Andy Irvine said he was devastated by the loss of his great friend and brilliant musician, Dónal Lunny, after Lunny died at 79. The tribute landed as a personal piece of mourning and memory, but also as a reminder of how much of Irish music was shaped by the two men’s long partnership.
Irvine said he first met Lunny in the 1960s, when he went to view a bedsit in Grosvenor Road in Dublin’s Rathmines and found Lunny opening the door. He did not get the bedsit, but he did gain a connection that would run through the rest of his life. By 1970, after Irvine came home from eastern Europe, the pair were playing together and were asked by Seán Mac Réamoinn to perform for Russian guests at a meeting of the Irish-Soviet Friendship Society.
They had only half an hour to put a programme together before playing together for the first time. Irvine said Lunny quickly learned the songs he had planned to play, and that the two men remained close friends and musical partners for the next 54 years. That early ease mattered. Irvine had brought back a Greek bouzouki from his Balkan travels, and Lunny learned to play it even though it was set up for a right-hander; after about an hour, Irvine handed it over.
What followed was a run of music that became part of the story of Planxty. The pair formed The Mugs Gig downstairs in Slattery’s of Capel Street, then Planxty made its debut in early 1972 in the larger room upstairs. They went on to play concerts in The Exam Hall in Trinity and record for Shay Healy’s radio programme. Later, Christy Moore asked Irvine, Lunny and Liam O’Flynn to play on the recording that became Prosperous, and Irvine said the first 18 months of Planxty were the most joyous of his life up to that point.
That joy sits beside the grief in Irvine’s tribute. He said Lunny and Christy Moore were like a comedy double act off stage and often even on stage, and recalled the three of them rolling around the country in their Transit van. Yet the praise is sharpened by the loss itself: Irvine called Lunny’s music an inspiration and said his name, and all he stood for, will be remembered for all time. For now, the unanswered part is not his legacy. It is what took him, and that remains unsaid.
