Johnny Duhan: How the singer fought the law and won

Singer represented a rare instance of an artist voyaging well outside their comfort zone and returning with sails ablaze, writes Mick Clifford

Singer/songwriter Johnny Duhan. The Limerick native, who has in Barna in Galway for many years, drowned after going for a swim at Silverstrand near his home.

The man on the phone said he was Johnny Duhan. I wouldn’t have believed it but for the voice. Even as he talked, I was transported back to the 1980s, the song on the radio, a DJ talking about this guy from Limerick, and a singing voice like a plea, full of vulnerability, as if imparting something from deep within, yearning for love of one sort or another, repelling pain.

Johnny Duhan died last Tuesday in a drowning accident off the coast of Galway. He was 74 and many tributes have since been paid to his songwriting feats. He was, as pointed out by his fellow musician Fiachna O Brainan, “a master wordsmith”. He was best known for his song ‘The Voyage’, recorded by Christy Moore and now a staple at every second wedding in the country and beyond.

Back in the 80s, when music held an elevated position in this teenager’s life, Duhan’s songs washed across the Irish musical landscape like a cool, strange breeze. His album Current Affairs got airplay, particularly the song 'El Salvador'. There was something about him that was different, an Irish Troubadour singing from a place not yet discovered.

His musical life began in the rock band Granny’s Intentions which achieved some moderate success locally, in Dublin and finally in London. He left the band by his mid-20s to concentrate on a solo career. He wouldn’t have made a good rock star but would have been at home among poets.

Like many musicians and songwriters whose talent doesn’t chime with the marketplace, he got by rather than prospered, but his writing did provide a steady income as artists such as Moore, Mary Black and The Dubliners brought fame to some of his songs.

For the greater party, his talent flew below the mainstream radar but he did pop up in some celebrated corners. The writer Ken Bruen’s series of Jack Taylor crime noir novels, set on the mean streets of Galway, constantly included references to a Duhan song or album. Johnny later remarked that the popularity of Bruen’s work saw a small spike in album sales, particularly in the USA.

Legal battle

It was the success of 'The Voyage' which saw Johnny haul up the anchor and set sail for the most unromantic of ports, the Solicitor’s Disciplinary Tribunal. The song had featured in a video recording of a show by the Three Tenors that was performed in the USA. The video netted over 500,000 sales, yet the production company responsible had not reimbursed the author with his legally entitled royalties.

Johnny Duhan. Picture: Kevin Byrne Photography

He told me all about that when he phoned in 2013. He had taken a complaint against his former solicitor, which was to be heard at the tribunal. He was told it wouldn’t necessarily be covered by the media and somebody gave him my name. Would I cover it? No problem. Who’s representing you? “I’m doing it myself,” he said. This would be more colourful sure, but my 19-year-old self worried about the man singing on the radio. Surely the opposing lawyers will eat the artist for breakfast.

How he got there involved a tale that is well-known to artists the world over. He had bad advice which he believed amounted to professional misconduct on the part of the advisor.

In 2001, Duhan went to Dublin solicitor Edde McGarr about the failure to receive his royalties from 'The Voyage'. The case wound its way through the legal process and in 2008 there was talk about a settlement. Johnny was told that the offer was for €50,000 but he would have to pay his own legal fees out of that.

He wanted to know how much the fees were. McGarr told him that “all-in means you have to pay your costs out of the money, the costs will not be small”. Duhan got the impression that McGarr didn’t want to settle, that he wanted to fight the case and in the likely — but by no means certain — outcome of a court award, the solicitor would be able to charge the other side much bigger fees than would be available from Johnny’s fifty grand. The solicitor totally denied any such motivation and said at all times his main concern was his client’s best interests.

By that stage Johnny didn’t have confidence in his solicitor to fight the case. Through all of this he didn’t know what level of costs his solicitor was charging. He was flying blind and being asked to make a decision about what was a major financial decision in his life. He phoned McGarr’s office and spoke to Eddie’s son, Simon, also a well-known Dublin solicitor. Two days later, he emailed McGarr.

