ballina previously. Setting off shortly for the TF. Have a good one Christy and enjoy the warmth of the Mayo welcome.
Does Michael Gaughan ever come to mind on such nights?……
Hello Christy. I’m deep impressed after listening to your video. Wonderful. Heartful.
Thank you much for the link, Hilary.
Good luck for your on- and ongoing gigs
Christy.
Best wishes to all
Günter
Christy's reply
danke schón Gúnter….hope all well over there in the land of Kraftwerk & Toten Hosen…..give my best wihes to Abi Wallenstein
Superb words,brilliantly expressed…fine sentiments and envied here.
A poignant coincidence….lots of yesterday spent thinking of Slane and Henry Mount Charles…a photo that often shows up is Michael D Higgins in the crowd for Dylan’s 1984 gig…seen a few times yesterday.
All the best
Dave
Christy's reply
“a young body slipped quietly through the rushes
as Mountcharles surveyed the battle field
the silk clad pompadour who played Sun City
heard little of the corpse among the reeds
the mist slips quietly o’er the mountan
children have forgotten how to play
a death train sneaks across the Island
deadly poison bound for Killala Bay”
Hello Christy,
I turned on my phone this morning and up popped a video. It happens a lot, I need to work out how to turn the buggers off. Anyway, this morning it was your new recording. Music to our ears. And it was! What a lovely start to the day.
There are no leaders in this country that I could ever have any similar feeling for, except Jeremy Corbin, that most tenacious of men.
And more’s the pity for it.
Owen Farrell is back at Saracens.
I cannot believe the day has finally arrived. I will see Christy live today. When you see those old concert videos of legends like Bob Marley performing and you cant imagine what it must have been like. Well, today is my turn. I will see a legend perform and decades from now may will watch the performance and say ‘It must have been legendary’ and they will be right. Even before attending the show, I can say this! I’m African and every time I hear Christy and Declan, I feel right at home in Ireland. Thank you,
Please if you could perform Beeswing for me Christy.
Many Congratulations on the release this morning of your spoken word piece to our outstanding President Michael D Higgins “Music to Our Ears “. It is a wonderful poem by Johnny Broderick and your voice has just the appropriate gravitas to do it justice. It is a credit to all involved, may it rise to number 1 https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2025/0620/1519069-christy-moore-releases-spoken-tribute-for-president/ Beir bua agus beannacht. H
Christy's reply
it all happened purely by chance….after a days work in Gavin Murphy’s studio we were drinking tea and havin a chat….he mentioned that Johnny B had written a tribute to Michael D, that he was building a backing track….knowing both men I was curios, he ran the track with the lyrics on the screen on his screen…I asked him to run it again and record….I gave it a shot and that was it….Gavin sent it me next day…it sounded fine….Val noticed that I had mispronounced two words…epitome and evervescent….went back to Gavin’s corrected the problems…..and now its out on the air…..
Reading the obituary for Henry Mount Charles took me back …wandering the hills and Slane village.Occasional visits to brilliant concerts and many happy times on the banks of The Boyne..deep roots for your family too…
Music starting the day…pure tones and wonderful songs of Anne Briggs…sadly,never saw her on a gig…always good when you recall such times…
Hi Christy,
All roads lead West tomorrow night…Alas no All-Ireland this year.
Delighted that you are singing the songs YOU want to sing, long may it continue, we will be all still here soaking it up. Hope “ Johnny Boy” makes it on to the menu.
Safe travels across the country.
Ride On.
Patsy
Christy's reply
I miss going thru Moate…feckin satnav wont allow it
Not sure if it ok to do this here, but all I can do is ask. I am sure you have heard of the Laura Lynn Children’s Hospice, my friend Jane McKenna lost her only two children. Despite her immense grief she went on to raise the 5 million euro to build Laura Lynn House, based in Foxrock. I am compiling a book of quotations and inspirations and I am asking well known people to contribute. All money from sales will go to Laura Lynn, My question is WHAT IS A FAVOURITE QUOTE OF YOURS AND THEN WRITE A FEW LINES ON WHY YOU HAVE CHOSEN THIS,
It can be just one line or more if you wish. Both Jane and I are fans. It would be such an honour if you would agree to give us a quote for the book. It is such a project of hope and light that hopefully will raise a lot of money for the Hospice.
