The Spectator
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
“Love of the Clancy Brothers Turns Into a Book for Student”
By George Austin
Editor
Photo by George Austin/ The Spectator
Caption: Somerset Resident Conor Murray has written a book about legendary Irish group The Clancy Brothers
SOMERSET – If you like Irish music, then the book that Somerset resident Conor Murray is finishing up should be on your shelf.
Murray is turning his following of the Clancy Brothers into a book that he is going to self publish.
“They’ve had a big influence on the formation of Irish music and culture,” Murray said.
Murray’s interest in the Clancy Brothers goes back to his grandfather, Buddy O’Donnell. O’Donnell said the first major performance of the Clancy Brothers in the United States was on the Ed Sullivan Show. The group played for 18 minutes, which is much longer than most guests were allowed to play on the national show. Conor’s father, Tom Murray, became a fan of the Clancy Brothers as well, and took his two sons to see the group perform. Murray said he has been hearing Clancy Brothers music in his home since he was three years old. His first Clancy Brothers concert with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy was at B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River.
“I grew up with them all my life,” Conor said. “I didn’t really become a fan of theirs until 1999. I’ve seen them at least 20 times in the last six years.”
Murray was buying all kinds of memorabilia related to the Clancy Brothers and he had so much of it that one day his mother said he should write a book about the group. He started writing the book about two years ago.
“I like the stories that they tell in the songs,” Murray said. “They have love songs, humorous songs, rebel songs, Irish drinking songs. I like that over the rock and pop music of today. I just like Irish music.”
Murray has met the Clancy Brothers. He says they are all really nice guys. He interviewed Eddie Dillon, who played with the Clancy Brothers, for the book. Dillon shared some memories of performing with Bob and Paddy Clancy with Murray for the book. The other member of the group, which recorded over 50 albums, was Finbarr Clancy.
“I’ve been chatting through e-mail with Bobby Clancy’s daughter, Aoife Clancy,” Murray said. “She’s performed also, but we haven’t met in person yet. I’d like to, but we haven’t had the time to set up an interview together.”
Murray said he has talked to Liam Clancy in Ireland and sent him a copy of the book.
Murray said that between 1961 and 1965, the Clancy Brothers were the four most famous Irishmen in the world. He said they were one of President John F. Kennedy’s favorite bands.
The book chronicles the early childhood of the Clancy Brothers up until the present. Murray did two months of straight research for the book and wrote half the story. Murray, a student at Bridgewater State College, worked on the book periodically while he was taking his classes and then concentrated on it all of last summer. For the past year, he has mostly been working on to the book and checking facts. The boom is 230 pages long.
“I found out a lot about myself through this book,” Murray said. “I really like writing and I’ve found that I’m pretty good at it, so I might even have a career in it.”
Murray’s research for the book included seeking out tapes of television interviews with the Clancy Brothers. He contacted ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and the BBC about the TV interviews.
“I struck gold with a lot of those,” Murray said. “I was able to get concert specials and archive interviews.”
But he was not able to get a tape of the famous Ed Sullivan Show performance.
Murray found concert programs on Ebay. About half of the group’s albums from the 1960s are not on compact disc, so he also had to get them through Ebay.
It’s all good stories,” Murray said of his book. “There aren’t any bad stories about them. From what I’ve found, they’ve all led clean lives.”
Murray said when the Clancy Brothers were first starting out Irish music in the U.S. had become very Americanized, with Bing Crosby and “Irish Eyes are Smiling.”
“But the Clancys sang the songs from Ireland that they grew up with,” Murray said. “They were songs that were dormant for generations. They were from when the Irish were battered down by the English.”
But Murray said the Clancy Brothers made those songs popular again and paved the way for a generation of bands such as the Gaelic Storm, The Wolfe Tones and the Dropkick Murphies.
“A lot of people have dubbed them the Beatles of Irish music,” Murray said. “That’s how popular they were.”
Murray said the trademark of the Clancy Brothers was their Irish sweaters that their mother had sent them to wear during the performances. He said he heard a story that sales of those types of sweaters increased 700 percent in Ireland and the U.S. because of the popularity of the Clancy Brothers.
“Some say those sweaters single handedly revived the woolen industry in Ireland,” Murray said. “A lot of people made a lot of money making those Clancy Brothers sweaters.”
Murray said he also heard a story that a businessman came to the Clancy Brothers and asked them if their name could be put on the sweaters if they were given a percentage of the profits. But Murray said the Clancy Brothers were already making millions of dollars off their records and did not want to take away from the Irish people who were trying to make a living by selling the sweaters.
“They would have made millions off that offer,” Murray said.
Murray’s book is called The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem and Robbie O’Connell, The Men Behind the Sweaters.
Murray said the book will be completed next month and he hopes to have it published by Christmas.
“All the information is there,” Murray said. “Now, I’m just making grammatical changes.”
Murray is self publishing the book through a company he formed called Blackthorne Publishing. He said he is trying to come up with ideas for other books that the company could publish and also would like to help other people publish their books.
Murray said the book should be interesting for people who like Irish music and Clancy Brothers fans. He thinks he could sell a lot of books in both Ireland and the U.S. Murray said he wants to market the book in March 2006 because that will be the Fiftieth Anniversary of the career of the Clancy Brothers. There is a website for the book at www.clancybrothersbook.com.
The Clancy Brothers still tour, but not as much as they used to. When they do concerts, they are usually sold out. Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem are the only two original members left in the band.
Murray, who has worked in the Somerset Public Library for five years, is a theater major and English minor at Bridgewater State College where he is going into his senior year.
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