What a legend. Thought the show was a bit maudlin though. An hour of ‘lord what have we lost’ is a bit much. He was 74 and lived a savage life, it would have been better to just celebrate it imo.
I purchased a 3 CD best of selection of the Clancys and Tommy Mackem couple weeks back,the best 4 quid I ever spent! every song delivered in style, we will never see or in this case hear their likes here again.
Was it the Yellow Bittern or some tribute show that was on?
When I was a young man I carried my pack and i lived the free life of a rover…
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback… I waltzed my Matilda all over
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One of my all time favourites 
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Great song
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It is a beautiful song, bizarrely enough I associate it with Brendan Grace, he must have banged it out on various RTE variety shows Long ago
Brendan Grace did a lovely version of the Dutchman. He released it as a single.
Beautiful. First time I’ve ever heard it.
What’s the story behind it?
I always related it to a longtime wifes unconditional love for her husband who is suffering from a type of dementia,Alzheimers most likely.It’s a powerful song and Clancys version is magnificent.
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Unbelievable lyrics.
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Thanks Rocko. That was lovely.
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Martha is the best song ever written on the topic of old folk, it may be the best song ever written on the subject of anything.
‘I remember quiet evenings, trembling close to you’.
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Luke how glad I am that our paths have crossed
in that brief window of consciousness
that is given to us between the two great mysteries.
You came into my life through a window, the mens room window,
in the Central Hotel at the Fleadh in Miltown Malbay in 1964.
They wouldnt let you in the front door,
becuase they said it was after hours and you werent a resident –
but it was really becuase they didnt want a
Dublin Jack upsetting the session.
Willie Clancy was there in the parlour, and Jimmy Ward and,
the great Seamus Ennis who shares this piece of ground with you now forever.
You startled us all that night when you sang,
You were no self effacing rustic
waiting to be craved to sing soft sad love songs.
You were as strident as a street in Cricklewood,
as brash as a Dubliin Hackney driver
and you took delight in what you sang.
Joy and anger mixed in a powerful blend –
that was your hallmark – then as always –
Yoy is the act of singing – anger in the words that spoke of injustice.
You came from the mould of the great commune-ists
who knew it was right to rail against the tyranny of class and privilege.
Look at us now Luke, here in this cemetry,
a small hudlle of the living, amidst a vast throng of the generations
that marched through before us and, coming fast behind, the generations to be born.
So what signifies?
Not signifies is that you fulfilled your destiny
that you did not Stint in the giving of the talent that was unequally yours.
had you been a blade of grass you would have been very green and very tall and very pointed
because all things must be what they are to their fullness
Since we laid you down here, how many years ago?
you have been joined in the long silence
by so many of those we knew
by Kieren Burke and Seamus Ennis
and Joe Heaney and Willie Clancy –
and by my own brothers, Tom, Paddy and Bobby.
But are you really silenced,
N0! No and and never will be
Its all preserved, isnt it –
in reality as well as in memory.
And when in the future there an those who want to hear,
not the froth of fashon by the pop song of the month,
but the timeless vision of the true story told,
they will listen to you Lukey –
you and your likes,
If such there are.
And even though we understand all this with our heads,
we still lament in our hearts, as the song says –
"No nay never, No never no more,
will you play the wild rover,
no never no more.”
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This was on John Kelly tonight