October robbed the folk scene of two long standing, contrasting musicians, Donal Lunny & Keith Christmas. Here Simon Jones recalls their careers and pays tribute to each.
Donal Lunny (above) who passed away on October the 23rd was undoubtedly a pillar of Irish music, a man whose achievements can’t easily be summed up in a few paragraphs. His life was music. Born in 1947 in Tullamore, County Offaly by his teens he was already in league with long time associate Christy Moore playing in a trio with his elder brother Frank. It was when he moved to Dublin to study at college he came across Mick Maloney becoming part of The Parnell Folk thus promptly forsook his education to concentrate on musical matters. The two later began The Emmet Folk which morphed into Emmet Spiceland and scored a hit on the Irish charts with ‘Mary From Dungloe.’ By the beginning of the 1970s he’d begun a partnership with Andy Irvine which led to them opening a music club in the capital and that laid the ground for Planxty.
Planxty grew out of the backing musicians Christy Moore chose for his second solo album ‘Prosperous,’ Lunny, Irvine and Moore were joined by piper Liam O’Flynn and through the early 70s reconfigured Irish traditional music giving it a new identity and drive. They played it with all the intensity of a rock band, thus connecting young people to their heritage and in the process kick starting a whole new phase in wider Irish music. It would be true to say that Ireland never got over Planxty and despite break ups, a revolving door concerning the membership the band regularly reunited and recorded up until 2005 when they gave their final performance.
Donal left for the first time in 1974 and formed yet another stellar trad group The Bothy Band, who occupied his thoughts and attention until 1981, continuing the daredevil approach Lunny now favoured. Their recordings held a freshness and cavalier attitude which was balanced with a deftness of touch which took them to popularity far beyond the Emerald Isle, notably Paris where they recorded a live album. Here Lunny’s compatriots included amongst their number Kevin Burke, Paddy Keenan Triona Ni Dhomhnaill, Matt Molloy and Tommy Peoples. The Bothy Band broke up in 1979, but had reformed in the mid 2020s, playing their last gigs in 2024 which they hoped to reschedule for the following year.
Back in 1981, Donal and Christy Moore decided that they’d launch a group that could fuse Irish folk influences with rock and jazz as well as a keen social and political conscience, so was born Moving Hearts. A group just as unstable as any of their previous bands but one with far more volume, controversy and a heavy label in Warner Brothers. Moving Hearts were wonderful make no mistake, their music roared out of the speakers one minute protesting nuclear war and the next playing misty airs on pipes and whistles. They didn’t really care what people thought or said they knew what they believed. Hearts burnt brightly for a few years and those of us who attended their gigs knew they were special. Christy Moore hung around for two records before being replaced by Mick Hanly briefly then Flo McSweeney. Then they split, only to reform in the guise of an instrumental band, cutting the remarkable album ‘The Storm.’ That became their calling card and again like so many of Donal’s bands Moving Hearts kept going until relatively recently.
Donal wasn’t one for standing still, in sucession across the 80s and 90s he continued with old and new comrades forming bands which always pushed the boundaries, Coolfin, Mozaik, LAPD, Ushers Island and finally a trio with Mairtin O’Connor and Zoe Conway. Yet for all this activity his restlessness pushed him into other avenues like production and founding influential record labels. His credits on the former are legion but include Clannad, Spud, Kate Bush, Christy Moore, Paul Brady, Elvis Costello and he also produced the BBC series ‘Bringing It All Back Home,’ following Irish music on its journey across the globe. As an arranger he worked most famously with The Waterboys. Founding Mulligan Records in 1976 he created one of the first significant Irish independent labels which whilst signing folk acts like Gay & Terry Woods, Spud, Jimmy Crowley, Sonny Condell, Scullion, Andy Irvine and Paul Brady, his breakthrough ‘Welcome Here Kind Stranger’ was a hugely influential album, the label also scored points in the new wave with The Radiators and chiefly The Boomtown Rats.
He’s also credited with spreading the gospel of using the bouzouki in Irish music. Unplugged or plugged the frailing rhythmn sounds you can hear across all the albums in his vast discography came courtesy of the Greek stringed instrument. It’s unclear who actually first brought it to Ireland, it may have been Andy Irvine he wandered round the Balkans back in the day, Donal however it was who took it to places previously uncharted and made a success of it. For his musical achievements he was recognised with a Life Time Achievement Award in 2025 and his work in universities at Dublin and Limerick.
Donal Lunny was a unique individual, whose days were spent steeped in music, he pushed boundaries and walls, often broke them down. The word ‘Giant’ has been used frequently in the past few days but somehow even that seems inadequate to describe what he achieved. Without him Irish music would not be as esteemed and popular as it is, a singular, remarkable musician whose death leaves a huge void no one else can fill.
Spiral Earth’s sympathies go to his family and many friends.
Earlier in the month Keith Christmas left us on October 8th. A guitarist who skirted the folk scene in the early 70s, as much a prog rock singer songwriter, his music often acoustic meant he could move easily between the two. An Essex boy he arrived in Bristol via Bath University whose architecture faculty was based there, that’s how he came to be involved in the city’s acoustic music scene and in the agency of Sandy Roberton one of the key players in the emerging folk rock movement.
On one of his early gigs in 1969 he was playing the Arts Lab in Beckenham, of which David Bowie was one of the organisers, liking what he heard Bowie invited Keith to play on several tracks on his forthcoming ‘Space Oddity’ album. Christmas identified his guitar work on three pieces when the record was released. He also had the honour of being booked for the first ever Glastonbury Festival along with others from the Bristol folk and blues circuit including future fRoots Editor Ian A Anderson.
Keith’s debut album ‘Stimulus’ appeared on RCA in 1969 and was followed with ensuing releases on B&C, home to most of Sandy Roberton’s charges. ‘Pygmy’ and ‘Fable Of Wings’ saw him stretching out in terms of his guitar playing with a more relaxed, laid back attitude, given to extemporisation, perhaps the results of hanging out with jazz rock band Magic Muscle. His B&C records are worth digging out as they’re the height of his folksy days featuring as ‘Fable’ does his close friend Shelagh McDonald whose albums Keith played guitar on. His concerts included many tour supports with bigger names, King Crimson, The Who, Roxy Music, The Kinks, Hawkwind, more bizzarely Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa – amazing what one bloke and an acoustic guitar can do! His music was taking him increasingly rockwards, he signed with ELP’s Manticore label recording ‘Brighter Day’ 1974 and ‘Stories From A Human Zoo’ in 1976, the latter in America with The MGs, Booker T’s musicians.
It wasn’t until 1983 after he’d ceased playing that his name was raised again in folk circles as Brass Monkey Martin Carthy and John Kirkpatrick’s post Steeleye Span group covered ‘Fable Of Wings’ very effectively. By the late 1980s he’d once more begun to play and release new material, this time very much in a blues style, he mixed solo and band gigs. An album popped up on HTD Records – the forerunner to Talking Elephant in 1996 recorded in Stockport ‘Love Beyond Deals’ featuring a whole host of Albion Band members and produced by none other than Ashley Hutchings who was resident in south Manchester at that point, 1996. It remains an undiscovered gem. As was ‘Acoustica’ an album of solo instrumental music which reconnected at times with his tendency to extemporise. A steady stream of releases continued up to 2019 and the pandemic, his final album ironically titled ‘Life Life.’ In 2022 he was diagnosed with cancer. In the meantime he’d taken advantage of the internet and social media to once more raise his profile and ensure regular activity.
Spiral Earth thoughts are with his famiy and friends.
