Jimmy Crowley: Cork musicians unite for tribute concert to music legend 

The concert in Cork City Hall on Wednesday will raise funds for the stricken singer's ongoing care 

Jimmy Crowley has been hit with both cancer and a stroke in recent times. 

“It’s a chance for the people of Cork to pay tribute to my brother, and a wonderful man.”

Those are the words of Darby Crowley, brother of Cork musician Jimmy, ahead of the concert celebrating his career in the city this week.

More than 40 performers will take part in A Musical Tribute To Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Hall on Wednesday, June 24 - an astonishing response after the call went out to raise funds for the musician.

Singer and songwriter Jimmy was in hospital for five months after suffering a stroke. He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer last September.

His partner, Eve Telford, issued a GoFundMe appeal to raise funds so he could continue his rehabilitation at their Cobh home, and it quickly passed the €100,000 mark.

As well as donations, a number of concerts in Ireland and around the world were arranged to raise money for the cause, including a trad and folk session in the Randy Leprechaun bar in La Zenia, Spain - a former haunt of Jimmy’s - which raised €1,130.

A group of Cork musicians, including William Hammond, also set out to put on a big tribute event for Jimmy in the city, and among those 40-plus performers next week will be Jimmy’s brother Darby and Leeside musician John Spillane.

The classic image of Jimmy Crowley and the other members of Stokers Lodge, taken outside the Phoenix Bar on Union Quay, Cork. 

Darby, of Kilnamartyra, who is five years younger than Jimmy, and is himself a songwriter, spoke to me the day after Jimmy left hospital and went home to Cobh to continue his rehabilitation.

“It was great for Jimmy to go home, he was delighted - there’s no place like home,” said Darby. “The family have been overwhelmed by the response to the appeal, it is a fantastic tribute to him and his music. We are very proud of Jimmy and his achievements, he is a lovely man.”

Meanwhile, John Spillane spoke of the huge debt he owes to Jimmy for his own successful career in music.

“I was unbelievably lucky that I had a wonderful apprenticeship with Jimmy Crowley,” he said. At 21, he took me on as a bass player with his band, which he called The Quartet at the time. It was an education I could not have got in any university, with Jimmy and the likes of Johnny Murphy and Christy Twomey.

“Jimmy was very kind to me, and it was an honour to perform with him. I had two summers playing with him and his band, it was an amazing education.”

There are a good few contenders for the Bard of Cork, and Crowley and Spillane are surely right up there in the conversation, alongside legends like Jimmy MacCarthy and Seán Ó Sé.

Spillane says Crowley’s first band, Stoker’s Lodge, were “the Cork equivalent of Planxty” and a key part of the folk revival of the 1970s.

That band’s first two albums, The Boys Of Fairhill and Camp House Ballads, will form a large part of the songs performed at the tribute concert to Crowley next week.

Expect renditions of the likes of Johnny Jump Up, Salonika, The Armoured Car, The Groves Of Blackpool, and Do You Want Your Old Lobby Washed Down Con Shine.

It doesn’t get much more Cork than that!

Spillane added: “It promises to be a a great night, with so many performers and so many great songs.”

• A Musical Tribute To Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Hall on Wednesday, June 24. Tickets at €29 from Eventbrite.ie - all proceeds to the Jimmy Crowley fund.

Line-up in alphabetical order

• Aoife Granville (Dingle flute player and Arts Council member)
• Barry Tierney (International singer from Kinsale)
• Brian Morrissey and Eoin Coughlan - The Oars (Cork folk musicians),
• Colm Murphy (bodhran player with De Dannan from Cork),
• Con Ó Drisceoil (writer of The Pool Song for Jimmy Crowley,
• Conal Creedon (Cork poet and writer who performed with Jimmy)
• Darragh Jamie McGann (Cobh singer who recorded Jimmy’s song My Love Is A Tall Ship)
• Darby Crowley (Jimmy’s brother and singer)
• Des Geraghty (former SIPTU President, singer and organiser of concerts in Dublin for Jimmy)
• Eoin Jordan and Anthony Ruby (Cork folk duo)
• Eoin Ó Riabhaigh - uilleann pipes - and Johnny Murphy - guitar (members of Jimmy Crowley’s band, Stoker’s Lodge. They recorded the albums The Camp House Ballads and The Boys Of Fair Hill with Jimmy and the late Chris Twomey and Mick Murphy
• Fiona Kennedy (Cork songwriter who has performed with Jimmy on many occasions)
• Garry Cronin, John Mitchell, Linda Quinlan, Catherine Frost, and William Hammond (group of Cork musicians who performed with Jimmy in An Spailpín Fánach pub),
• Gerry Murphy (Cork poet)
• John Spillane (one of Ireland’s finest songwriters, he received an education from Jimmy and performed with him many times over the last 30 years)
• Máire Ní Chéileachair (Cork seán nós singer)
• Marla Fibish and Macdarra Ó Faoláin (Marla, from San Francisco, is a mandolin player who recorded an album with Jimmy when he was living in the U.S, Macdarra is a bouzouki player from An Rinn),
• Majella Cullagh (Cork opera singer and friend of Jimmy)
• Mick Daly, Mick O’Brien, Brendan Butler and Hal O’Neill - Lee Valley String Band (Cork’s oldest band, formed in 1968 by the Toner Brothers Neill and Colm and Chris Twomey, Chris played and recorded with Jimmy in the band Stoker’s Lodge),
• Michael Murtagh, Jason Turk, Brian Leach, Seán Murphy, and Danny Dineen (Cork band Amadáns & Bodhráns),
• Tim O’Riordan (legendary Cork ballad singer),
• The Cheese Club (a group of Cork singers who meet in the Corner House)