Tom Dunne: A little bit of Dónal Lunny magic always draws you in — we will miss him

Heard something amazing? Scratch the surface and you'll likely find Dónal Lunny's name, Tom Dunne writes

Legendary traditional musician Dónal Lunny, who died last week aged 79. Picture: Denis Minihane

Steve Earle said something to me about Dónal Lunny in 2000 that has lived with me ever since. Steve had just released the Transcendental Blues album. It had Beatles and Bluegrass influences, but Irish connections too, including Sharon Shannon on the now ubiquitous Galway Girl.

“The more time I spend in Ireland” he told me, “the more I realise that when you hear a great piece of Irish music, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll discover that Dónal Lunny was involved.” 

I was a bit taken aback. I’d been independently coming to that conclusion myself.

Sure, we all knew about the Emmet Spiceland, Planxty, The Bothy Band, his involvement on the Andy Irvine/Paul Brady album and his time in Moving Hearts, but increasingly it did seem that when you heard anything amazing — Kate Bush’s Mná Na hÉireann — scratch the surface and there it was: Dónal’s name somewhere.

At the time, The Cavan Potholes by Sharon Shannon was haunting me. Needless to say, when I traced its roots, I discovered it was a Dónal track, having appeared on his collaboration album Common Ground. There, Dónal played a kind of Hal Wilner, bringing diverse talents like U2, Elvis Costello and Kate Bush to bear on Irish music.

It led to my first interview with him and my first time realising he tended to play down his involvement in all things great. “Lucky to be in a studio with such talented heads,” he would reason. But honestly, no one is that lucky that often.

When you listen to these albums, it's almost always a little bit of Dónal magic that draws you in. It’s impossible to say how much he is involved, but all you know is there are tracks that beguile you, move you and enchant you, and somewhere in that magic is Dónal’s DNA.

Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Liam O'Flynn and Christy Moore of Planxty.

He was very mischievous. Responding to my enthusiasm for Cavan Potholes, he asked if I liked the bass line. I told him I thought it made the track, carrying its simple but stunning melody over Sharon’s joyous accordion. He laughed. “The trad heads hate it,” he told me, “there’s no bass in trad.” 

He’d arrived in Dublin in 1965 to study at the NCAD, his mind filled with The Beatles, The Stones and the Dubliners at a point when there was definitely no bass in trad. As a young teen, he’d already played gigs around Newbridge with an equally young Christy Moore. You get the impression it was music first, genre second. He just wanted to play.

He seemed to have a penchant for playing venues that would later become legendary. The 95 Club in the mid-60s on Harcourt Street with Emmet Folk and later the Mug’s Gig with Andy Irvine in Slattery’s of Capel Street. Clodagh Simonds of Mellow Candle described those gigs as “simply exhilarating”. 

Within 10 years of topping the charts with Emmet Spiceland in 1968, he had passed through the ranks of Planxty and The Bothy Band, two of the most influential bands in Irish music history. And he was just getting going. As a guest musician, band member or producer, he brought something to the table that elevated all around it.

It was no surprise Kate Bush was so enamoured by him. His part on bouzouki — with fellow Planxty member Liam O’Flynn on uilleann pipe and Dubliner John Sheehan on fiddle — is central to Jig of Life, the climactic piece on side two of  Hounds of Love. For many, that side, side two, The Ninth Wave, is Kate’s definitive work.

When Kate decided to lean further into her Irish roots on the next album, The Sensual World, it was no surprise to find Dónal involved again. Kate’s reworked Joycean soliloquy, Donal’s bouzouki, and this time Davey Spillane’s uilleann pipes weave a sensuous, timeless, seductive web.

Spotting Dónal's contributions became like a sport then. He produced Sinéad’s beautiful 2002 album Séan-Nós Nua, co-wrote my favourite Moving Hearts track, Lake of Shadows, and played on the Midnight Well album that I have adored since it was released.

In subsequent years, his involvement in any project was a guarantee of quality: Coolfin, Mozaik and LAPD were all wonderful. Just don’t ask him to big them up. That was someone else’s job. He took for granted a level of musicality that you and I would regard as being of the “generational talent” variety.

A genius by any other name. Travel on Dónal. We will miss you every day.