This is the review of Frank Harte's CD The Hungry Voice that I wrote for Irish Music magazine in July, 2004. It appeared shortly afterwards.

FRANK HARTE with DONAL LUNNY

The Hungry Voice: The Song Legacy of Ireland's Great Hunger

Hummingbird Records HDCD0034

17 tracks, 79 minutes

Like their earlier recordings about the 1798 Rebellion and the Napoleonic era, The Hungry Voice looks at a defining period in Irish history, the Great Famine and its effect on the Irish People over the next 150 years. Researcher/singer/writer Frank Harte and producer/accompanist Donal Lunny are a prestigious team. Harte, the dean of Dublin singers for decades, and Lunny, a founder of supergroups such as Planxty and The Bothy Band, were among the first performers to be acknowledged during the revival in Irish traditional music which is now more than 30 years old. The Hungry Voice, dealing with an immense and difficult topic that has not been thoroughly examined through song in one place before, is without doubt one of the most important recordings of 2004.   

Few songs are composed in the midst of misery so this is, as it says, a 'song legacy' that incorporates pieces composed well afterwards including Luka Bloom's recent 'City of Chicago'. Frank Harte sings very well on all 17 songs, 7 of which are lightly accompanied by Donal Lunny including 'Sailing Off to Yankee Land' and 'Rigged Out', which will be new to most. More widely known songs such as 'Skibbereen', 'Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore' and 'Thousands Are Sailing to America' appear in full versions and are given fine treatment. 'The Green Fields of America' lauds immigrant life in Canada while 'Edward Connors' decries it. 'No Irish Need Apply' addresses prejudice against Irish Catholics in the United States and 'By the Hush' tells how some immigrant Irish who responded to the Union's call for recruits during the American Civil War were tragically let down afterwards. 'Erin's Lovely Home', 'Poor Pat Must Emigrate', 'The Shamrock Shore', 'Lone Shanakyle', 'Lough Sheelin Side', 'My Own Dear Galway Bay' and one of my favourites, 'Pat Maguire', a Molly Maguire anti-eviction song, complete the selections. Listening to the recording is improved by reading Frank's recollections of the singers who gave him many of the songs.

Equal partner to the music is a 50-page booklet, which distils Harte's years of research on the Famine and emigration and places the songs in human, socio-political, economic, historical and cultural contexts. The Great Famine was a complex event and this document explains it extraordinarily well. It is a sharp and artful picture of how Ireland's population decreased by 1.5 to 2 million people within a seven-year span and the profound and continuing effect that loss has on the Irish at home and throughout the Diaspora. Certainly, Irishmen had left their homeland en masse before. The British military and the penal transports had already taken untold multitudes away and America had already enticed great numbers of the worldlier minority. But the death by starvation, disease and exposure, and the forced emigration of hundreds of thousands during the mid-19th century was simply stunning. It was a devastating time as well for those who lived on in Ireland. Why did they survive and how?                  

Very highly recommended. This is a recording you are likely to share with a student or to learn a song from because The Hungry Voice will be a resource for students and singers for years to come.

Dan Milner