I’ve discovered an amazing treasure on YouTube; live concert clips of now-old Irish traditional music from the 1970s. This is the early days of the ‘modern’ (instrument-driven) folk revivial, led by furry hippies with tremendous technical skills and a passion of wild abandon. This is music I know from cassettes and LPs and it’s a shock to see the musician in action, actually playing the music. So, for instance, I found a bunch of clips of The Bothy Band, an Irish trad supergroup, very influential in their day, on YouTube, posted by devotees. Here are three classic clips from 1976, when the Bothies included Paddy Keenan, Micheal O Dhomhnaill, Triona Ni Dhomhnaill, Donal Lunny, Kevin Burke, and Matt Molloy:

“Sixteen Come Next Sunday”

“Old Hag You Have Killed Me”

“Pretty Peg/Craig’s Pipes”

But that’s really just a sampling; there’s much more –video recorded live on some unfortunate Scandanavian tour, appearances at folk music festivals, talk show appearances, and the list goes on and on. There’s also a style of YouTube posting where the song from an album recording plays behind still images, which is useful for listening but not really the same experience as actually seeing what the ’81 Lisdoonvarna show actually looked like.

Here’s an ancient recording of Planxty, which at the time included Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Christy Moore and Liam Og O’Flynn, playing “The Blacksmith” from perhaps 1973. And another, “The Jolly Beggar” from 1980, with the band in more recognizable form after it reformed, with Matt Molloy from The Bothy Band. Members went on to influence a whole generation of musicians (Altan, The Waterboys, The Pogues…), and in different configurations, are still active today; Andy Irvine [mp3] still tours, for example, alone and with several bands, including Patrick Street (with members of both Planxty and The Bothy Band, Patrick Street has never really captured me in the way it should), and Christy Moore went on to some minor pop fame.

Just for comparison purposes, you understand, here’s an even older clip from the Dubliners, dating back to the early days of the previous (ballad-driven) folk revival, playing Dominic Behan’s great “McAlpine’s Fusiliers” from 1963. Actually, they were then still called the Ronnie Drew Group, with Bob Lynch, John Sheahan, Ronnie Drew, Ciaran Bourke, Barney McKenna, but without Luke Kelly. There don’t seem to be many good Luke Kelly clips on YouTube, for some reason, which is a shame.