“Jesus, it’s one thing to be ripped off by the defendants, another to be cleaned out by one’s own legal team and the awful thing is that you didn’t even have the common courtesy to tell me yourself. But then, for the past few years, you haven’t been extending to me the most basic form of common decency”.

Legally, Duhan should have been furnished with an estimate of the fees after he took on the solicitor in 2001 under Section 68 of the Solicitor’s Act but that hadn’t happened.

When eventually he was told how much McGarr was charging, it came to €16,131.50, nearly a third of the money he was to receive as settlement.

Solicitor and client parted company. Duhan managed to receive a partial settlement on his claim. But the experience with his solicitor had left him angry at the treatment he believed he had been subjected to. He contacted the Law Society and filed a complaint without any professional help. He told how McGarr had continuously refused to give him an estimate of the legal costs, and how this affected his ability to decide on the best course of action in receiving compensation for his royalties.

McGarr responded to the Law Society with “a copy of the letter of September 2001 to Mr Duhan in accordance with Section 68, together with the original estimate of fees”. He swore an affidavit that he has sent this letter at the time. The Law Society accepted this as proof that the solicitor had fulfilled his obligation. Duhan was informed that his complaint didn’t stack up.

Later it turned out that the letter was never sent in 2001. Unhappy with the outcome, and the failure of the Law Society to act once it became aware it had been misled over the letter, Johnny went to the Solicitor’s Disciplinary Tribunal, journeyed from the world of the imagination across to an alien place, where the law has primacy and isn’t necessarily concerned with truth.

Over three days in June 2013, he conducted his case. On the other side was the solicitor McGarr, his solicitor son assisting, and their team fronted by a senior counsel. Johnny was accompanied by his daughter Niamh, one of the crew of five that he and his wife Maureen had gathered round them on their voyage.

 Contrary to my misplaced misgivings, the sensitive artist handled himself brilliantly. He knew his onions when it came to the law as it affected his case. His questions were concise

 When questioning McGarr, it was inevitable that emotion would seep in. He told the solicitor that the failure to impart vital information about the fees meant he, Johnny, was “under your clutches, the way my wife couldn’t sleep at night”.

And then summing up his case he addressed the three-person tribunal and delivered a line that would be beyond the best legal minds practicing anywhere.

“To write a real song you must go to the heart and soul of the lyric,” he told them. “What I have tried to do in this tribunal is bring the same level of truth to these proceedings.” 

Verdict

 The tribunal found McGarr guilty on three counts of misconduct. The first related to McGarr’s “failure to supply Mr Duhan with an estimate of his costs in March 2008, and failure to provide his client with written detains of the actual charges”.

The second was for “failure to respond to correspondence including correspondence which were crucial and significant to the applicant”.

The tribunal also found that: “The respondent solicitor misled the Law Society that he had sent a Section 68 letter when it is now accepted by the respondent solicitor that he had not and in so doing caused the Law Society to dismiss the complaint of the applicant.” As a sanction the solicitor was ordered to pay Duhan €7,500 and expenses of €600. There was further too-ing and fro-ing before the full amount was handed over but eventually the singer could luxuriate in the reality of total vindication. 

It was a rare case of the artist taking on the system, doing so himself, and actually coming out the other side victorious

We kept in contact for a few years afterwards. At one point, Johnny wrote his memoir in the same considered and perceptive prose that informed his lyric writing. Later, he invited me to a concert he played at a church in Dublin and the experience was everything I could have asked for. The contact dissipated, mainly through my fault and that is one of those regrets that surface at a time like this.

Johnny Duhan was a unique voice. I believe nobody would argue with the contention that he was also a fine human being, a man for whom his family and his art represented all he needed. But at one stage in a life well led, he found time to strike out in a rare instance of the artist voyaging well outside his comfort zone and returning with sails ablaze. To mangle The Clash song title, he fought the law and he won.