Christy Moore

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

Elements of this programme may offend or upset some listeners. The programme was originally broadcast in 2007.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is the legendary musician Christy Moore.

Presenter0:35

His stature and influence in Irish folk music is unparalleled. The heart of his music pulses with the folk tradition, but the lyrics roam into areas of deep cultural and political controversy. A passionate performer, he's the archetypal Irish poet and protest singer. In the late seventies Special Branch raided the launch of his album H Block. His songs have been banned by both London and Dublin courts, and as recently as two thousand four he was held by police and questioned about his lyrics and lifestyle.

Presenter1:05

But not all the struggles he's dealt with have been political. By his own admission he wasted years, maybe even decades, boozing and binging on drugs. One drink, he has said, is too many. A thousand would not be enough. Having cleaned up his act, he was then forced to confront the devastating legacy of his father's early death, and how profoundly it had affected his life. Christie Moore, the notion of the troubadour is a a romantic one, you know, driven by music and idealism and openness to new experiences. Would you regard yourself as a romantic?

Christy Moore1:37

Now that you've asked the question, perhaps I would regard myself in that way. But I think a carrier of news. The old ballad singers used to um carry the news. They would sing the songs on the streets and sell their broadsheets. And I think perhaps some of the s these songs carry my version of the news.

Presenter1:55

So it's not so much romantic, it's actually about doing a service, doing a it's a job for the community to record things and let people see them and hear them.

Christy Moore2:04

It's probably a mixture of both those things. You know, I I couldn't say it's either or both descriptions appealed to me this morning.

Presenter2:11

Uh now you too, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, the Pogues, all these people in contemporary pop music and rock music who've credited you with influencing them in very important ways. I I wonder what it is in your music you think has spoken to them, these these people in these groups that I've just mentioned?'Cause it's not an it's not an obvious link.

Christy Moore2:31

Um

Christy Moore2:33

I suppose my my love, my almost obsession with with singing songs and I I get very involved passionately with the songs wh while performing. And I t I think that is perhaps what

Christy Moore2:48

makes people or helps people to listen. I simply get lost in performance. Uh I feel like I'm in a place that I cannot be reached. And I believe in performance it's the three elements of the song, the singer and the listener that make for the magic that sometimes happens at concerts.

Presenter3:09

There was a a period of time when you couldn't perform. You found you couldn't perform. Maybe we'll talk about that in more detail later. But recently you've come back to performing. You've been reunited with those things you've just described. How does that feel?

Christy Moore3:22

Wonderful. After 1999 I I really thought I would never be able to go on stage again, and it just has grown back from that point.

Christy Moore3:32

And it's been wonderful.

Presenter3:34

Tell me about your first choice this morning.

Christy Moore3:38

Well, the first singer who caught my attention was my mother. My mother sang all the time. She sang at the sink, she sang in the kitchen, and she also sang in the Dominican church in Newbridge and County Kildare. And that was always a very strange sensation to be at Mass on Sunday morning and to hear my mother in the organ loft singing sometimes Ave Maria.

Speaker 24:20

What's your pain?

Speaker 24:27

Oh me no store.

Presenter4:58

Felicity Lott singing Ave Maria and very strong memories, Christy Moore, there of your mother. So music was in the house. Your mother was a great singer.

Christy Moore5:06

Very much so. She gave me an appreciation of a good song.

Christy Moore5:11

Diction was very important to her, and right up until the time she died I would play my new songs to her.

Presenter5:18

You were born in nineteen forty five in County Kildare. I mean it must be a very different place. Now, what was it like i in those early days when you were uh being brought up there?

Christy Moore5:27

Well, Newbridge is a garrison town. It's also where all the race race tracks are, a lot of racing trainers around. So when I was growing up it was nuns, brothers, priests, jockey boys and soldiers.

Presenter5:43

I it's very easy for that to sound like a very kind of cliche, you know, for for anybody else to interpret Irish culture in that way apart from an Irishman might sound a bit offensive, but essentially that was the reality of it.

Christy Moore5:54

But it's my reality, you know, it's my experience.

Presenter5:56

So music was there. You were one of six children. But but it I mean, it's important to understand you weren't brought up in any sort of poverty. I mean, this was a a family that that had resources and things were decently done and properly done.

