In 1972, O'Flynn co-founded the
Irish traditional music group
Planxty, alongside
Christy Moore,
Andy Irvine and
Dónal Lunny and remained a member throughout the band's various incarnations. While
Seán Ó Riada and
The Chieftains had reinvigorated Irish traditional instrumental music in an ensemble format during the 1960s, Planxty built on that foundation and took it one step further. They brought a punch and vitality to acoustic music that drew heavily on O'Flynn's piping virtuosity. As O'Flynn grew in his skill as a musician and as he began to meet pipers like
Willie Clancy and
Séamus Ennis, he became acutely aware of his position in the tradition of piping. His subsequent close friendship with Ennis, which started as a master/pupil relationship, taught him that there was much more to being a piper than playing tunes. Liam noted: "Seamus Ennis gave me much more than a bag of notes." Following the break-up of Planxty in 1983, O'Flynn found work as a session musician with such prominent artists as
The Everly Brothers,
Enya,
Kate Bush,
Nigel Kennedy,
Rita Connolly, and
Mark Knopfler. He also worked on film scores, including
Kidnapped (1979) and
A River Runs Through It (1992). He was adventurous enough to work with avant-garde composer
John Cage, but his most natural alliance was with neo-romantic composer
Shaun Davey.
The Bothy Band were natural successors to the original Planxty, and one of its members,
Matt Molloy, who subsequently joined
The Chieftains, played with
The Chieftains' fiddler
Seán Keane on O'Flynn's album, ''The Piper's Call'', which was performed in the 1999
Proms season at the
Royal Albert Hall. He also worked on projects with
Seamus Heaney, mixing poetry with music. His name is mentioned in Christy Moore's song "Lisdoonvarna". ==Death==