Via The Journal Of Music, we present the full speech given by Christy Moore at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards 2025, when presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Dónal Lunny - watch highlights from the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards here, via RTÉ Player.
It is an honour and a pleasure to be here tonight, particularly in the company of our esteemed president Michael D. Higgins. His will be a hard pair of shoes to fill.
I've known Dónal Lunny for 66 years. I met him first in 1959 in school, and what I remember most from those years were his lack of homework, that he was more interested in being out on the Liffey trying to tickle trout, or climbing trees to gaze into the wild birds’ nests.
Then the word came around the town that there was a band called The Cylones and we heard that Dónal Lunny was the drummer. That is back about 1961/62.
Then the sound of the Clancy Brothers came across the Atlantic and we all started listening to the ballads again. At that time, Dónal formed a band called the Liffysiders, with Mick Curran, Bren Hayes, Seán Reilly and Justin Brady. They were Newbridge’s answer to the Clancy Brothers.
I started looking into the old books and one day, in the library in Newbridge, I found P.W. Joyce’s collection. In it was a song called 'The Curragh of Kildare’, which was amazing because Dónal and I lived two miles from the Curragh of Kildare. We’d never heard of this song before, so I took it around to Lunny’s and straightway he picked out the melody and we took the second verse and turned it into the chorus. That’s where we kicked off.
Watch, via RTÉ News: Lunny says lifetime achievement award 'means so much'
And then we changed direction. Dónal went to the College of Art and I went over to England for six years, but while I was there, I was always hearing about the music that he was making around Dublin. He played in a band called the Parnell Folk with the late Mick Moloney, and then he played in the Emmet Folk, and that grew into Emmet Spiceland, Ireland’s first boy-band. I can still see them playing on a barge in the River Liffey with thousands and thousands of screaming teenagers. It was wonderful.
I was over in England, listening to what was happening here at home – Dónal’s music, Sweeney’s Men – and I wanted to come home. So I contacted Dónal and said is there any chance that we might do an album together. He was into it straight away. I contacted Andy Irvine and Liam O’Flynn and we got together in Prosperous and recorded an album, which led us to getting together and Planxty. They were fantastic times, happy times, with great music, but Dónal was the man that brought it all together. We all had our own stuff to do: There was Liam’s music, Andy’s songs and instruments, and Dónal’s rhythm and chords, and my songs, but it wouldn’t have happened without the generosity and the genius and creativity of Dónal.
Over the following 30 years we recorded, I think, seven albums. In and out of the band and back again, and we fell out and we fell back in again, and it always ended good, but in 1974, I got one of the greatest shocks of my life when Dónal called around one day and said ‘I’m leaving the band’. I couldn’t believe it. Dónal Lunny leaving the band? What are we going to do?
But he left and we all carried on. He went into a band called Bugle with Shaun Davey, and then he was at the heart of the wonderful Bothy Band – perhaps, in my lifetime, the greatest Irish band. Then he was the beating heart of the Moving Hearts, and there was Coolfin, Oircheilteach, Mosaic, LAPD. He’s still at it. Dark Horse, his new band, are going to play for us here tonight. There’s no stopping this man.
I’d like to mention a very important thing that Dónal did. He recorded six albums with Frank Harte. Frank was probably our greatest folk song collector. He amassed, it is reckoned, about 20,000 songs across a lifetime of going out to sessions, chasing down songs and singers, and he chose Dónal to be the man who would accompany him on those six brilliant albums.
Watch: Dónal Lunny performing The Trip to Gort on The Saturday Night Show
There are many highlights for me from across the years playing and listening to Dónal. I’ll never forget the segue from ‘The Raggle Taggle Gypsy’ into ‘Tabhair Dom Mo Lámh’. I’ll never forget my favourite Planxty track, ‘Táimse Im’ Chodhladh’. On that track it’s just Liam and Dónal, and halfway through Dónal comes in on the keyboards, and to me it’s bliss. I love it.
We shouldn’t forget either Timedance with Bill Whelan. Planxty did Timedance with the Irish ballet company – the six of us playing and these Irish ballet dancers casting their legs towards the sky. Myself and Liam really enjoyed that night.
And of course, that led on to great things, as we all know. Timedance led on to Irish music going all around the world with Bill Whelan and Riverdance.
Between times, Dónal worked with Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, Sinéad O’Connor, Elvis Costello, Gary Moore, and on and on it goes. I remember one great night in London in 1972. Planxty did a gig in Cecil Sharp House, and afterwards we sat down with Liam Óg, Dónal and Gary Moore, and the three of them played: Gary playing guitar with Liam’s pipes, and Dónal vamping on the banjo. Can you imagine it? It was great.
We must also remember Mulligan Records. Dónal was the heartbeat of Mulligan Records, that wonderful label that produced so much wonderful music and great albums.
For the week that’s in it, I should mention that in the 70s we got word from the H-Blocks, asking was there any chance somebody in Dublin would write something about what was happening. Dónal and I wrote and recorded ‘Ninety Miles to Dublin Town’. After the hunger strikes we wrote and recorded ‘The Time has Come’ for the families of the dead hunger strikers. We wrote ‘On the Bridge’ for the suffering of the women in Armagh prison. He was there when we recorded Nicky Kelly’s song ‘The Wicklow Boy’. He was part of the Carnsore movement, and he was the Musical Director of the wonderful Anti-Nuclear Roadshow. Dónal was always available. He was always there and always willing when called upon.
Over 65 years, it has been a privilege and pleasure to play music with my neighbour, Dónal Lunny. Tá áthas mór orm anocht an gradam seo a thabhairt do my sheanchara, Dónal Lunny.
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