Christy Moore6:08

You know, we weren't well to do, but we certainly had everything we needed. We were blessed in that way. There were six of us there was myself, Eilish, Anne, Terry, Andy, and Barry and we were a very happy family until nineteen fifty six, I suppose, when when Daddy left.

Presenter6:26

We we'll talk about that a little later on, if if you don't mind. Just now I I want to get a sense of I mean you said your to your mother diction was very important. I mean you actually had elocution lessons.

Christy Moore6:34

Yes, but Mrs. Mary O'Sullivan, who

Christy Moore6:38

Taught me elocution, also gave me piano lessons and, again singing techniques.

Presenter6:44

Now explain this to me. This wasn't to get rid of the Irishness, because of course a lot of peo I mean, I know coming from Scotland, there can be a sense that that to speak with a strong accent, you know, means that you're culturally somewhat inferior. I mean, what was what was behind your mother wanting the elocution lessons and all those other proper things?

Christy Moore7:00

Would you believe it? I've never even wondered why. I've never thought of that. I don't know what she was at.

Presenter7:07

Emma Ho Yash.

Christy Moore7:08

Hey, ma'am, ho way Ash, what were you doing there, mummy?

Presenter7:11

And you were performing too?

Christy Moore7:13

I began to perform quite early on. As a boy soprano I sang in the choir, and I also sang in what in those days were called variety concerts.

Christy Moore7:24

And I would be wheeled out and I would sing Kevin Barry in The Meeting of the Waters. And so I I went on stage early on.

Presenter7:32

Now, your second choice this morning is rather unique for us in that you very kindly recorded it for us this morning in the studio. Tell me what it is.

Christy Moore7:41

Well I befriended Mike Watterson in the late 60s when I played in his folk club, or the family folk club in Hull. And this song I heard his brother-in-law Martin Carthy sing it and I just thought it was very very powerful and it's one of those songs that people don't quite know how to react to it.

Christy Moore8:01

I think it's a really good piece of writing.

Christy Moore8:05

Oh, there was a woman, and she lived on her own, Slaved on her own, Skivvied on her own She'd two little boys and two little girls She lived all alone Wid her husband He was a hunk of a man, A chunk of a man and a punk of a man A hunk o' the runk and spunk of a man Such a boozy browsing bully of a husband

Presenter8:35

My castaway Christy Moore singing A Stitch in Time. And as I mentioned, Christy, you very kindly recorded that for us this morning. You you said after the recording you weren't entirely happy with it. What what in your eyes was wrong with that? Sounded perfect to me.

Christy Moore8:46

Well, it's the way the voice sounds in the early morning. Particularly I've I've been singing for the last four nights, so there's a huskiness in my voice that takes quite a while to to um

Christy Moore8:59

Disappear.

Presenter8:59

Wh when you were singing as a little boy, were you conscious that uh you were making a connection with an activity that was almost stitched into your soul? Did it seem right?

Christy Moore9:10

Yes, I I took to it from early on. As a boy soprano I took to it. What really I think was a turning point for me was when I was sixteen I I sang Tit Willow in the Mikado, and the effect that had on the audience

Christy Moore9:28

But something dawned on me.

Christy Moore9:30

There's something there's something going on here.

Christy Moore9:33

And it really turned me on.

Presenter9:34

They were in your spell, were they, watching?

Christy Moore9:36

Something happened, yeah. And I also was under the under a spell.

Presenter9:41

I want to rewind back to when you were um eleven, I think it was, your father died. Uh he was in his very early forties. That must have had a profound effect on you and your brothers and sisters and your mother.

Christy Moore9:52

Well, it it was the biggest thing in all our lives, and to this day we we still uh w were affected greatly by it. He went in to have a toenail removed.

Christy Moore10:03

And uh something went wrong and uh he didn't survive the toenail being removed.

Presenter10:08

It was to do with the anaesthetic, was it?

Christy Moore10:10

It was to do with the anaesthetic.

Presenter10:10

Yeah.

Christy Moore10:12

My next memory of it was I was in fifth class in national school, and the priest, Father McNally, came in, and Father McNally told me in nineteen fifty six that I think you should go home. I think your mammy wants to see you. And when I got home I knew there was something awry.