Thank you. sending you light Cathy and Jane
Hi Christy, I hope that you are welll, I thought I’d share an article written by Andy Twelves in the Daily Express (amazingly)….its sensational.
“I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers… because I feel that my songs seem to cut across and find perhaps a unifying thing, basic humanity.” That was Pete Seeger, 1955, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A man grilled not for what he did, but for what he sang. For daring to strum truth in a country allergic to it.
Seventy years later, swap the banjo for a mic and the Rockefellers for West Belfast, the artist on trial now isn’t Seeger – it’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh. And the stage isn’t a Washington committee room – it’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court, surrounded by supporters, press, and elected representatives.
Outside, crowds clap, chant, and raise Palestinian flags, while a cheeky van rolls past every 10 minutes or so blaring “More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish, Mo Chara” – reclaiming an old slur as protest art, loud and laughing in the face of state power.
He didn’t commit violence. He performed. He made art. Art that embarrassed the British state. And here, as ever, that’s a bigger crime than the one he’s plead not guilty to.
Officially, his arrest was about one flag he’s accused of brandishing at one London gig. But it’s hard not to see this as part of a long, unbroken tradition of working-class artists who speak out and get punished. About murals, miners, microphones, and memory. About every artist who refused to be told which side to sing for, and every government that tried to shut them up.
Whether it’s the coalfields of South Yorkshire or the murals of the Falls Road, from Christy Moore’s hunger strike ballads, to tributes on Anfield Road – the message has always been the same: We, the people, are still here. We, the people, are not shutting up.
And every time a government tries to silence that message, it only gets louder. They knew what this moment was. Officially, this is about an alleged terrorism offence. But it looks like plain old control.
While Mo Chara stands in the dock for allegedly waving a flag, those complicit in a genocide walk the streets untouched. Since October 2023, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza – entire families erased, journalists targeted, children bombed in their beds.
More than 300 officials at the Foreign Office raised their concerns about Israel’s “stark … disregard for international law”. And yet, the UK government continues to greenlight arms deals and offer diplomatic cover. That’s not a performance. That’s a conscious policy decision. Made in Westminster, paid for by the taxpayer, and buried beneath silence.
And when working-class artists speak up, not in white papers or policy briefings, but in songs, shouts from festival stages – the system panics. Kneecap had the audacity to call it genocide. To do it on the world stage. To link the struggle of Gaza to Belfast, to the estates where working-class kids know exactly what it means to be treated as expendable.
And now it’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh being prosecuted. Not the ministers who signed off export licenses. Not the billionaires who profit from selling the bombs. But a rapper from West Belfast who told the truth with a mic.
Because this is what always happens when working-class people raise their voice. When they sing about Orgreave. When they pay tributes to Hillsborough victims on wall art. When they write lyrics about hunger strikes, police brutality, or kids killed abroad with British bombs. The powerful don’t care if the blood is real, they care if the protest is effective.
Mo Chara’s real problem is that the message he put out landed. Working-class people aren’t meant to speak like this, organise like this, or connect struggles across borders like this. That’s what scares them.
And as Seeger knew, that’s what makes working-class art so dangerous – it connects. You can ban a song from the airwaves, but not from memory. You can police a performance, but not the idea it plants.
They’ve tried this before. Give Ireland Back to the Irish – banned. Christy Moore – detained. The Pogues’ Streets of Sorrow – silenced for decades. And now, it seems to be Mo Chara – for turning protest into poetry, politics into art.
