Remembering Dónal Lunny, the man who turned music into gold

Sir, – Last Friday, I read that Dónal Lunny had died. I immediately went to YouTube and played Little Musgrave from a concert Planxty gave at Vicar Street in 2004.

This particular performance is one of the best versions of a folk song I have heard. Christy Moore sings it perfectly and Liam O’Flynn enters beautifully on tin whistle at just the right moment.

But it is the accompaniment by Lunny and Andy Irvine that I love most: restrained, subtle and perfect in so many ways. It is sublime.

In another great Planxty song, As I Roved Out, there is a line: “Instead of gold, sure it’s brass I find.” Lunny was pure gold. – Yours, etc,

RM Block

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JOHN BURNS,

Blackrock,

Co Dublin.