Christy Moore10:28

The house was in darkness, and all the neighbours were there.

Christy Moore10:32

I remember a man called Joe McGown, a neighbour, saying to me, You're the man of the house now.

Presenter10:37

'Cause you were the eldest boy.

Christy Moore10:38

Yeah, and you'll have to take care of your mother and brothers and sisters.

Presenter10:42

And there you are aged eleven.

Christy Moore10:43

Yeah.

Presenter10:45

It's very difficult to imagine the impact that that has on an eleven-year-old. At the time, did you feel the weight of it, or were you simply dealing with the the sadness of losing your father?

Christy Moore10:47

That's a

Christy Moore10:54

I don't know. I really don't know wh what I was do. I remember asking mammy the following the day after the funeral.

Christy Moore11:01

I remember going into mummy and saying, Are we going to be poorer now?

Christy Moore11:05

So obviously that was a concern of mine. Were we going to be poor?

Presenter11:08

For your mother at the time, in a practical sense, what did it mean? I mean, she presumably.

Christy Moore11:11

Uh

Presenter11:13

I had to start work.

Christy Moore11:14

But she basically went out and and

Christy Moore11:17

became the earner. She had a small shop in New Buddery, small grocery shop.

Christy Moore11:23

She took took over the shop and and ran it.

Presenter11:26

At the same time as having six kids. I mean, how how young would her youngest have been when she was working?

Christy Moore11:30

Well, Barry was only four or five months old when Daddy died. I'd left my mother uh

Christy Moore11:37

without without her or her beloved for all of her life, and and she missed him every day.

Presenter11:41

She was thirty seven.

Christy Moore11:42

She was thirty seven, yeah, and she spoke about him every day.

Christy Moore11:48

You know, I didn't realise the consequence until my youngest son was eleven.

Christy Moore11:55

and it dawned on me the effect it would have on him. And that was the first time I began to realize what effect it might have had on us. And uh I've developed a a relationship with my father over the years, and uh in the last twelve or fifteen years I have a really good relationship with him now.

Christy Moore12:15

I talked to both of them and um

Christy Moore12:20

It seems to help.

Presenter12:22

Tell me about your third track.

Christy Moore12:25

In my earlier days I used to play piano, but what I loved to do then was to try and play early rock'n'roll.

Christy Moore12:33

And this is one of the songs I used to play on the piano and I used to sing.

Christy Moore12:37

I'm just a lonely boy.

Speaker 312:39

I'm just a lonely boy

Speaker 312:43

Lolly in blue.

Speaker 312:47

I'm all alone.

Speaker 312:50

Good nothing to do

Speaker 212:52

Uh

Speaker 312:54

Uh

Speaker 212:54

I've got everything.

Speaker 312:58

Uh

Speaker 212:58

You could say

Speaker 313:01

But all I want is

Speaker 313:05

Is someone to love?

Presenter13:08

Paul Anchor and Lonely Boy. It it seems incredible, Christine Robert, that when it came to um getting the gigs, you had to come to Britain. I mean, given Ireland's very long and distinguished folk tradition, it it was in in England, in Britain, that we wanted to hear what you had to say.

Christy Moore13:26

Well, the way the way it evolved, I used to play in the Irish pubs around London. And then I went to a folk club. I went to my first folk club, which was in the Scotts House, and Annie Briggs was the guest. And Annie Briggs stood up in the corner of the room and sang, and the whole room listened. And this was hey, this is interesting. I learnt the the craft of what I do here. I befriended so many wonderful singers, travelled to hundreds and hundreds of folk clubs. It had a huge effect upon me.

Presenter13:57

Music critics have said there was a great quote that I read somewhere, it said, Your stage presence is that of a truculent bricky. Which is a great phrase. And you you know, you've sung songs like I mean you're well known for songs like Paddy on the Road and Don't Forget Your Shovel. You know, it suggests you recognise that there's something to be got out of playing up to a certain stereotype, not not just humour.

Christy Moore14:17

Well I did quite a bit of that in the early days, but I met a man called Bruce May, who was then managing Ralph MacTell, and he was very critical of my performance. And he said you've got to stop playing stage paddy. He said you've got a good voice. He said you've got to be more serious about your repertoire.