So here’s the question – the same one Pete Seeger asked, the same one Mo Chara asks now: Which side are you on?“
Christy's reply
great post..thanks for sharing…
Kneecap refuse to go quietly..
great respect for the 3 of them, for Dan and their team
let us support them any way we can….
Dear Christy ,
Myself & new my wife Debbie McGrath are heading to your concert in Castlebar Friday night the 20th of June .
We got married last year in Athy , Co Kildare not far from your neck of the woods .
At our wedding last year we had our first dance to your version of Beeswing .
If this reaches you we would love if you could play that song for us , if not no worries at all we look foward to the show & hope your keeping well.
Christy's reply
“Now Mrs McGrath the Sergeant said
would you like to make a soldier out of your Son Ted
with scarlet coat and cockade
now Mrs McGrath would’nt you like that
wid me tooria fol de diddle da
toori fol de diddle dairy e o”
On right now on TG4 ‘Lyra’ tears in my eyes watching this, what a beautiful young girl, she was a powerhouse, your song to her is amazing and it’s beautiful and powerful like her, keep singing it, keep her name alive, keep her spirit alive.
So we’ve missed our annual visit to see you at the Royal Festival Hall or Basingstoke, so we’re coming to see you in Cork on the 28th June. Always enjoy the show but would love if you played North and South of the River.
Looking forward to the show.
Christy's reply
I too miss those nights in The Festival Hall….Time moves on, circumstances change… the memories still linger… as Sweet Thames Flows Softly…..The Festival Hall became my favourite London Venue across the 50 years I got to play in The Big Smoke….. it began for me at The White Hart, Fulham Broadway in 1966 , my last London gig (I think) was RFH in 2018….in between I played The Troubadour, Hammersmith Folk Centre, Roundhouse, Cecil Sharpe House, Albert Hall, Fighting Cocks Kingston,Barbican, Battersea, Hackney Empire, Electric Ballroom,Quex Road, Forum Kentish Town, National in Kilburn, Gaumont State ( With Doc Watson) Nell’s Cafe, Finsbury Park, Peeler’s Club, Singer’s Club (Ewan & Peggy)….and they were others too…played the Anvil in Basingstoke … did a TV show with Ian Dury, a few with Jools, one with Andrew Marr., Terry Wogan..a myriad of Radio gigs ,including Ned Sherrin, Johnny Walker, Janice Long, Parky,
Country Meets Folk, Desert Island, on and on ..I loved evert second of it all…..The Marquee in Cork is special for me…hope you enjoy your visit ….hopefully I’ll get to play North & South of The River
Also,found ‘Songlines’ mag…lots of superb articles,especially an epic about Martin Carthy ,50 years after his debut LP…there’s a fantastic quote.
‘ younger artists are very welcome to anything I’ve got.
Because what you’re doing is making music and remaking it.
There it is…take it and run with it.’
Hi Christy,
Delighted to hear you have released Music to Our Ears by poet Johnny Broderick, as a spoken word tribute to esteemed President Michael D Higgins. Absolutely love him and First Lady Sabine. He absolutely is ‘a national treasure, treasured’ Looking forward to hearing it. Go well Christy Free Palestine
ceart go leór mo cara….marcaidh ar aghaidh….how I miss the auld seimhithes
Hello Christie,
Really looking forward to tonight. My wife Carole and I have flown in from Newcastle UK for tonight’s gig! My wife bought me this as a 60th present.
Wish you all the best and hope you have a great 80th year of celebrations!
Canny Lad Canny Lass…..I’m forever following the blue star..dreamin of The Marsden Rattlers, High Level Ranters, Hedgehog Pie, Prudhoe, Hebburn & Jarrow
I’m sitting looking up at my ticket from Barrowlands 2014 framed with your broken plectrum from the gig – Mick handed it down to me from the stage after the dust had settled that night. We had asked you through here for a blast of Spancil Hill that night for my mate Paul from Tipp and by God you came back out and you gave it holly. We sailed down Gallowgate that night after the gig.
