Glad you passed this way.....

On life and death and such.....

Written in January 1989, in Trevignano Romano, Italy

 

 

Not being much of a churchgoer, I find living so close to the Vatican a bit puzzling, sometimes.  You cannot really understand Italy without knowing something about the papacy and Catholicism: they contribute much to the fascination of this country.  They add, particularly, I think, to the political interest.  For example, just now there is the Cologne Revolution in the news: one hundred and sixty-three middle-European theologians have got together to tell his holiness that he should not meddle with birth control or abortion.  The Vatican, so far, has chosen to ignore it, even though the Italian press is saying it is the most serious threat to John Paul in his reign; more important therefore than the Sandinistas, Ali Ağca or Archbishop Lefebrve.....  We shall see.....

 

I am currently reading The Politics of the Vatican, partly because Peter Nichols (who had lived nearby in Bracciano) died last week and I have had his book on my shelf for years, but also because these questions are important.  The catholic nature of Italy is perplexing, and I wonder how much is ‘religion’ and how much is ‘national character’ and how much is ‘power politics?’

 

Two events occur to me that may have a bearing on this.  One was the brief reign and sudden death of Papa Luciani, Pope John Paul I.  I remember the bells ringing out on the morning of his death (September 28^th, 1978) and the shock and alarm that spread amongst the people, including us, atheists and aliens.  Poor chap, only a month in office, such a nice fellow, and already gone..... buzz, buzz, buzz.....

 

At that time, I used to spend quite a lot of time in the Stampa Estera – the foreign journalists club, where budding international hacks (like Matt Frei) and boozy past masters rubbed shoulders.  There was an exceptional amount of rumour flying about and a far greater number of correspondents than usual were waiting at the bar for something to happen.  The body was lying in state; no-one was doing anything.

 

Then, suddenly, one evening the public was ushered out of the camera ardente and the doors were banged shut.  The press club emptied as the journos raced across town.  “Autopsy!”  The word was on every tongue.  But, no.  In the medieval corridors of the Vatican City a dead pope tells no tales.  No autopsy.  The jaw had flopped open and a little cosmetic bandaging was all that was needed.

 

But, even if it was only gossip and speculation, the pressmen were convinced that John Paul I had been ‘done in.’  Someone was wheeling and dealing behind the scenes and Papa Luciani had served his purpose.

 

Another event in recent Italian history that struck me was the funeral of Enrico Berlinguer (June 14th, 1984) following his death from a brain haemorrhage.  Well over a million people (perhaps a million and a half) thronged to the ceremony which was held in the Basilica of St John Lateran in Rome. It was the largest ever funeral in Italian history and the biggest mass gathering there since the second world war. 

Almost a third of the population of the city of Rome attended.

 

Enrico Berlinguer was the Secretary of the Italian Communist party.

 

Antonio and his Topolino

I am also made to think by the sad condition of a friend of ours.  Yesterday we went to visit her in hospital and it wasn’t great.  She is sinking fast, worn out by a struggle against Hodgkin lymphoma (and against chemotherapy) and she is now struggling with bronchial pneumonia.  Her eyes are cloudy and her breathing shallow and rapid.  She doesn’t recognise us – at least, I don’t think she does.  She stirs from time to time and her eyes half open, but she has almost gone.  Her husband stands awkwardly by the bedside, and after a while takes the opportunity provided by our presence to go out for a cigarette.

 

I am not fond of hospitals at the best of times (when is that?) Visiting Amanda in St Mary’s private hospital in Bristol last Christmas was not unlike wandering about an expensive hotel, but it was still a hospital – nobody is there for fun.  This one, in Palestrina, a busy little place at the foot of the Monti Prenestini (famous still for the sixteenth century composer who bears the name of his home town), is actually quite pleasant.  It is light, and clean; the staff are friendly and efficient.

 

When we visited last, just before Christmas, Isabella was very weak, but she could still talk.  She sat up to eat a little and she was able to make it to the bathroom on her own.  From her bed she could see an unkempt garden, with tall pines and sunlight on the straggling grass.

 

This time, an old woman has been moved into the second bed in the room, propped up, unconscious.  She breathes noisily through a respirator and drains slowly into a plastic bag that protrudes from under the bed-clothes.  Her daughter hangs around.