Christy Moore14:40

And uh I also uh went to Ewan McCall's club and that was uh an eye-opener.

Presenter14:47

I want to ask you about that, because you and McCall obviously this huge figure within folk, and and Dominic Behan you were fortunate enough to rub up against them and and see them and and presumably chat to them. Did they become friends and influences?

Christy Moore15:01

MacCall I only met him a few times. He became a huge influence, but I certainly did not know him well. But I did meet himself and Peggy Seeger occasionally.

Christy Moore15:10

And McCall was singing old songs, but also new songs, and he was writing as he went along.

Christy Moore15:17

And he sowed the seed that perhaps one day I might write a song.

Presenter15:21

In those early days then of performing, what about the lifestyle that surrounded it? I'm thinking now of downing pints before or after a gig. Tell me about that.

Christy Moore15:29

Well, the lifestyle was chaotic, but it was wonderful.

Christy Moore15:33

I mean I loved it, travelling around England and Scotland with all these pretty wild guys.

Christy Moore15:40

A lot of partying, a lot of travelling.

Christy Moore15:43

Good time.

Presenter15:44

Tell me about your fourth record.

Christy Moore15:48

Well the Clancy brothers changed my life. I heard the Clancy Brothers and I averted my gaze from Elvis and Buddy Holly and all those American rock'n'roll singers and I heard this sound that was in my own dialect. I heard these songs that I seemed to know and it was every bit as exciting and I wanted some of it.

Speaker 316:08

Brennan on the moor, ball, brave and undaunted, was young Brennan non the moor. Though Brennan's wife had gone to town, provisions for to buy.

Christy Moore16:09

More for reba

Speaker 316:18

And when she saw Willie, she commenced to weep and cry, Said hand to me that in pity, as soon as Willie spoke. She handed him a ball on the bus from underneath her throat, For young Brennan on the boat.

Speaker 316:33

Brennan on the ball of all, brave and undaunted was young Brennan.

Presenter16:38

The Clancy Brothers and Brennan on the Moor. You brought out your first record when was it? End of the 60s? 1969.

Christy Moore16:44

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of a majority.

Presenter16:45

Right. What was that and how did it sell?

Christy Moore16:49

I met Dominic Behan at a there was a concert for Irish Civil Rights in Shepherd's Bush late nineteen sixty eight, and I befriended Dominic Behan, and he said to me late that night, Would you like to make a record? He said, I will make a record with you. And he did. He was true to his word.

Presenter17:08

Did you play it to your mum?

Christy Moore17:09

Of course I did, yeah. The first copy I got I posted it home to to mother and she was well pleased. She was very, very proud of of what I was doing because she loved singing so much herself, and perhaps I was living out her dream.

Presenter17:25

That's what I wanted to ask you. Do you think I mean, you said she had a quite a beautiful and distinct voice. Do you think she would have loved to have pursued that herself?

Christy Moore17:30

I think she would like to have been a serious singer.

Christy Moore17:33

You know, she loved to sing. She got lost in her singing.

Presenter17:37

Life as a travelling musician, as you've described it, Christy, this unstable, demanding, carousing life that you were having in the seventies. You were doing that in Britain, but you returned to Ireland and found in the early seventies the woman who was to become your love, Val Isaacson. How did you meet?

Christy Moore17:55

Valerie and I met in MacDaid's pub in Harry Street on a lovely summer's evening.

Christy Moore18:00

And we've been together ever since.

Presenter18:01

Did you chatter up?

Christy Moore18:04

Well, I was instantly smitten, of course I did, I'm still chatting her up.

Presenter18:10

Because of the life you've led I mean, the life of a musician on the road is a very demanding one, not just for him or her, but for the people who are left at home. I mean, in a sense, she has been at home minding what has been going on there. That that's a lot to ask of someone.

Christy Moore18:25

Indeed it is. I mean, she created the the home and she reared our three beautiful children our chaddults as I call them now. I'm blessed that she put up with me.

Presenter18:37

A strong woman?

Christy Moore18:38

Fury.

Presenter18:39

Tell me then about the the group that you formed around about this time.