I’ve seen you many many times back on the old sod since but tonight is only my second time seeing you in my home county – Ballina previously. Setting off shortly for the TF. Have a good one Christy and enjoy the warmth of the Mayo welcome.
Does Michael Gaughan ever come to mind on such nights?……
Michael Gaughan…. Frank Stagg……always remembered
Hi Christy, Please perform Viva la Quinta Brigada tonight.
sure will..good call out
Hello Christy. I’m deep impressed after listening to your video. Wonderful. Heartful.
Thank you much for the link, Hilary.
Good luck for your on- and ongoing gigs
Christy.
Best wishes to all
Günter
danke schón Gúnter….hope all well over there in the land of Kraftwerk & Toten Hosen…..give my best wihes to Abi Wallenstein
Hi Christy, Harry here. Im coming to see you tonight in Castlebar. Id love if you sang Spancil Hill but theres no pressure. Good luck, Harry
good man Harry….I nearly sang it towards the end…got distracted…what you singin these days ?
Hi Christy
Superb words,brilliantly expressed…fine sentiments and envied here.
A poignant coincidence….lots of yesterday spent thinking of Slane and Henry Mount Charles…a photo that often shows up is Michael D Higgins in the crowd for Dylan’s 1984 gig…seen a few times yesterday.
All the best
Dave
“a young body slipped quietly through the rushes
as Mountcharles surveyed the battle field
the silk clad pompadour who played Sun City
heard little of the corpse among the reeds
the mist slips quietly o’er the mountan
children have forgotten how to play
a death train sneaks across the Island
deadly poison bound for Killala Bay”
Hello Christy,
I turned on my phone this morning and up popped a video. It happens a lot, I need to work out how to turn the buggers off. Anyway, this morning it was your new recording. Music to our ears. And it was! What a lovely start to the day.
There are no leaders in this country that I could ever have any similar feeling for, except Jeremy Corbin, that most tenacious of men.
And more’s the pity for it.
Owen Farrell is back at Saracens.
Rebecca
In the Summertime sand Mungo Jerry
I cannot believe the day has finally arrived. I will see Christy live today. When you see those old concert videos of legends like Bob Marley performing and you cant imagine what it must have been like. Well, today is my turn. I will see a legend perform and decades from now may will watch the performance and say ‘It must have been legendary’ and they will be right. Even before attending the show, I can say this! I’m African and every time I hear Christy and Declan, I feel right at home in Ireland. Thank you,
Please if you could perform Beeswing for me Christy.
Many Congratulations on the release this morning of your spoken word piece to our outstanding President Michael D Higgins “Music to Our Ears “. It is a wonderful poem by Johnny Broderick and your voice has just the appropriate gravitas to do it justice. It is a credit to all involved, may it rise to number 1 https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2025/0620/1519069-christy-moore-releases-spoken-tribute-for-president/ Beir bua agus beannacht. H
it all happened purely by chance….after a days work in Gavin Murphy’s studio we were drinking tea and havin a chat….he mentioned that Johnny B had written a tribute to Michael D, that he was building a backing track….knowing both men I was curios, he ran the track with the lyrics on the screen on his screen…I asked him to run it again and record….I gave it a shot and that was it….Gavin sent it me next day…it sounded fine….Val noticed that I had mispronounced two words…epitome and evervescent….went back to Gavin’s corrected the problems…..and now its out on the air…..
Hi Christy
Reading the obituary for Henry Mount Charles took me back …wandering the hills and Slane village.Occasional visits to brilliant concerts and many happy times on the banks of The Boyne..deep roots for your family too…
Music starting the day…pure tones and wonderful songs of Anne Briggs…sadly,never saw her on a gig…always good when you recall such times…
Enjoy the big gig and travels.
Dave
Hi Christy,
All roads lead West tomorrow night…Alas no All-Ireland this year.
