Original group with Tommy Makem Early years The oldest member of the group,
Paddy Clancy, was born on 7 March 1922 in
Carrick-on-Suir,
County Tipperary, Ireland.
Tom followed on 29 October 1924,
Bobby on 14 May 1927, and youngest brother
Liam Clancy on 2 September 1935.
Tommy Makem was born 4 November 1932 in
Keady,
County Armagh, Northern Ireland. After serving in
World War II in the
Royal Air Force, Paddy and Tom emigrated from England to
Toronto in 1947 on the S.S. Marine Flasher, accompanying 400
war brides. The only men on board were Paddy, Tom, their friend Pa Casey and the ship's sailors. Arriving in
Greenwich Village in
Manhattan in 1951, Tom and Paddy established themselves as successful Broadway and
Off-Broadway actors. They also made several television appearances. The two brothers created their own production company, Trio Productions, which led to the start of their professional singing careers. To help raise money for the company, Paddy and Tom organised late-night concerts of folk songs called the 'Swapping Song Fair' (later renamed the 'Midnight Special' At this time, younger brother
Bobby Clancy briefly emigrated to New York City, joining his brothers in Greenwich Village. This was the little-known, first 'unofficial' line-up of singing Clancy brothers. In 1955, Bobby returned home to
Carrick-on-Suir to take over father Robert J. Clancy's insurance business, freeing youngest brother Liam Clancy to emigrate to New York City to pursue his dream of acting. Liam arrived in New York in January 1956. A month earlier, Tommy Makem emigrated to the United States from his hometown of
Keady. Tommy had met Liam Clancy shortly before they both emigrated.
Diane Hamilton, a friend of Paddy Clancy in New York, followed in the footsteps of her mentor,
Jean Ritchie, and came to Ireland in search of rare Irish songs. Her first stop was at the Clancy household, where she recorded several members of the family, including the Clancys' mother, sisters Peg and Joan, and nineteen-year-old Liam Clancy. Hamilton asked Liam and recently returned Bobby Clancy to join her on a trek through Ireland to locate and record source singers. One of those source singers was
Sarah Makem who had been recorded by Jean Ritchie in 1952 on a similar search for authentic Irish folk songs. Her son Tommy Makem, then twenty-two, and the young Liam Clancy instantly became friends. Said Liam, "Our interests were so similar: girls, theatre and music. He had told me he was going to America to try his luck at acting. We agreed to keep in touch." Tommy was recorded for the first time by Hamilton in that autumn of 1955. Among the songs he sang was "The Cobbler", which he continued to perform throughout his career.
Group's formation and Tradition Records (group member, 1956–69, 1984–85) playing a
bodhrán in 2005, two years before his death In March 1956, Tommy Makem was unemployed. He had recently moved to
Dover, New Hampshire, where many of his family members had emigrated to work in the local cotton mills. He had found a job there making printing presses but had an accident when a two-ton steel press that he was guiding with his hand broke from its chain. The falling press tore the tendons from the bone in three of the fingers of his left hand. His hand in a sling, and knowing the Clancy brothers in New York, he decided that he would like to make a record with them. Paddy agreed and together he, Tom, Liam, and Tommy Makem recorded an album of Irish rebel songs,
The Rising of the Moon, one of the new label's first releases. Little thought was given to continuing as a singing group. They all were busy establishing theatrical careers for themselves, in addition to their work at Tradition Records. and they made many appearances on the pub circuit in New York, Chicago, and
Boston. It was at their first official gig after
Come Fill Your Glass With Us that the group finally found a name for themselves. The nightclub owner asked for a name to put on the marquee, but they had not decided on one yet. Unable to agree on a name (which included suggestions like The Beggermen, The Tinkers and even The Chieftains) the owner decided for them, simply billing them as "The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem". Vawn Corrigan has stated that this was not an idle boast and that the number was probably even higher as much of the export sales of Arans happened unofficially and were not therefore properly accounted. On 12 March 1961, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed for around fifteen minutes in front of a television audience of forty million people for the first time on
The Ed Sullivan Show. Around the same time that they recorded
A Spontaneous Performance, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem cut their final,
eponymous album with Tradition Records. By the end of 1962, they released a second album with Columbia,
Hearty and Hellish! A Live Nightclub Performance, and they played an acclaimed concert at
Carnegie Hall. Additionally, they were making appearances on major radio and television talk shows in America.