Christy Moore18:43

After the first album with Dominic Behan, I wanted to work with Irish musicians who would have more feeling for the songs. And Bill Leader came to Ireland with me in 1971 or 72 and we recorded an album which went so well that we decided to form a band and that band was called Planksty and that was a wonderful time.

Presenter19:07

Tell me about your next track, number five.

Christy Moore19:10

I first heard the Ilen pipes when I was 17 or 18 and it so happened that the first player I heard was also the player I perceived to be the best, Liam O'Flynn from Kildare and he was a member of Planksty along with myself, Andy Irvine and Donald Lunny. And this piece of music is very special to me for many different reasons, but probably mostly because of the way it sounds.

Presenter20:06

Planksty and Tomsha Imcoller. Is that all right?

Christy Moore20:10

That was beautiful.

Presenter20:12

Very nerve-wracking to say in front of you. It was during the seventies, Christine Bohr, that your political voice started to be heard in your songwriting. Was that I mean, you've described your career as this very organic thing that just g just grew. I mean, there wasn't a deliberate decision, was there, to to be the voice of uh a certain political contingent in Ireland?

Christy Moore20:32

No, no. I moved back to Ireland and um

Christy Moore20:36

Things were changing in Ireland, the atmosphere was changing, and uh when I left Planksty in 1974, I suppose again it was like

Christy Moore20:44

The message of Ewan McCall I felt perhaps I needed some relevance in my work.

Christy Moore20:50

I then was invited into the H blocks.

Christy Moore20:53

And I was asked would I consider writing a song about the situation that was emerging in the H blocks.

Presenter20:59

And what did you want to say in those songs? I mean, you were not simply painting pictures.

Christy Moore21:05

Well, I suppose I wanted to carry the news. I wanted to tell the story as I saw it.

Presenter21:10

And you also put Bobby Sand's lyrics to to to music as well.

Christy Moore21:14

I certainly began to sing them.

Christy Moore21:16

At this time Bobby Sand's name didn't mean anything to me. He was just a young man, and he had a pen name he always signed his writings as Marcella.

Christy Moore21:26

and I came across these two songs and began to sing them.

Christy Moore21:29

One I wish I was back home in derry.

Christy Moore21:32

And the other is McLhatton.

Christy Moore21:34

and two very, very fine songs.

Presenter21:37

And I mentioned in the introduction this album H block. Tell me, that the albums themselves were seized. I mean, what what actually happened when you released that album?

Christy Moore21:46

Well, there was a launch in the Brazenhead in Dublin, and the launch was raided by the Special Branch, and they took everybody's name and address, and they confiscated all the albums. And of course you couldn't have better publicity for an album. Everybody in the country wanted it after that, so the Special Branch did a right bit of PR for us.

Presenter22:05

And what did they I mean, particularly what did they object to? They were objecting to words within the songs, they were objecting to the intent to radicalise people.

Christy Moore22:12

The very fact that an album has been released called Hedgeblock.

Christy Moore22:18

They objected to that.

Presenter22:20

And were you charged with anything?

Christy Moore22:21

No.

Christy Moore22:23

No.

Presenter22:23

Did you ever get the albums back?

Christy Moore22:25

No.

Christy Moore22:26

No. Many years later I met some of the detectives who were on the raid and they admitted that they were amongst their most cherished belongings with those albums, you know. So it was all a lot of ambivalence, a l a lot of contradiction, a lot of confusion.

Christy Moore22:41

You know, that's the way it was.

Presenter22:43

Taking up the republican cause, did you see it in very black and white terms, or did you have a degree of self doubt about what was being perpetrated in the name of republicanism?

Christy Moore22:53

At the time I saw it in black and white. But certain things happened along the way. I mean I mean obviously in the lead up to the hunger strike and during the hunger strike, it was very black and white.

Presenter23:04

And you've said that much of your musical life you were driven by anger, both justifiable and unjustifiable. Wh where did the anger come from?

Christy Moore23:15

I suppose it partly came from perceived injustice towards others. I suppose some of it was buried deep inside. I still suffer to this day from anger. It surges up into me sometimes, and it's horrible.

Presenter23:31

Was that what all the drinking was about, quelling the anger?

Christy Moore23:36

I've no idea. Um it's it's very hard to define alcoholism. It's very hard to define where it comes from or what causes it. I think no two alcoholics have the same uh story.