Antonio, his mother (Anna), Hannah and Amanda in March 1992 (Sarah on the way)

 

We are close to Isabella’s family.  Her brother, Antonio, is one of my best friends.  I knew their father, and both Amanda and I have a warm relationship with their mother, a Sicilian who met and married an English serviceman at the end of the war.  Isabella is my age, and I have known her for a dozen years.  Her eldest son, Thomas, is eleven and shares my birthday.  His twin brothers, Edward and Richard, were three last October.

 

What can you do?  Does faith, or medical knowledge, prove useful in these circumstances?  She does not appear to be suffering, and I think she is just slipping away, slowly.  The family are suffering more than her, now, keeping watch, day and night, taking her agony on themselves.  She has been ill for over a year, and last summer, in an isolation unit in Rome, was possibly the worst of it for her.

 

But how do we account for, or cope with, such a going out at such a comparatively young age?There is so much living left to do.  If there is a God, then what is He playing at?

 

Or is this the kind of emotional request that religion tries to respond to?  We don’t know or understand and therefore we blame God?  

Cave

 

Two days have passed. Yesterday we saw the last of Isabella, her coffin manhandled and roped down into the cold gloom of her husband’s family tomb. My mind is crowded with images and ideas: the aunt waving addio into the gaping cavern, held back by Antonio as if she might be drawn in.

 

What can be the compensations?  That we learn how precious life is?  How important the family can be?  The Santuario della Madonna del Campo at Cave was full and while all the support couldn’t keep Isabella alive, it will allow her to live on.

 

Do we treasure each sunrise more because we lose a loved one?  Do we live more intensely?  I would like to think so, but in this cold morning when I see the bright face of Isabella photographed in her garden a few years back, full of who-knows-what hopes, I cannot help but feel that Fate has a cruel hand, and that there is nothing waiting for us but a hole in the overcrowded earth.

 

The priest who officiated at the funeral service wore fine clothes, and waddled about, his old body full of archaic well-being.  He conducted the Mass as it were any other (which, to him, it was) taking his time, wiping the chalice, raising the wafer to catch the sun, with the practised air of an old pro’.  And he flicked his ‘holy’ water this way and that, and preached as if, almost as if, he meant it.  

 

The mother was not there; she stayed at home with the twins.  Thomas wasn’t there; he was with his cousin.  Gianfranco, Isabella’s husband, and Antonio, stood at the back of the church, the chills of the damp foundations affecting them more than the priest.  They were not impressed; they did not participate in the Mass.

 

A rich cousin, in his shearling, came and went, slightly impatiently, at the door.  A nun, and some children, sang a few responses obligingly.

 

The apse above the altar, by the way, had a curious fresco on it.  I was quite far from it, but it might have been from the mid twentieth century: workers in their realism, even though it may have portrayed a miracle.  Labourers toiled in the fields at the edges, but in the centre some bare-backed men were lifting a stone, and a little boy was pointing.  Angels flooded toward the scene and light poured down from heaven. Under the stone was a black patch, an inkblot, a stain.

 

What had these people discovered?  That ecstasy lies under a stone?  That there is no point in searching?  That if you believe then even an oil slick under a rock can become the truth?

 

Isabella is under that slab now, and there is nothing I nor anyone can do about it.  One day our times will come, faith or no faith; rites, liturgy, scripture, or not.

 

When we came out of the church, however, I have just remembered there was a bird singing; a robin, clearly whistling in the evening as the lowering sun glanced off the bare limestone hillside above the road where the cars whirred by oblivious.  The birdsong was beautiful, and, despite its territorial and warning usage, it was strikingly, movingly, right.  That’s the most religious thing I have heard all day, remarked Antonio.  

 

 

By coincidence, I recently acquired a record which includes a tribute to an Irish singer, Luke Kelly, who I met many years ago in Dublin.  He was someone I admired enormously; a strong, heavy, working-class Dubliner, and his death at 43, from a brain tumour, shocked me.  The tribute, written by Mick O’Keeffe but sung by Christy Moore, is very fine, and the last lines, which today I find most fitting (and which I like to apply to my loved ones) are:

Fond memories are all we have

When we think of you today

Your name we’ll always honour – (Luke)

We’re glad you passed this way.....

 

That was then.....

