Leonard Cohens's affair with Ireland blossomed late but endured until the end

THE love affair between Leonard Cohen and Ireland blossomed late but endured until the end, writes Ed Power

In his final years as a touring artist, he performed here on more than a dozen occasions, with the live recording of a 2013 concert at Dublin’s O2 (now 3Arena) considered the definitive chronicling of the singer in his glorious twilight.

He appreciated our humour and our empathy — qualities he himself possessed in abundance.

In Ireland, Cohen was among friends who recognised the sweetness of his music as much as its melancholy, not acolytes seeking to drink deep of his misery. He enjoyed sharing a room with people who laughed as readily as they were moved to tears.

Cohen had not played Ireland for more than two decades when he strode on stage at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in June 2008, wearing a cocked fedora and a crooked grin.

He was in the middle of a world tour widely perceived as a straightforward bid to replenish life savings lost when he was defrauded by a business advisor (Cohen had been studying at a Buddhist retreat at the time of the improprieties).

Yet Cohen was visibly moved by the reception in Dublin and had soon developed a genuine chemistry with Irish crowds. What characterised these comeback gigs was a remarkable warmth shared by artist and audience.

Indeed, the dates went a significant way towards demolishing the cliche of Cohen as a laureate of despair. He was dryly witty during his seven IMMA shows (three in 2008, a further four in 2012), and through his turns at Lissadell House in Sligo (twice in 2010) and at the venue today known as 3Arena (four dates in 2009 and two more in 2013) — an impresario rather than a doomed poet.

Not that the poetry was absent. As he reminded us with that pilgrimage to WB Yeats’s holiday retreat at Lissadell, Cohen felt endlessly indebted to the Sligo writer, in whose cautiously stormy verses he detected a worldview that chimed with his own.

“As a young man, Yeats spoke to me in a way I could understand,” he would later say.

“Shakespeare I couldn’t understand, but Yeats I could. It was his subject matter and also I really admired the way he put his personal life on the line.”

Cohen gave everything during a performance but, in Ireland, so did the crowds and it was obvious that he found playing in this country deeply nurturing .

It was surely significant that the definitive live album he released after coming out of retirement was 2014’s Live In Dublin, recorded at 3Arena the previous September.

“Are you humouring me?,” he wonders as the applause finally fades on the recording.

“If these are the crumbs of compassion that you offer to the elderly, I am grateful.”