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Members
1 Male
Origin
Dublin, Ireland
Genre
Folk
Style
Folk
Mood
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Born
1 MaleOrigin
Dublin, IrelandGenre
FolkStyle
FolkMood
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Born
1940
Active
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1984
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Most Loved Tracks4 users
Luke Kelly - Whiskey In The Jar4 users
Luke Kelly - Dirty Old Town4 users
Luke Kelly - Dirty Old Town4 users
Luke Kelly - Scorn Not His Simplicity4 users
Luke Kelly - Scorn Not His Simplicity
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Luke Kelly, (17 November 1940, Dublin, Ireland - 30 January 1984, Dublin, Ireland) was an Irish singer and folk musician, most famous as a member of the band The Dubliners.
Kelly was one of the best-known figures of the Irish folk music movement of the 1960s and 1970s. A Dubliner from the north inner city, he attended O’Connell’s Schools before emigrating to Britain in 1958. There he first became involved in the growing international folk music scene in which Ewan MacColl was a central figure, as well as joining the Communist Party of Great Britain.
In 1962 Luke Kelly returned to Dublin and quickly became a central figure in the city’s burgeoning folk music community, playing in sessions in O’Donoghue’s Pub on Merrion Row with the likes of Ronnie Drew, Barney McKenna and The Fureys. Not long after, he ended up forming a folk group with Drew, McKenna, Ciaran Bourke and John Sheahan, which he named The Dubliners. In 1965, Kelly married the actress Deirdre O’Connell, one of the founders of the Focus Theatre.
In the mid-1960s, Luke moved to England for a while. On returning, he rejoined the Dubliners. His interpretations of “Raglan Road” (a poem by Patrick Kavanagh) and Scorn Not His Simplicity were significant musical achievements and became points of reference in Irish folk music. Luke remained a politically engaged musician, and many of the songs he recorded dealt with social issues, the arms race and war, workers’ rights and Irish nationalism, (“The Springhill Disaster”, “Second World Song”, “When Margaret was Eleven”, “Joe Hill”, “The Button Pusher”, “Alabama 1958” and “God Save Ireland” all being good examples of his concerns).
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