Come Here To Me!

The line-up was the Dubliners, Peggy Seeger/Ewan MacColl, and Joe Heaney – Half the audience was sleeping drunk. The other half was rowdy drunk. The concert was broken into two halves, and each of the three acts was to appear in each half. Joe, being the ‘less well known’ was to open. He was booed off by this despicable crowd after the first two lines of his first song. It is to our eternal disgrace that we other artists went on after he was forced off, almost in tears – I am sure the lack of appreciation in Ireland for Joe Heaney at that time was one of the reasons that he emigrated.

The above comes from Peggy Seeger, wife of Ewan MacColl, recalling a 1964 concert in Dublin at which sean-nós singer Joe Heaney of Connemara would be met by loud boos from a crowd who were wildly enthusiastic for the more moden traditional sounds of the likes of The Dubliners. It was an amazing moment in the history of traditional music in the capital, a culture-clash of sorts, and all the more remarkable today when one considers the fact Joe Heaney’s face is now beaming down from the walls of O’Donoghues, considered a legend of the traditional scene.

Born in the Carna, in the Galway Gaeltacht, Seosamh Ó hÉanaí arrived into the world in 1919. Over the course of his life he would spend much of his time living and working in Britain and even as a doorman in New York City, where he could be found at 135 Central Park West. There’s a wonderful story of one American walking into O’Donoghues establishment and being baffled to see his doorman Joe upon the walls. Towards the end of his life he even became artist in residence at the University of Washington in Seattle, before his death in 1984.

His contribution to Dublin life however, is huge. He was a core part of the O’Donoghues folk and trad renaissance. While the pub has undoubtedly changed and morphed in recent times for better or worse, his image is still there alongside the likes of Ted Furey, The Dubliners and the pubs legendary owners Maureen and Paddy O’ Donoghue on the walls of the pub today.

In Liam Mac Con Iomaire’s excellent study Seosamh Ó hÉanaí – Nár fhágha mé bás choíche, published by Cló Iar-Chonnachta,one image in particular is striking. A banner, draped across the O’Donoghues side entrance, reads ‘FÁILTE ROMHAT JOE’, upon a return home.

Yet while those who booed Heaney off stage in 1964 were probably wildly singing along to Seven Drunken Nights, it’s unlikely any would have been familiar with Heaney’s Peigin is Peadar which predates Seven Drunken Nights, yet contains the very roots of the song. It was unsurprising that when booed by the crowd in 1964, Ronnie Drew himself would reprimand the audience for their disrespect to a singer The Dubliners considered a core influence.

Pheigín na gcarad a Pheigín mo chroí
Cé hé an fear fada údan sínte leat síos?
O a hó, a hó mhaithín ó; A hó mhaithín ó, a stóirín mo chroí.
Muise, a Pheadair na gcarad is a Pheadair mo chroí
Sin é do leanbh nach bhfaca tú riamh.

O Peggy my dearest, O Peggy of my heart
Who is that long man stretched out next to you?
O, my goodness, little treasure of my heart.
That’s your own baby you never saw before.

Liam Mac Con Iomaire’s study of Ó hÉanaí (written in the Irish language, with quotations in English, and coming with a CD of Seosamh singing) warrants reading not just for those interested in his own musical history but also getting a better understanding of the scene in Dublin around that time.

Éamonn Ó Bróithe is quoted as saying

The mood of the pub was further invigorated by many from literary and theatrical Dublin who came to enjoy the music. The general mood of ’60s’ optimism prevailed, and one notable effect was the breaking down of social barries and differences between town and country engendered by a common appreciation of the music

It is worthy of note that Seosamh managed to find his way into Andy Irvine’s take on those days in O’Donoghues.

Joe Ryan and John Kelly in the front bar,
their fiddles are from the County Clare.
Joe Heaney sings in the cold night air
in the laneway after closing….

BELOW: Ewan MacColl in conversation with Seosamh regarding his advice to young singers, in which he asks would young Dubliners be welcome in Carna to learn.