2009 has been a bloody awful year, hasn't it, for deaths of folkies ?

RIP, Liam - the world is a sadder, gloomier place today.

There was time, before I learned that there is such a thing as English folk song, when I would sing the Clancys' recorded canon. Not that I'm denigrating the latter, you understand.

Without the Clancys and Tommy Makem, it is conceivable that the likes of the Chieftains, Planxty, Boys of the Lough, etc. might have had a harder time.

The Clancys and Tommy Makem laid the foundations, as it were.

Please let this sad passing be the last one for 2009.