Dónal Lunny has made his return to the stage, more than a year after he was struck down by serious illness. In a surprise performance in Cork on Sunday night, Lunny appeared with singer Andy Irvine in a five-bouzouki ensemble to mark a new film about Lunny’s life.
“It’s great to be here – and to quote Máirtín O’Connor, it’s great to be anywhere,” Lunny said, referring to button-accordionist O’Connor.
Lunny, a seminal figure in Irish music, was greeted with a standing ovation in the packed Christ Church auditorium at the Triskel arts centre. With him and Irvine were brothers Brian and Diarmuid Mac Gloinn of Ye Vagabonds, Evan Ó Cualáin and Fionn O’Hanlon.
“There’s nothing to say but how thrilled we are to find Dónal Lunny back on the stage with us after so long,” Irvine said, adding that they have been playing music together for three lifetimes. “I’m sure nobody has ever seen so many bouzoukis.”
Directed by Nuala O’Connor, In Time – Dónal Lunny explores his pioneering contribution, spanning six decades, to the revival of traditional and folk music. The Cork showing was part of the Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival.
Lunny was a founder member in 1972 of Planxty and, later, of The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts. Among the songs played on Sunday were the West Coast of Clare, the Bonny Light Horseman and You Rambling Boys of Pleasure, each popularised by Planxty.
Lunny had been scheduled to perform last year with The Bothy Band when he became ill, necessitating major surgery and a lengthy recuperation. He left hospital for one day late last year for the filming of an intimate song with Christy Moore, who was in the original Planxty line-up alongside Lunny, Irvine and the late Liam O’Flynn.
Moore, Irvine and fiddler Paddy Glackin are among many musicians featured in the film, which examines Lunny’s creative process in a “life lived entirely for art’s sake”. Also examined are Lunny’s relationships and the death in January 2022 of Shane O’Connor, his teenage son with the late Sinéad O’Connor.
Donal Lunny and Andy Irvine performing after the screening of In Time, at the Triskel for Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival. Photograph: Bríd O’Donovan 
Evan Ó Cualáin, Donal Lunny, Fionn O’Hanlon, Brían Mac Gloinn, Andy Irvine and Diarmuid Mac Ghloinn at the screening of In Time. Photograph: Bríd O’Donovan
The film’s backers include Adam Clayton of U2 and University College Dublin.
Interviewed by Clayton at the Triskel centre, Nuala O’Connor said the project was long in gestation before filming began: “I started with just talking to Donal, spending a lot of time before we ever shot anything just talking to him.”
Clayton said Lunny was an “amazingly humble” and “very modest man”, going on to describe how he changed the way “we look at ourselves and the way we look at our traditions” and music. “I felt I was with him and I felt all of us here were with him every step of the way.”