Liam Clancy

Liam Clancy (2 September 1935 – 4 December 2009) was an Irish folk singer and Broadway performer born in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, the ninth and youngest surviving child of Robert Joseph Clancy and Joanna McGrath. Christened William, he was nicknamed Willie as a boy after his mother's hero Willie Doyle, and later acquired the name Liam from actor Cyril Cusack, who considered "William" too English. His family was republican in background, with his uncle Peter McGrath having served under Dan Breen in a flying column during the Irish War of Independence.

Clancy demonstrated artistic inclinations from an early age. Before reaching his twenties, he had founded the local dramatic society now known as the Brewery Lane Theatre and Arts Centre in Carrick-on-Suir, and had produced, directed, set-directed, and performed in John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World. He also appeared at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. After receiving a Christian Brothers education, he worked as an insurance man in Dublin while attending night classes at the National College of Art and Design. His encounter with Diane Hamilton Guggenheim, who visited his hometown to see his mother, led to a tour of Ireland, and during her 1955 trip to Keady, Clancy met Tommy Makem for the first time. He subsequently relocated to New York City, where he settled in Greenwich Village.

In 1960, Clancy appeared on Broadway in Little Moon of Alban, adding a stage credit to a career that was simultaneously expanding in the folk music world. He had begun singing with his brothers Paddy and Tom Clancy at fund-raising events for the Cherry Lane Theatre and Guthrie benefits, and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem started recording on Paddy Clancy's Tradition Records label in the late 1950s. Their album The Rising of the Moon was recorded in 1959, accompanied by live performances in Boston, Chicago, and New York. The group became widely regarded as Ireland's first pop stars, achieving global album sales of millions.

A pivotal moment in the group's rise came on 17 March 1961, when a last-minute cancellation by the main act on The Ed Sullivan Show resulted in the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing a record-breaking sixteen-minute set on American television, launching them to widespread fame. Sell-out concerts followed at Carnegie Hall in 1962 and at the Royal Albert Hall. The quartet recorded numerous albums for Columbia Records throughout the 1960s folk revival, and by 1964, thirty percent of all albums sold in Ireland were Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem records. That same year, the single "The Leaving of Liverpool," featuring Clancy on lead vocals, reached number six on the Irish charts. Clancy played guitar on nearly all the group's recordings and took lead vocals on songs including "The Wild Rover," "The Parting Glass," "Peggy Gordon," and "The Patriot Game," among others. Their signature look — Aran geansaí sweaters sent from Ireland by Mrs. Clancy — became iconic. Clancy was a close friend of Bob Dylan during their overlapping years in New York, and Dylan described him as the best ballad singer he had ever heard in his life.

Following the dissolution of the Clancy Brothers, Clancy pursued a solo career in Canada, making several television appearances on the CBC's national variety program The Irish Rovers Show, filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia. He presented his own television show in Calgary and appeared on the CBC concert series Summer Evening in 1976. In 1975, a chance shared performance at a festival in Cleveland, Ohio, reunited him with Tommy Makem, and the two formed the duo Makem and Clancy, recording several albums and performing together until 1988. In 1976, as part of that duo, Clancy had a number one hit in Ireland with "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," the anti-war song written by Scots-Australian Eric Bogle. The original Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem lineup also reunited in the 1980s for a tour and album. After Tom Clancy's death on 7 November 1990, Liam continued performing with Paddy and Bobby Clancy and nephew Robbie O'Connell as The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell. He also performed with his Fayreweather Band and the Phil Coulter Orchestra, with whom he had a top-four Irish hit single in 1989, "Home from the Sea."

Tom Clancy died on 7 November 1990, Patrick Clancy on 11 November 1998, Bobby Clancy on 6 September 2002, and Tommy Makem on 1 August 2007, leaving Liam as the last surviving member of the original group. In later years he lived in Ring, County Waterford, in a home designed by architect Duncan Stewart that featured solar panels and incorporated a converted garage recording studio. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Limerick in 2001, the same year he published his memoir, The Mountain of the Women. He appeared in Martin Scorsese's 2005 Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home, and in 2006 was the subject of a two-hour RTÉ documentary, The Legend of Liam Clancy, produced by Anna Rodgers and John Murray with Crossing the Line Films, which won the award for best series at the Irish Film and Television Awards in Dublin in February 2007. In 2008 he performed in the filmed concert Liam Clancy and Friends: Live at The Bitter End, which featured performances by Tom Paxton, Shane MacGowan, Gemma Hayes, Eric Bibb, Fionn Regan, and members of Danú, as well as the last filmed performance of Odetta. Director Alan Gilsenan subsequently made a full-length biographical film, The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy, released at the 2009 Dublin Film Festival and given a theatrical and DVD release in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Clancy died on 4 December 2009.