Perhaps its also worth mentioning Rosie Hardman's lovely song the man who sang Arthur Macbride - a homage to Andy and the rest of Planxty - I think it was on the Jerseyburger album.

Rosie's song raised the profile of this song and led to its pre-eminence. In the seventies Planxty had gone on to bigger things, most of them outside England, but Rosie was touring the folk clubs almost continuously.

On the album and in her set were two homage songs, louisiana about martin simpson and this other one about arthur macbride. Even those of us who had little time for Irish folk music (remember this was at the height of 'the troubles' with bombs going off regularly in English towns) we had this fantastic song brought to our attention by Rosie.

This was the before the folk revival had grown so moribund that it needed an acoustic revival. Rosie was one of the few folk artists whose name could fill any club

Lest we forget