Christy Moore23:49

But certainly oblivion was what I sought for a long time.

Presenter23:54

Tell me about your next record. It's uh record number six.

Christy Moore23:57

When I first heard Luke Kelly sing I was very, very struck, not only by the power of his voice, but by the emotion he he put into his singing. I worshipped Luke Kelly because of the way he sang.

Christy Moore24:11

And I would love to hear Luke Kelly sing the Ballad of Johil.

Speaker 324:15

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, Alive as you and me. Says I, But Joe, you're ten years dead, I never died, says he, I never died, says he.

Speaker 324:38

In Salt Lake City Joseph, him standing.

Presenter24:44

Luke Kelly and Joe Hill. Your sympathy for the IRA stopped abruptly in 1987. Why was that?

Christy Moore24:53

I suppose Enniskillen Enniskillen and then Warrington and

Christy Moore24:59

Proxy bombs.

Presenter25:01

What was it about those things? Because I mean civilians hadn't been immune from attack before.

Christy Moore25:06

It was just the end of um the line for me. I I could no longer

Christy Moore25:11

Support the armed struggle.

Presenter25:15

I wonder when you see Martin McGuinness sitting side by side with Ian Paisley, as we've seen in recent weeks, w what goes through your head?

Christy Moore25:23

That I never thought I'd see the day, and hopefully the killing is over.

Presenter25:29

For yourself, as I say, you stopped supporting the IRA in 1987. It was the same year that you yourself had a heart attack. What happened?

Christy Moore25:38

I was at home and I began to feel very, very strange.

Christy Moore25:41

I knew there was something going on, so I just went to the doctor.

Christy Moore25:45

who told me I was I'd had a heart attack.

Presenter25:47

I'm conscious also in asking you about this that you don't necessarily want to dwell in on in your alcoholism and dwell on taking drugs because you're clean and happy now. But it's important to try to understand a little bit more of who you are and what you've been through, that we talk about it a little bit at least. So at that point you did what? You you stopped taking drugs.

Christy Moore26:07

Certainly when I was in the intensive care it was my intention to stop everything.

Christy Moore26:13

But I recovered and I came back out and my intention wasn't sufficient. I went back to drink again. And that's when I realized that uh I I can't handle this. I really am I'm beaten here. And that's when my journey began, when I reached out uh for help.

Presenter26:30

And tell me before that then, what had you what had you been taking? I mean, what were your drugs of choice and how much would you drink?

Christy Moore26:37

Oh dear.

Christy Moore26:40

I just dr I I drank too much and um I got I got into substances and um

Christy Moore26:49

It it is quite uncomfortable, isn't it, to talk about it?

Christy Moore26:52

Um

Christy Moore26:54

I I I ju I just s sought uh the company of others who had ha ha had the same illness and disease that I I suffered and uh

Christy Moore27:04

That's where it began.

Presenter27:06

Tell me about your next track.

Christy Moore27:08

Well, as I said, I first encountered Ewan in his club in King's Cross about nineteen sixty eight, and right through I would keep hearing new McCall songs, and then when I heard this song, The Joy of Living, which I believe may have been his last song.

Christy Moore27:26

I thought what a beautiful way to mark.

Christy Moore27:29

The end.

Speaker 327:31

Sun warmed rock and the cold of Bleaklow's frozen sea The snow and the wind and the rain of hills and mountains

Speaker 327:45

Days in the sun and the tempered wind and the airlike wine

Speaker 327:52

And you drink and you drink till you're drunk Come the joy of living.

Presenter28:01

Ewan McCall with Peggy Seeger and the joy of living. By the late nineties, Christy, you were working flat out. I mean, were you something of a workaholic?

Christy Moore28:09

I think that's what happened really. I think I became a workaholic.

Christy Moore28:13

I became totally obsessed with.

Christy Moore28:16

Work.

Presenter28:17

So then when you were going flat out, you you suffered from what, a s panic attack, so you had a

Christy Moore28:23

Well, certainly what happened to me initially was much more than a panic attack. Everything was taken from me.

Christy Moore28:29

And I could not communicate with anybody, I could not go out the door, answer the phone, pick up the guitar.

Christy Moore28:36

And uh I really believed I would never walk again.