International stardom In late 1962
Ciarán Mac Mathúna, a popular radio personality in Ireland, first heard of the group while visiting America. He collected their first three Columbia albums,
A Spontaneous Performance Recording,
Hearty and Hellish!, and ''
The Boys Won't Leave the Girls Alone'', brought them back home to Ireland, and played them on his radio show. The broadcasts brought the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem to fame in Ireland, where they had been unknown. In Ireland, songs like "
Roddy McCorley", "
Kevin Barry" and "Brennan on the Moor" were slow, moving songs, but the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had transformed those songs (some purists in Ireland argued, "commercialized") and made them lively. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were brought over for a sold-out tour of Ireland in late 1963. Popularity in England and other parts of Europe soon followed, as well as in Australia and Canada. By 1963, appearing on major talk shows in America, Canada, England, Australia and Ireland, as well as their own TV specials, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were "the most famous four Irishmen in the world", according to Ireland's
Late Late Show host
Gay Byrne in a retrospective interview in 1984.
Billboard Magazine reported that the group was outselling
Elvis Presley in Ireland, adding that this was "a most unusual situation" for folk singers. In 1964, almost one-third of all the albums sold in Ireland were Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem records. The 1960s continued to be a successful decade with the release of approximately two albums per year, all of which sold millions of copies. In 1963 they made a prestigious televised appearance in front of President
John F. Kennedy. Makem rewrote an old song, "We Want No Irish Here", expressly for the occasion. The Clancy Brothers' follow-up album,
The First Hurrah!, also charted in the top 100 albums in the US in 1964. A single taken from that album, "
The Leaving of Liverpool", was a top ten hit in Ireland. Another album, ''
Isn't It Grand Boys'', appeared on the British charts in 1965. Another Clancy brother, Bobby, filled Tommy Makem's vacancy as the fourth lead vocalist. Two of the
Furey Brothers, Finbar and Eddie, also joined at this time as instrumentalists and back-up singers. Paddy asked
Finbar Furey if he would play the whistle and five-string banjo with the group. Finbar also added
uilleann pipes to his performances, creating a new sound for the group on stage, recordings, and TV. The six-piece band recorded two new albums in the summer of 1969:
Clancy Brothers Christmas, released later that year, and
Flowers in the Valley, released in 1970. The latter was their final album for Columbia Records. in 2012 Finbar and Eddie Furey left in 1970, and for a short time just the four brothers, Paddy, Tom, Bobby and Liam, performed together. This line-up recorded only one album together,
Welcome to Our House, in 1970 for their new label,
Audio Fidelity Records. Later that same year, Liam and Bobby got into an argument that resulted in Bobby quitting the group. Bobby later said about his younger brother: "With Liam, it was very hard to be equal. I try to make it as equal as possible and everybody's happy that way. It makes it a better sound." In 1971, the remaining Clancys recruited English folk singer
Louis Killen to play the banjo,
concertina, and
spoons with the group. Together they made two studio albums for Audio Fidelity,
Save the Land and
Show Me the Way, on which they experimented with modernising their sound, musical style, and material, even including pop songs like
Elton John's "
Country Comfort". They recorded their final album for Audio Fidelity, the more traditional ''
Live on St. Patrick's Day'', at the
Bushnell Auditorium in
Hartford, Connecticut in 1972. It was released the following year. By the early 1970s, the Clancys reduced their touring schedule to five months a year. The brothers were moving in different directions, and all of them had young families at home. Paddy had moved back to Ireland in 1968. Tom began acting again, first on stage and then on film and television. He relocated to the Los Angeles area in 1975, where he landed parts in the films
The Killer Elite with
James Caan and
Robert Duvall and
Swashbuckler with
Robert Shaw. At the same time, Liam wanted to step out from his older brothers' shadows. According to the 2009 feature documentary,
The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy, Paddy and Tom Clancy dominated the group in ways that Liam felt were personally limiting. He moved to
Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1972 and began a solo career when not touring with his brothers. In spite of the brothers' growing distance, the group made one more album with Killen for
Vanguard Records, ''
The Clancy Brothers' Greatest Hits, as well as several television appearances on the Irish Rovers Show'' in Canada and a TV special for Brockton television in 1974 (in which Bobby Clancy made a surprise guest appearance). A scheduling conflict between a tour of Australia and a television role with Tom Clancy provoked Liam to leave the group in early 1976. Tom allegedly accepted a television role over the tour of Australia, even though he had already signed a contract to do the tour. When confronted over the conflict, Liam later recalled Tom telling him, "Get off my fucking back, little brother." Soon afterwards, their sister Cait Clancy O'Connell was killed in a car crash. After the funeral in Ireland, Liam told his brothers that they would have to find a replacement for him. "I'm not going to work with you anymore—I can't be the 'little brother' anymore," Liam said, according to an interview in
The Yellow Bittern. After the tour, Makem and Clancy and the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell respectively regrouped.
