Clonmel World Music to bring popular Makem & Clancy show to Hotel Minella
Friday October 28
Gerry Lawless and his Clonmel World Music crew are delighted to welcome back Makem & Clancy to Minella Hotel on Friday October 28 in Clonmel.
They last played to a full house in Minella in 2019.
They had two very successful tours in Ireland in 2019, where they played to packed houses in Tipperary, Armagh, Belfast and Derry.
They toured Ireland again in spring 2022, playing a sold-out show in Dungarvan, and successful shows in Ballycotton, Newry, Derry and Belfast.
They are currently on a nine date Irish autumn tour, with shows in Sligo, Kilkenny, Donegal, Mayo, Louth, Waterford, Wexford and Cork, as well as the Clonmel show.
The Clonmel show is the showcase event of this autumn tour, with a full band and special guests.
Rory and Donal will be joined on stage by Donnchadh Gough on bodhran, and Brendan Clancy on fiddle.
Special guests on the night will by multi All-Ireland winning musicians Emma Corbett (Melodeon), Cian Smith (Uileann pipes), Thomas Ahern (banjo) and Breandan Seoighe (sean-nós dancer).
Doors will open at 7.30pm, with show at 8.30pm prompt.
Tickets are on sale on the Clonmel World Music website and from reception in Hotel Minella.
Rory Makem and Donal Clancy carry on the musical legacy, stories and songs of their legendary fathers, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy.
Rory and Donal – the sons of, respectively, Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy – are justifiably proud of their families’ storied place in Irish music, and both had the opportunity to perform with their famous fathers over the years.
They’ve also forged their own musical paths.
Dónal Clancy is an acclaimed guitarist, singer and performer. Dónal grew up in a household and community steeped in music.
He spent his early childhood in Canada and the US before his family settled back in An Rinn, county Waterford in 1983.
His father gave him his first guitar at the age of eight and he was playing professionally by his early teens.
After returning from a residency at Delaney’s Irish Pub in Hong Kong in the mid-nineties, he co-founded the group Danú but left soon after to join a trio with his father, Liam, and cousin, Robbie O’Connell.
Their debut tour in 1996 took them across the US, from the Santa Anita Race Track in Los Angeles to Lincoln Center in NY City.
They continued to tour together for a couple of more years and recorded two albums before they disbanded in the late nineties.
In 1998, Dónal moved to New York where he became the go-to guitarist for many of the top Irish music acts.
He contributed to albums and tours with Riverdance fiddler, Eileen Ivers, and was guest guitarist with The Chieftains on their Tears of Stone Tour in Japan and the US in 1999.
From 2000 – 2002 he was a member of the Irish-American super-group Solas and in 2003 he re-joined the group Danú who would go on to become one of the most successful Irish bands today.
In 2009, Dónal returned to live in Ireland with his wife, Mary and their three children.
After the death of his father (the last remaining member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem) he began to focus his attention on the family repertoire of songs that he grew up with, while keeping the Clancy tradition alive with his solo performances.
Rory Makem is a seasoned performer with over 25 years on the road, and he has toured extensively with The Makem and Spain Brothers. He toured and played guitar with his father, the legendary Tommy Makem for 17 years.
He has entertained countless sold-out venues, festivals, and theatres throughout the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Ireland.
At his best on stage, Rory captivates audiences with his skilled musicianship, his charisma and passion for the songs, his extensive knowledge of poetry and history, and his humour.
Throughout their individual pursuits, the latter-day Makem and Clancy have always sung the praises – literally – of their forebears, and in 2016 finally joined forces as a duo to carry on the legacies of The Clancy Brothers and the original Makem and Clancy, where they belted out classics like Brennan on the Moor, Whistling Gypsy Rover, Wild Mountain Thyme and many more, and shared plenty of stories and reminiscences with an appreciative, enthusiastic audience that happily sang along on practically every song.