Watching the River Flow

 Flow, River, Flow.....

I am at The Bridge, watching the river flow....  

Simon Russell Beale, or Simon Beale as he was at Clifton College when I called the roll....  is also at The Bridge, construing Johann Sebastian Bach as a difficult father.  Photography is not allowed in the theatre, so this is an artist's impression of SRB as JSB.....

In October 2010 Mr Beale wrote, in his Foreword to Nicholas Kenyon's Pocket Guide to Bach, that the book tells the story of a man who from an ordinary family background, with a thorough but unexceptional education, a man who wrote dazzling music that summons up the sensual, everyday pleasures of the world around us, could then push himself to produce work that touches the face of God.....

Although it's an interesting play, with some effective moments and fine acting, in general it exudes a shortage of drama, and the paragraph above does more for me than the interactions of the actors on the stage, with - in my mind - the dumpy, argumentative maestro taking me back rather to Clifton in the mid-70s than Leipzig in 1750.  And I suspect Simon Russell Beale, despite his love for Bach, knows it's something of a Mess in B minor.....

Outside the theatre the river flows on under the bridge.....

It's good to be back in the city, even if only very briefly.  Life hasn't stopped, yet, though the streets are still relatively quiet.....

Tottenham Court Road

It's good to be out and about, moving freely through the arcades,

Burlington Arcade

The side streets,

Colville Place

And the parks, where the air is green and perfumed.....

Gordon Square

In Leicester Square, the Bard is having a wash and brush up,

And in Trafalgar Square the police seem relaxed,

One with no tie and bursting at the belt; the other neat with pink accessories

I drop in to The National Gallery to pay homage to my namesake kneeling in a cloth of gold in the Wilton Diptych:

I pause to admire a guitar solo in the San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece:

Wander down The Avenue at Middleharnis, one of my all time favourite places:

Meindert Hobbema

Then take a stroll in the beautiful Tuscan countryside: 

The Assumption of the Virgin: Francesco Botticini

Before pausing to look at life on the Grand Canal in Venice:

Canaletto

It's great to roam again, even if, when I turn to look at a mirror; I see an old man, puzzled by this streaming world, distressed by infirmity, unsure about the past, the present or the future....  Something like Johann Sebastian Bach toward the end of his life....

Rembrandt: Self Portrait at the age of 63

It's great to roam again, even if only in my mind's eye. So, back outside, I see a Virgin and Child.  Well, perhaps not exactly that, but the tenderness of mother's attention and the cool confidence of the child make me wonder at the ongoing flow of humanity and its resilience.

So, bach (sic) to the river, and that swirling coalescence of notes and molecules that rises and falls with the tide, but continues incessantly under the bridge.  Watch a bubble, or an eddy, and see it disappear.  Watch a leaf, or a discarded bottle top, watch it spin and dip and carry on, towards the sea and some form of watery death. Hear the embellishments, the cadenzas, the repetitions....

The river flows

It flows to the sea

Wherever that river goes

That's where I want to be

The Ballad of Easy Rider as sung by Roger McGuinn, but derived from a note on a paper napkin by Bob Dylan, follows the current, which perhaps began with Edmund Spenser in Prothalamion.... 

People dance in the evening, the river slipping away past us all, tugging at our lives, eroding the time we have left, while shining Godzillas reach for the clouds on the far bank.

T S Eliot took up the theme in part three of The Waste Land, The Fire Sermon:

By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept... Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,

Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.

Youth seems oblivious of the drift. Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme......

And, from another angle, the Shard rises to the heavens: Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde jubilieret....

I wonder.  I wander.  My head returns to another song about the river.  Ewan MacColl's Sweet Thames, Flow Softly.  Although it has nothing, really, to do with this piece, it is a beautiful song about London and the river, and never better performed than by Christy Moore with the damaged angel Sinéad O'Connor (Shuhada Sadaqat) harmonising shyly in the chorus.  Have a look and a listen:  https://youtu.be/Tgwtl-s0CNI

So then, into the fading night, join me by the riverside, while lights glisten on the surface and  Bob and Leon join in the ruffling waves:

But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though

No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow

And as long as it does I’ll just sit here

And watch the river flow

Watching the River  Flow

Bob Dylan, 1971

In Memoriam G L Webster 09/03/1948 - 12/04/2021

We are glad you passed this way.....

