Niteworks: going out with a bang
The Siobhan Miller Band: mixing and matching the folk tradition

The tragic death of Johnny Duhan, Irish singer-songwriter and 'gentle soul'

Jan 2025 update : this article is getting lots of visits from Ireland. You’re all hugely welcome but feedback would be appreciated in comments below. Also a clue to what brought you here ! I believe an RTE programme has something to do with it but why would viewers then come here

 


Johnny Duhan, an accomplished and charismatic
Irish singer-songwriter whose music and personality have made a profound impact on many, has died while taking a regular swim in the Atlantic off the coast of Galway. He was 74.

Duhan, whose musical career began as lead singer of Granny's Intentions, a rock band formed with school friends that enjoyed some success in Ireland, became even better known, certainly internationally, as the composer of The Voyage.

This gorgeous love song appeared as the title track of a Christy Moore album from 1989. Moore (whose own tribute I have just added as a footnote*), would later say the song - using seafaring metaphors to describe marriage and family - had been played at more than a million weddings.

 

Johnny_Duhan
Johnny Duhan in 2006: CDTi

I know for a fact of one couple whose big day was enriched by a recording on a cassette made by him at home at my request. That story, not one without sadness, is told at this link.

With no maps to guide us we steered our own courseRode out the storms when the winds were gale forceSat out the doldrums in patience and hopeWorking together we learned how to cope

"It is a genuinely lovely song," said Niall Stokes, editor of the Irish magazine Hot Press (and I trust he will not mind me reproducing his heartfelt words).

"It captures the sense that people who love one another and stay together for the long haul very often feel: that the journey of life is something they are lucky enough to be able to share with a partner, a lover, a friend, and the children that join the crew along the way.

“Anyone who has written a song like that has contributed in a significant way to the sum of human happiness."

Duhan was, of course, more than a man of one song. Stokes recalled being "blown away" so many years earlier when he saw Granny's Intentions in a Dublin club and immediately noticed the talent; "he was an electric presence out front".

Later, Duhan would play folk-rock drawing on influences including Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and The Band.

Superb as is Christy Moore's singing of The Voyage, I think it appropriate to offer Duhan's own version:

 

 

The Irish Timesreports that the alarm was raised when Duhan failed to return from his swim at Silverstrand, near his Barra home. A woman in her 30s was also reported missing after also swimming off the same beach. Gardai said at first that these appeared to be two separate incidents. Later, the possibility was raised that Duhan died a hero, having seen the woman was in difficulties and drowned while attempting to rescue her (NB: I have seen no further reports that would support this theory - Editor).

Like many in the area, both were regular swimmers there,  though they were not thought to be known to each other.

Perhaps fittingly, Duran had a large family of his own. He leaves a wife Maureen, five children and 10 grandchildren.

At the Facebook group UK and Irish Folk and Acoustic Music 60s-80s, to which he was a regular contributor, he is remembered with much fondness, especially by those who knew him personally. A "beautiful person", wrote Natalie Haccius, a "gentle soul" said two others.

Simon Harris, the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister), posted on social media on Tuesday about "terribly sad news tonight from Galway” and described Duhan as a "renowned and much loved songwriter".

Duhan was prolific. Another of his songs was written for his son, Ronan, after he survived a road accident and is performed, after a moving spoken introduction, in the clip that follows.

 

Salut! Live wishes family and friends its sincere condolences. The Irish Times report says Duhan drowned. If that, and not a malaise, is confirmed as cause of death, it is yet another demonstration of the power of the sea. RIP Johnny Duhan.

  • Christy Moore has posted this at his own site:

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