{"id":663253,"date":"2026-10-23T17:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T17:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/663253\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T17:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T17:00:12","slug":"tributes-paid-to-musician-donal-lunny-after-his-death-aged-79-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/663253\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes paid to musician D\u00f3nal Lunny after his death aged 79 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tributes have been paid to musician D\u00f3nal Lunny<\/a>, who has died aged 79. He died on Friday morning in St James\u2019s Hospital of cancer. <\/p>\n

Friends and collaborators described Lunny as a \u201cgenius\u201d and saluted his \u201cimmense\u201d contribution to Irish music. He was one of the central figures in folk and traditional music for the past 60 years. <\/p>\n

He joined his first band with his older brother Frank and neighbour Christy Moore when they formed the Rakes of Kildare as teenagers. <\/p>\n

Moore, who was two years ahead of him in school, maintained a friendship and a professional collaboration with Lunny for decades afterwards. <\/p>\n

Last year Lunny received the lifetime achievement award at the RT\u00c9 Radio 1 Folk Awards. \u201cI\u2019ve known D\u00f3nal Lunny for 66 years,\u201d Moore said when presenting Lunny with the award. <\/p>\n

\u201cI met him first in 1959 in school, and what I remember most from those years were his lack of homework, that he was more interested in being out on the Liffey trying to tickle trout, or climbing trees to gaze into the wild birds\u2019 nests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Tullamore, Co Offaly, but brought up in Newbridge, Co Kildare, from the age of five, Lunny was the middle child of nine children. <\/p>\n

He was a multi-instrumentalist from the beginning, learning the harmonica at the age of six. He could drum and play the bodhr\u00e1n, and was capable of playing the guitar, bass, mandolin and keyboard, but it was the bouzouki for which he was most famous. He picked it up from sometime bandmate Andy Irvine and made it his own. <\/p>\n

\"Multi-instrumentalistMulti-instrumentalist Donal Lunny plays the bodhr\u00e1n. Photograph: Dave Peabody\/Redferns <\/p>\n

Lunny designed his own bouzouki, an instrument associated with Greek music, to fit in with his style. It was an instrument, he believed, much more suited to the Irish traditional genre than the guitar. \u201cThe chords were less dense. It was far easier to play chords. The bouzouki gave a much more open accompaniment to Irish music.\u201d <\/p>\n

He enrolled in the National College of Art & Design in 1965 and studied basic design and graphic design for three years, but he was always destined to be a full-time musician. <\/p>\n

His first success came with the teenage folk band Emmet Spiceland, which had an Irish number one with Mary from Dungloe. <\/p>\n

In 1970, Lunny formed a musical partnership with Andy Irvine that would prove to be a catalyst for many important folk acts that would dominate the scene for decades afterwards. <\/p>\n

They created their own club night downstairs at Slattery\u2019s pub in Capel Street, Dublin, which they called \u201cThe Mug\u2019s Gig\u201d. Two years later Lunny and Irvine joined up with Liam O\u2019Flynn and Moore to form Planxty. <\/p>\n

Two years later he left Planxty to join The Bothy Band, playing guitar and bouzouki. The Bothy Band quickly became one of the prominent bands performing Irish traditional music. <\/p>\n

\"PlanxtyPlanxty pictured in London in 1973. Left to right: Andy Irvine, Liam O’Flynn, Donal Lunny and Christy Moore. Photograph: Michael Putland\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The third Irish traditional \u201csupergroup\u201d that Lunny was involved in was Moving Hearts where he again joined Moore and added the piper Davy Spillane. Moving Hearts combined rock beats with Irish traditional music and had a significant impact in the early 1980s. <\/p>\n

After Moving Hearts split up in 1985, Lunny became a successful producer on his own record label, Mulligan Records. He was the producer and music director of the soundtrack of the five-part 1990 BBC documentary Bringing It All Back Home charting the influence of Irish music throughout the world. <\/p>\n

He produced albums for Paul Brady, Elvis Costello, Indigo Girls, Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor among others. He also played with Kate Bush and Mark Knopfler. <\/p>\n

Lunny\u2019s first marriage was to Judy Slott, with whom he had a son, Ois\u00edn, who is a musician. Cora Venus Lunny, also a musician, is his daughter with German photographer Julie Buthe.<\/p>\n

He later married Japanese musician Itami Hideko and they had a daughter, Sora. He also had a son with the late singer Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor. Shane O\u2019Connor died in 2022.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn image of Lunny from the 2024 documentary In Time <\/p>\n

His good friend, the broadcaster Philip King, described Lunny\u2019s contribution to Irish music as \u201cimmense\u201d not just as a musician, but also as a producer. \u201cThere\u2019s nobody compared to him from the beginning. His musical world was very wide. You look across the list of Irish musicians he has produced, his influence his huge. You hear it today in Amble and Kingfishr and many others. We would sonically and rhythmically not be in this place with Irish music without him.\u201d <\/p>\n

He was the \u201cQuincy Jones of Irish producers\u201d, King added. <\/p>\n

King\u2019s wife Nuala O\u2019Connor was the maker of the RT\u00c9 documentary entitled On Time: D\u00f3nal Lunny which was released last year. She also made Bringing It All Back Home. <\/p>\n

Filming for the documentary began in 2024 and Lunny suffered his first bout of serious illness during the making of it. \u201cWe got there in the nick of time,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She described him as a \u201cgenius\u201d and a \u201ctotally naturally gifted musician\u201d who had no ego and lived for playing music. <\/p>\n

\"Photographer:Photographer: Dara Mac D\u00f3naill <\/p>\n

In January Lunny, during an appearance on the Late Late Show, he became the first inductee into the Trad Music Hall of Fame. <\/p>\n

The Irish Traditional Music Archive paid tribute to Lunny in an extensive statement listing some of his contributions to the genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis musical life was founded on creativity, friendship and collaboration,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis work with the likes of Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, Liam O\u2019Flynn, Paddy Glackin, Matt Molloy, Maighr\u00e9ad and Tr\u00edona N\u00ed Dhomhnaill, Frank Harte and so many others places him at the heart of some of the most important developments in Irish music of the modern era. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis election to Aosd\u00e1na reflected the wider significance of that contribution to Irish artistic life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin described Lunny as a \u201ccolossus of Irish music, as a performer, songwriter and producer\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniquely gifted, D\u00f3nal carried traditional and folk music to new audiences through Planxty and his many other endeavours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in president Mary Lou McDonald posted on X: \u201cD\u00f3nal helped shape the sound of Irish music for generations, bringing our rich musical heritage to audiences at home and around the world. His contribution to Irish music and culture will never be forgotten.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Waterboys singer Mike Scott described Lunny as the \u201cgreatest of all time. What a wonderful musician and person.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tributes have been paid to musician D\u00f3nal Lunny, who has died aged 79. He died on Friday morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12486,20528,42,43,16147,18097,263747,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-663253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christy-moore","tag-donal-lunny","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-planxty","tag-sinead-oconnor","tag-the-bothy-band","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}