Delighted that you are singing the songs YOU want to sing, long may it continue, we will be all still here soaking it up. Hope “ Johnny Boy” makes it on to the menu.
Safe travels across the country.
Ride On.
Patsy
I miss going thru Moate…feckin satnav wont allow it
Not sure if it ok to do this here, but all I can do is ask. I am sure you have heard of the Laura Lynn Children’s Hospice, my friend Jane McKenna lost her only two children. Despite her immense grief she went on to raise the 5 million euro to build Laura Lynn House, based in Foxrock. I am compiling a book of quotations and inspirations and I am asking well known people to contribute. All money from sales will go to Laura Lynn, My question is WHAT IS A FAVOURITE QUOTE OF YOURS AND THEN WRITE A FEW LINES ON WHY YOU HAVE CHOSEN THIS,
It can be just one line or more if you wish. Both Jane and I are fans. It would be such an honour if you would agree to give us a quote for the book. It is such a project of hope and light that hopefully will raise a lot of money for the Hospice.
Thank you. sending you light Cathy and Jane
will do..best wishes
Hello Christy,
Respect to Kneecap.
I read about the goings on in court yesterday. Well done to Kneecap!
Rebecca
Hi Christy, I hope that you are welll, I thought I’d share an article written by Andy Twelves in the Daily Express (amazingly)….its sensational.
“I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers… because I feel that my songs seem to cut across and find perhaps a unifying thing, basic humanity.” That was Pete Seeger, 1955, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A man grilled not for what he did, but for what he sang. For daring to strum truth in a country allergic to it.
Seventy years later, swap the banjo for a mic and the Rockefellers for West Belfast, the artist on trial now isn’t Seeger – it’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh. And the stage isn’t a Washington committee room – it’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court, surrounded by supporters, press, and elected representatives.
Outside, crowds clap, chant, and raise Palestinian flags, while a cheeky van rolls past every 10 minutes or so blaring “More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish, Mo Chara” – reclaiming an old slur as protest art, loud and laughing in the face of state power.
He didn’t commit violence. He performed. He made art. Art that embarrassed the British state. And here, as ever, that’s a bigger crime than the one he’s plead not guilty to.
Officially, his arrest was about one flag he’s accused of brandishing at one London gig. But it’s hard not to see this as part of a long, unbroken tradition of working-class artists who speak out and get punished. About murals, miners, microphones, and memory. About every artist who refused to be told which side to sing for, and every government that tried to shut them up.
Whether it’s the coalfields of South Yorkshire or the murals of the Falls Road, from Christy Moore’s hunger strike ballads, to tributes on Anfield Road – the message has always been the same: We, the people, are still here. We, the people, are not shutting up.
And every time a government tries to silence that message, it only gets louder. They knew what this moment was. Officially, this is about an alleged terrorism offence. But it looks like plain old control.
While Mo Chara stands in the dock for allegedly waving a flag, those complicit in a genocide walk the streets untouched. Since October 2023, over 60,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza – entire families erased, journalists targeted, children bombed in their beds.
More than 300 officials at the Foreign Office raised their concerns about Israel’s “stark … disregard for international law”. And yet, the UK government continues to greenlight arms deals and offer diplomatic cover. That’s not a performance. That’s a conscious policy decision. Made in Westminster, paid for by the taxpayer, and buried beneath silence.
And when working-class artists speak up, not in white papers or policy briefings, but in songs, shouts from festival stages – the system panics. Kneecap had the audacity to call it genocide. To do it on the world stage. To link the struggle of Gaza to Belfast, to the estates where working-class kids know exactly what it means to be treated as expendable.
And now it’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh being prosecuted. Not the ministers who signed off export licenses. Not the billionaires who profit from selling the bombs. But a rapper from West Belfast who told the truth with a mic.