G L Webster, Trajan's Forum, 1981

Sometime last autumn, when we weren't quite locked down, I was in a London street, and my friend Lindsay Webster rang me. He asked how I was, so I burbled on about my aches and pains and how life was tough, etc, and then I asked how he was..... Not so good....  He had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.....

The train has left the station....

Last Monday morning, April 12th, he died. He was just 73.

Kirkby Hall

I met Linds in Sheffield, in the late sixties.  He was at University with my older brother, and he was one of a small group of friends sharing a fondness for beer and curries, amongst other things.  

Linds and my bro, Simon, in Howarth.  We had a running joke about the exchange of cash. No idea why....

Over the ensuing years we met regularly, though sometimes in a fog, here, and there.  At our home, where my younger brother fondly remembers his signature raincoat, and in Kettering and environs, where he lived and worked, as a teacher, firstly at Tresham College and latterly at Brook House College, Market Harborough.

We made many trips together, including an early morning drive over the Pennines from Sheffield to Lancaster, empowered by bacon butties and mugs of tea from all-night cafes; and a particularly frenetic visit to Paris in the early seventies, fuelled by absinthe and steak tartare.

During a visit to Palestrina, with another great friend, Antonio, in 1981.  Note the raincoat.....

In 1980 he attended my alma mater in Lancaster for a Master's degree, and I recall waking him there with the snap and fizz of a can of beer - we had a common interest in the intellectual qualities of alcohol - and then subsequently, in '81 he came to visit me in Italy, at Christmas time, where we explored the delights of Ancient Rome and then, with a rented car, the wines and spirits of Siena, where, after a bitterly cold evening in the Campo, he barricaded the hotel door against imaginary pursuers, only to find, in the morning, that the door opened outwards.

After that he was particularly anxious not to miss his flight home, so I accompanied him to Rome Ciampino airport, and he took off in the hope that a beautiful Polish girl would be waiting for him back home.  After taking a taxi from Luton airport, he found that he was indeed in luck, and not long after he and Anna married, to enjoy forty years of life together.

Ten years ago, Linds and I began a series of July excursions, fitting in a few days walking and a few nights beering between the end of term and either a holiday with Anna or one of his many journeys to the Far East or Asia Minor to recruit students for his college.  

Our first such adventure, in 2011, was to Lindisfarne, which I then commemorated in a blog piece which ended thus.....

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne’s name originates as the island of the people from Lindsey or Linnuis (OE Lindesege) which was the name of a small Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which lay between the Humber and the Wash, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.  The name Lindsey itself means the 'island of Lincoln' which derives from the fact that it was surrounded by water and was very wet land and had Lincoln towards its south-west corner.  A fitting name all round. (The picture shows old friend Lindsay thinking about St Aidan, and the dangers of water.)

The following year we stayed in Blakeney, Norfolk, and walked (some of) the Norfolk Coast Path.  It was not the first time we had visited here, as this next photo reveals - a youthful Linds near Wells-next-the-sea - so many years ago now that I don't recall the details, except that he had 'borrowed' a tiny cottage and it was only in the early hours that we discovered that the owners were not entirely aware of the arrangement.....

In 2013 we ventured to Suffolk; in 2014 to the Peak District, where our advancing years began to show ascending Jacob's Ladder, and even more on the subsequent trail down a very rocky gulley. 

 The year after that we stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon, took in Volpone (in a hospital bed) and wandered on the Malvern Hills, checking out Elgar's cottage and his last resting place. In 2016 it was the Cotswolds, where we followed in the feetsteps of Laurie Lee. 

2017 had us in Leeds and the Yorkshire Dales, on the trail of J B Priestley. In 2018 we stayed in the glory of Tracey Emin's Margate, breathing in the dust of T S Eliot, and then, in 2019 we were in Essex, savouring the salt at Great Maldon but also admiring John Constable's country.

The pandemic blew us off course in 2020 and that, sadly, is that, for now, though in addition to the July sorties there were also meetings in London, Manchester, Sheffield, and in the vicinity of his home town of Kettering. 

