Now that is a real loss to us all. He was a lovely man, so wide awake to any song in earshot. He'd hear a snatch of something he hadn't heard before, and be off after it like a terrier.

I met him at the National a few years back, and at the Fleadh Ceoil in Clonmel a couple of times, and talked on the phone once or twice. But any time our paths crossed, it was as if we'd known each other all our lives.

"Are you still singing such and such a song?" he'd say - and given the number of songs and singers he must have had rattling around in his head, remembering that kind of thing is pretty amazing.

Seventy two? I'd never have put him anywhere near that. I thought there had a good many years of him to come, and chances to meet again.