Because this is what always happens when working-class people raise their voice. When they sing about Orgreave. When they pay tributes to Hillsborough victims on wall art. When they write lyrics about hunger strikes, police brutality, or kids killed abroad with British bombs. The powerful don’t care if the blood is real, they care if the protest is effective.
Mo Chara’s real problem is that the message he put out landed. Working-class people aren’t meant to speak like this, organise like this, or connect struggles across borders like this. That’s what scares them.
And as Seeger knew, that’s what makes working-class art so dangerous – it connects. You can ban a song from the airwaves, but not from memory. You can police a performance, but not the idea it plants.
They’ve tried this before. Give Ireland Back to the Irish – banned. Christy Moore – detained. The Pogues’ Streets of Sorrow – silenced for decades. And now, it seems to be Mo Chara – for turning protest into poetry, politics into art.
So here’s the question – the same one Pete Seeger asked, the same one Mo Chara asks now: Which side are you on?“
great post..thanks for sharing…
Kneecap refuse to go quietly..
great respect for the 3 of them, for Dan and their team
let us support them any way we can….
Dear Christy ,
Myself & new my wife Debbie McGrath are heading to your concert in Castlebar Friday night the 20th of June .
We got married last year in Athy , Co Kildare not far from your neck of the woods .
At our wedding last year we had our first dance to your version of Beeswing .
If this reaches you we would love if you could play that song for us , if not no worries at all we look foward to the show & hope your keeping well.
“Now Mrs McGrath the Sergeant said
would you like to make a soldier out of your Son Ted
with scarlet coat and cockade
now Mrs McGrath would’nt you like that
wid me tooria fol de diddle da
toori fol de diddle dairy e o”
On right now on TG4 ‘Lyra’ tears in my eyes watching this, what a beautiful young girl, she was a powerhouse, your song to her is amazing and it’s beautiful and powerful like her, keep singing it, keep her name alive, keep her spirit alive.
TG4 rules the roost
So we’ve missed our annual visit to see you at the Royal Festival Hall or Basingstoke, so we’re coming to see you in Cork on the 28th June. Always enjoy the show but would love if you played North and South of the River.
Looking forward to the show.
I too miss those nights in The Festival Hall….Time moves on, circumstances change… the memories still linger… as Sweet Thames Flows Softly…..The Festival Hall became my favourite London Venue across the 50 years I got to play in The Big Smoke….. it began for me at The White Hart, Fulham Broadway in 1966 , my last London gig (I think) was RFH in 2018….in between I played The Troubadour, Hammersmith Folk Centre, Roundhouse, Cecil Sharpe House, Albert Hall, Fighting Cocks Kingston,Barbican, Battersea, Hackney Empire, Electric Ballroom,Quex Road, Forum Kentish Town, National in Kilburn, Gaumont State ( With Doc Watson) Nell’s Cafe, Finsbury Park, Peeler’s Club, Singer’s Club (Ewan & Peggy)….and they were others too…played the Anvil in Basingstoke … did a TV show with Ian Dury, a few with Jools, one with Andrew Marr., Terry Wogan..a myriad of Radio gigs ,including Ned Sherrin, Johnny Walker, Janice Long, Parky,
Country Meets Folk, Desert Island, on and on ..I loved evert second of it all…..The Marquee in Cork is special for me…hope you enjoy your visit ….hopefully I’ll get to play North & South of The River
http://www.songlines.co.uk
The ‘features’ section has the Martin Carthy piece….much more of interest as well…worth a mooch around the site. D
Hi Christy
Had some Bloomsday related reading.. http://www.nualaoconnor.com …fantastic writing about Nora Barnacle…
Also,found ‘Songlines’ mag…lots of superb articles,especially an epic about Martin Carthy ,50 years after his debut LP…there’s a fantastic quote.
‘ younger artists are very welcome to anything I’ve got.
Because what you’re doing is making music and remaking it.
There it is…take it and run with it.’
Top man…
Dave