Presenter28:39

So you had a complete breakdown.

Christy Moore28:40

Yeah, yeah. And Val really nursed me back.

Presenter28:45

Could you literally not talk?

Christy Moore28:47

Literally.

Presenter28:48

Not not even to your wife.

Christy Moore28:50

Um well, when I say I I could not have a conversation uh

Christy Moore28:56

F in the early days of it I I could communicate with Val, but

Christy Moore29:02

N not very well.

Presenter29:03

But that must have been terrifying.

Christy Moore29:04

It was it was terrifying, you know.

Presenter29:06

Yeah.

Christy Moore29:06

Yeah.

Christy Moore29:07

My father really came into play on that one.

Christy Moore29:10

I had a particularly good friend, a man called Patrick Nugent.

Christy Moore29:15

who not only was my GP, but he was a very, very spiritual and compassionate man, Patrick Newj Nugent suggested that I talk to my father.

Christy Moore29:26

And he created this image for me.

Christy Moore29:28

He said, What I want you to do is I want you to

Christy Moore29:32

Imagine that you're on a surfboard, heading towards the shore, and you're holding your father's hand.

Presenter29:41

And to somebody who'd lost their father at eleven that's a very powerful image indeed.

Christy Moore29:45

It was, yeah, yeah.

Christy Moore29:47

It was the start of a new relationship.

Presenter29:50

And this anger that you've spoken about, did you did the anger start to ebb away, the anger that was somewhere deep inside?

Christy Moore29:58

Partly, yeah. It it it still is ebbing away.

Christy Moore30:03

I I realize now that uh when it starts to come up I can't deal with it alone, and I ask my mother and father to give me a dig out.

Presenter30:12

You didn't think you would ever perform again. You thought that that was it. You would never go out live and pick up your instrument in front of an audience and express yourself. What happened to change that?

Christy Moore30:23

Well, in in my head I have it down to meeting up with Declan Sinnott again.

Christy Moore30:27

one of my old colleagues from Movin' Hearts, and we just started to play together.

Christy Moore30:33

For fun. Oh yeah. Th then Declan's fiftieth party and we got up and played together and Donald Lunny was there and the three of us played.

Christy Moore30:43

And it was okay.

Christy Moore30:45

It all just drifted back again.

Presenter30:49

Tell me about your final piece of music.

Christy Moore30:52

I heard John Riley first. I was seventeen or eighteen.

Christy Moore30:56

And John was a a man of the road, a knight of the road. He was a tinker man, but he had a store of the most beautiful songs. I never forget John Reilly he's with me all the way along the way, and I still sing some of his songs, but not so often these days.

Christy Moore31:12

But when I do

Christy Moore31:14

I'm imbued with the spirit of his singing, and uh

Christy Moore31:17

It's it's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 331:19

There was three of the gypsies camped of our hall door, Deek and breath and bodily o But is one sung high and the other sang low, And the lady sang draggle taggle gypsy

Presenter31:40

John Riley and Raggle Taggle Gypsy, you were transported whilst listening to that. What is it is there something of the essence of Ireland or something of the essence of folk in what you hear there?

Christy Moore31:49

I cannot describe it really. As I listen there I realise I'd love to pay homage to Tom Munley, to Seamus Ennis and to Frank Hart, who dedicated their lives to going out, meeting the likes of John Reilly and recording, because without their efforts all this would have been lost.

Presenter32:11

I'm going to ask you now, of course, to transport yourself mentally to this desert island, and you get I will give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. What other book would you like to take with you?

Christy Moore32:21

I'd like to have um the Francis Child collection of popular songs of England and Scotland, uh, full volumes.

Presenter32:29

You may have that, and the luxury.

Christy Moore32:32

A SET OF ILIN PIPES. They say it takes twenty one years to master the Illin Pipes, and I would have the time to dedicate it, and my playing would not be infringing on anybody else.

Presenter32:44

Right, you may have those. And which record would you save if you could had to pick just one?

Christy Moore32:50

I would opt for Tom Shah Imkullah, I am in my sleep. I would gladly listen to that every night as I seek slumber.

Presenter33:01

Christy Moore, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Christy Moore33:04

It's been a great pleasure, thank you.

Presenter33:12

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.