Come Here To Me!

Other traditional and folk music uploads on CHTM

Liam Weldon
Dominic Behan
The Furey Brothers
Seamus Ennis (on pipes)
Seamus Ennis (Mrs. McGrath)

The Liffey Banks- Claddagh Records

The Liffey Banks

I remember the first time I saw the image above. It was over on Niall McCormacks blog, and the image just grabbed my attention. In truth, I hadn’t heard of Tommy Potts before. The image is striking but, a man completely content and in his element at one of the most iconic spots in Dublin. Bord Fáilte would ruin it if they tried to capture something like that again. It’s completely natural, a moment caught perfectly.

Anyway, it turned out that Tommy was a Dublin firefighter, and I heard mention of him from my father. Based at Tara Street fire-station, he was injured in the Pearse Street fire of October 6th,1936. Three Dublin firefighters died in the fire, including a 1916 veteran named Robert Malone, and two other firemen- Tom Nugent and Peter McArdle. The three men are buried at Glasnevin Cemetery, side by side.

Sibéal Teo, a television production company, deserve massive credit for their ‘Cérbh é….‘ series on Tg4 exploring some of the key personalities of traditional music in Irish history. Among the figures studied in the series was one Tommy Potts. It opened my eyes not just to his own music, but an entire hidden scene in Dublin, centered around the (sadly gone) Lavin’s pub. The show was presented by Paddy Glackin, a fiddle player himself, which no doubt added to the character of the show.

Here, we have two tracks from 1972s ‘The Liffey Banks’. From the voice of Liam Weldon to the pipes of Seamus Ennis, it’s posts like this I most enjoy.

You can purchase The Liffey Banks from Claddagh Records online for only €13

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