Dónal Lunny, the bouzouki man who rewired Irish music, died Friday morning in Dublin’s St James’s Hospital after a battle with cancer. He was 79.

Raised in Newbridge, Lunny co-founded Planxty with Christy Moore, Andy Irvine and Liam O’Flynn, then drove The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts, who bolted rock beats onto trad in the early ’80s. He picked up a bouzouki Irvine brought home from his travels, said “something happened to me”, and Irish music never sounded the same.

Behind the desk he produced Paul Brady, Elvis Costello and Sinéad O’Connor, and his Mulligan label put out records by The Radiators and the Boomtown Rats. U2’s Adam Clayton nailed it last year: Planxty and The Bothy Band were “punk rock with traditional instruments.”

Without him, half the bands on this site wouldn’t exist. Rest easy, Dónal.

Photo: Maybesometime, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Home