 

Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds

Much of all this was informed, subtly, by Lindsay's erudition.  He was well educated - a classmate had been David Hare - and his relationship with professor William Empson was not solely steeped in spilt drinks.  Indeed, on March 9th this year, Linds wrote to me (with reference to something I had written):  Before his annual poetry reading we used to take him out. Me, "Prof. Empson, can I get you another drink?". Him, "Another. You're politely reminding me it is my round."  Double gin and peps for all followed.  Later as he stumbles over the threshold of a Chinese restaurant he puts his hand on the head of a bemused Chinese child saying, "I wish I could tell you something but you know it all already".  Needless to say the reading was always entertaining if at times difficult to follow.  I gave a copy of his poems to someone inscribed with a note.  When she asked him to sign the book, "Someone has already signed it.  Are you sure you need me to do so?"  !  His shadow provides lasting shade.

Linds himself was very well read, though his interest in international affairs and politics was lightly worn.  We would walk and talk, and apart from his engaging relations of adventures in China, Nigeria or Kazakhstan, he would always be ready with a quotation or reference to literature stored accurately for appropriate use.

I should also record that Linds was a proper European. His father was an upstanding Englishman. His mother a resolute Irishwoman.  His wife a native of Poland.  

But behind that Linds was a true cosmopolitan. There were no boundaries. As a youth he had worked on a Kibbutz in Israel, and travelled in North Africa and the Middle East. In later years he went on numerous recruitment trips for his colleges to many countries, from Viet Nam to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, often extending his trips at his own expense to explore the culture and history of the region.  (And, quite recently, giving helpful advice to my daughter before she herself went to work in Azerbaijan....)

Sadly this is over now.  His store of knowledge and anecdotes of crazy hospitalities are archived.  

But all is not lost. 

While it is sadness crystallised to lose someone, especially if it is sooner than expected, we must know it will happen to all of us, and what remains is the love we had all along.  We remember the kindnesses, the laughter, and, in some cases.... the drinks.

I was going to see Linds again in London when lockdown eased.  Anna was planning to bring him to see us in Norfolk for some sea air and we would have met again.  We have to accept this cannot now happen, but instead we have to reflect on how much we enjoyed what was allowed to us all.

The process of dying is the difficult part. But, whatever faith one has, death itself shall have no dominion. What is done is done, and everlasting peace is the gift of the deceased.  

{I have tried here to paste in a video of some pictures taken on trips with Linds over the years.  It may well not work for all, if any, so apologies if not....}

I have been privileged to have had good friends. Between us we will suffer individual deaths, but we will forever share the laughter and twinkling memories of lives that have not entirely been wasted....

With apologies to both Luke Kelly and Michaél O'Caoimh, I quote a few lines from Luke, A Tribute, sung by Christy Moore.  I met Luke Kelly in Dublin when I was a very young thing, and heard him sing.  He left a deep impression on me, and when I heard this song, some time after he died (in 1984) I couldn't help but weep.  

The sentiment still applies to Luke, but transfers just as well to my dear friend, Lindsay:

I still can clearly hear your voice

Though your time with us is o'er

For memories are all we have

When we think of you today

Your name we'll always honour, (Linds),

We're glad you passed this way

Somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.  Pies, mushy peas, and pints of ale.....

Dublin 3

Dubliners

I was spellbound.  His head was tilted back like a sword swallower’s, and from his throat issued the sound of steel, a blade of pure sound, not sharp, perhaps, nor shiny, but fashioned and worn and used and honed and hefted and crafted and wielded and powerful and strong.  His hair, curls and frizzes of coppery coils, shook back down his neck, darker against the thin shine of the spotlight.

In the gutted Georgian building on Lower Mount Street, then “The Ould Triangle” folk club, Luke Kelly was cold fire. No one stirred.  His voice cut the dark, retelling ballads as if they were personal.  In the pauses I could hear my Sweet Afton burning, the crisp crackle of tobacco and paper like a bonfire.  “Oh, come all ye Tramps and Hawkers…..” “ Joe Hill”  and “On Raglan Road…..” [“And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day”] and songs I had never heard before, and have not heard since.  He had a great repertoire of folk song, partly following several years in the early sixties in Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham, and some time with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in London.  Many of the songs Luke sang dealt with social issues, and his passionate left-wing position was uncharacteristic of the time.

