Thaindian News

Cork, Dec 6 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Singer Liam Clancy has died aged 74 years. Liam Clancy died at a hospital in Cork after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis, which is scarring of the lungs. This disease had claimed the life of his brother Bobby too in 2002. With his demise the Clancy Brothers is no more, as all its members have died.

William “Liam” Clancy was an Irish folk singer from Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He was the last surviving member of performing group The Clancy Brothers and with his untimely demise the group is no more now.

Liam started singing with his talented brothers at fund-raising events for the Cherry Lane Theatre and the Guthrie benefits. The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem began recording on Paddy Clancy’s Tradition label in the late 1950s.

Irish filmmaker Alan Gilsenan who had produced ‘The Yellow Bittern’, which is a biopic on the folk singer, said that the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were Ireland’s first pop stars. ‘Liam Clancy and his brothers and Tommy reclaimed a huge number of folk songs for Ireland and reinterpreted them in terms of their experience in America which is where they made their name, outselling the Beatles at one point,’ he said.

Ireland’s arts minister, Martin Cullen, paid tributes to Clancy in his native country, praising his “superb singing, warm voice and gift for communicating in a unique storytelling style. “It was always so obvious with Liam Clancy that he loved what he was doing and his very presence made you feel welcome.”