In the late 1980s and 1990s In 1988, the Clancy Brothers (Paddy, Tom, and Bobby) with Robbie O'Connell recorded a poorly mixed live album at
St. Anselm College in
Goffstown, New Hampshire, ''
Tunes 'n' Tales of Ireland''. Bobby Clancy called this album "crap", and Paddy referred to it as "not our best effort". Regardless, the album is notable as Tom Clancy's final record. In May 1990, Tom Clancy was diagnosed with stomach cancer. When he had surgery later in the summer, Liam filled in for him during the Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell's August tour. The surgery proved unsuccessful, and Tom Clancy died at the age of 66 on 7 November 1990. He left behind a wife, a son, and five daughters. His youngest daughter was only two years old at the time. With the death of Tom Clancy, Liam again stepped in full-time with his brothers. This line-up experienced a more active schedule than the group had during the previous decade, with appearances on
Regis and Kathie Lee in 1991, 1993 and 1995, a performance at the
30th Anniversary Bob Dylan concert at
Madison Square Garden in 1992, including
Tommy Makem as special guest, seen by 20,000 live and 200 million people worldwide on television, and the formation of Irish Festival Cruises in 1991, an annual cruise of the
Caribbean with live folk music. They also brought their own tour groups to Ireland, which Robbie O'Connell continues to do to this day. The Bob Dylan concert inspired the recording of the first studio album by the Clancy Brothers in over twenty years, since 1973's
Greatest Hits. Released in late 1995,
Older But No Wiser introduced all newly recorded songs with the exception of "
When the Ship Comes In", which the group performed at the Dylan concert. It was the only recording to feature the line-up of Paddy, Bobby, Liam Clancy, and Robbie O'Connell.
Older But No Wiser was the Clancy Brothers' final album. The Irish Festival Cruises had led to financial disputes between Paddy and Liam. Liam decided to leave the group because of this. Robbie O'Connell, now with the group for nineteen years, was ready for a change as well. The two left the Clancy Brothers together and formed their own duo, simply called Liam Clancy and Robbie O'Connell. Before splitting up, the Clancy brothers and Robbie O'Connell gave a Farewell Tour of Ireland and America in February and March 1996. One performance in
Clonmel as part of their Irish tour was televised and later released on video and DVD as ''
The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell: Farewell to Ireland. On the album Older But No Wiser
and the concert video Farewell to Ireland'', respectively, two sons of the Clancy brothers made their recording debuts.
Dónal Clancy, Liam's youngest son, played backup on the studio album, while Bobby's son
Finbarr Clancy performed with the group on the filmed
Farewell concert. Bobby was not well at this time and Finbarr was brought on, in part, to aid his father for this concert. He had first performed with the group the previous year as a replacement for his father when he had heart surgery. Finbarr did not join them for the American tour.
Later groupings After the break-up, Paddy and Bobby continued touring as the Clancy Brothers, with Bobby's son Finbarr Clancy becoming an official member of the group. The trio added a longtime friend of Bobby's daughter Aoife, Eddie Dillon, to the group for a thirteen-city engagement in early 1997. The quartet was known as the Clancy Brothers and Eddie Dillon. Eddie Dillon, a Boston-based musician, is the only American ever to perform with the Clancy Brothers.
Liam Clancy and Robbie O'Connell toured for a while as a duo, but very soon added Liam's son Dónal Clancy to the mix, forming the group, Clancy, O'Connell & Clancy. They released two albums together, an eponymous debut album in 1997 and an album of sea songs in 1998,
The Wild and Wasteful Ocean. Robbie O'Connell regards the eponymous ''Clancy, O'Connell and Clancy'' album to be his favourite of all his recordings. In 1999, with Liam in Ireland, Robbie in Massachusetts, and Dónal in New York, the trio decided to call it quits as a full-time group. They did, however, occasionally regroup for additional concerts together thereafter.
Deaths of Paddy and Bobby Clancy The other group members as far back as 1996 had noticed Paddy Clancy's unusual mood swings. In the spring of 1998, the cause was finally detected; Paddy had a brain tumour as well as lung cancer. His wife waited to tell him about the lung cancer, so as not to discourage him when he had a brain operation. The tumour was removed successfully, but the cancer was terminal. When he was told of the cancer, he accepted the diagnosis "with great bravery and courage", according to his wife Mary Clancy. Paddy Clancy died in the morning hours of 11 November 1998, at the age of 76. Two weeks before he died, Bobby called Liam and Paddy together to reconcile their differences—they had been at odds for two years since Liam had left the group. The two brothers did reconcile and the three brothers sang together that night at an informal session at their local pub. Two years later
Liam Clancy died of pulmonary fibrosis, the same ailment that had taken his brother Bobby. He died on 4 December 2009 at the age of 74 in a hospital in Cork, Ireland. He was survived by his wife and seven children. ==Legacy and influence==