The club was celebrating its second birthday; it was Wednesday, August 16^th, 1967 and I was with friends because Jim Trayner, who I’d met in Kinsale, was playing there.  I was introduced to Luke in what might have been the kitchen.  It was late, and the pubs had closed, but pints were still flowing in the club.  He was charm itself, and in no hurry to turn away.  We talked of the Dubliners and their coming tour of the UK, and, with Gerry O’Grady, of Irish music, banjoes and song.  It was 3.30am when we got back to Deirdre’s house and Jim and I sat up until dawn, alight with the spirit of the occasion.

After a night in Phoenix Park, the jumper the colour of "buff coloured puke"

The trip to Kinsale had been accidental; when hitch hiking you accept lifts and advice ad hoc, and having taken the 7.00am ferry from Fishguard to Rosslare, I had exhausted any concrete plans, so when a kind driver recommended the Folk House in Kinsale, that’s where I ended up.  And from there I found myself in company and next thing was I was camping out in the vast ruins of Charles’ Fort, which once dominated the approach to Kinsale harbour. 

Jim Trayner was a housepainter by trade, but a singer and guitarist by inclination.  On the battlements over the sea he taught me to play Tom Paxton’s “Last thing on my mind,” one of the few songs I still know by heart.  Also there was Joanna O’Dwyer, a Dublin girl with skin like the collar on a pint of stout and hair the colour of butter.  Jo had been taught at school by Ronnie Drew, and told me, I think, that he had been an interpreter for David Lean on location for “Lawrence of Arabia” and had nearly caused a riot by insulting the Arabs.  This may be true, but it would be more likely that Ronnie was in Spain when David Lean shot “Dr Zhivago.”  Anyway, I was taken by her light smile and lively chatter and when we went separate ways I was drawn inexorably back to Dublin, as Bantry, Limerick, Cavan drizzled by in the grey.

I kept a (admittedly sketchy) diary of the trip, and what amazes me now is the ease with which we moved about the city, from Dun Laoghaire (where I stayed with Deirdre and her brother Paddy while their parents were away) to the centre, to the O’Dwyer’s house where mother was untrusting, suspecting me to be much older (insisting on Jo’s little brother being chaperon) to the National and Municipal Art Galleries, to St Stephen’s Green to hang out, to the Guinness Brewery at St James’ Gate, to one of the many Forte’s restaurants on O’Connell Street, to O'Donoghue's in Merrion Row, and so on, and so on.

And people were so friendly, so hospitable.  In my diary I wrote: “Mr and Mrs McMahon v nice people.”  They were indeed, as Paul had taken me back home one night, and his mother fed me and prepared my bed for the night; in the morning, after a full Irish breakfast, his father gave us a lift into town.

And the party we had at Deirdre’s was mad.  Paul turned up with a six pint kettle full of Guinness, and Jim came from a recording studio with a jacket full of miniature bottles of whiskey.  Guitars and songs provided the entertainment.  It was grand.

I saw Joanna once more after that.  By some chance, three years later, we both happened to be at the Spaniard in Old Kinsale.  She was travelling with a boyfriend and on her way, she thought, to the continent.  I was heading to Mayo and my cousins in Westport. So, like ships in the night?  Anyway, a few days later, totally against all plans, our paths crossed once more in the flurry of Grafton Street in Dublin. A chat, a drink, a flash of a smile.  And then nothing.  Less ships in the night; more the Lusitania and a torpedo.  She had had a murmur on her heart:  I wonder does it murmur yet?

The Quays, 1970/71, where Phil Lynott got the look

And I never saw Luke Kelly in person again.  The Dubliners toured the world, but Luke collapsed in 1980 with a brain tumour, which finally silenced him in 1984.  He was 44.  Since then the other original Dubliners have died; Ciarán Bourke in 1988, Ronnie Drew in 2008, and Barney MacKenna on April 5^th 2012.  There are still plenty of people in Dublin, but they are not all Dubliners as of yore.

Christy Moore recorded a tribute to Luke Kelly written by Michael O’Caoimh, which refers to the “power and passion” of his voice, soaring heavenly above.  It ends:

“For memories are all we have

When we think of you today

Your name we’ll always honour, Luke

We’re glad you passed this way.”

Amen to that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DCtYXQEYoc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19qdV2vgM-o&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz_dHcduUTU&feature=fvwrel