Song of the Day: De Dannan's Diglake Fields combines Black gold and Keane magic
January 10, 2025
Colin Randall writes: there was a time when De Dannan were never far from whatever I used to listen to music.
Frankie Gavin’s band moved - effortlessly for fans, whatever tensions or career choices may have been at play - through various personnel changes without ever offering less than enthralling sounds. Irish songs and tunes, British and American pop performed as if Irish, slices of classical music … it was all there.
For some years, certainly before the unfortunate falling out between Gavin and the late bouzouki wizard Alec Finn, this was not just Irish music at its best. To many of us, it was music at its best.
The value of a strong female singer was not lost on Gavin. In perhaps their finest incarnation, the band had two: Mary Black and Dolores Keane, a mighty combination of voices. And between them, Black and Keane and the band produced this jewel: Diglake Fields.
De Dannan at the 1985 Trowbridge Folk Festival. L-R: Frankie Gavin; Martin O'Connor; Alec Finn; Mary Black and Dolores Keane. Image: Tony 1212
I was reminded of the strength of this song, and the beauty of its interpretation, by John Egan, a member of the Salut! Live Facebook group, when he posted a clip at the UK and Irish 60s-80s Folk and Acoustic group to which we both belong and are even listed as "top contributors".
It’s a fine piece of writing, juxtaposing the a countrywoman’s carefree horse-riding life of privilege with a mining disaster happening nearby in Norrh Staffordshire. At least the second part of it was real: 77 men and boys - the. numbers are sometimes disputed - perished when water rushed into the Audley Colliery, where mining had begun next to the disused Diglake pit. Our countrywoman or her family own the coal the miners died digging.
De Danann’s version is truly outstanding. Black sings of the woman and her craving for the milk-like fur of a hare "to trim her dancing gown" while Dolores Keane takes the alternative verses telling of death underground. The initial arrangement is jaunty and melodic, the brass sequence so evocative of pit communities reminds us of bleak reality. Did a colliery band contribute to the recording? I have searched online without success for answer and cannot immediately locate my copy of the De Dannan album Anthem on which the song appeared.
Note: the band still called itself De Danann when this album appeared
The song's composers, Phil and Sue Colclough, were natives of North Staffs so drew on local knowledge - and their outstanding songwriting skills - for the lyrics. They were significant figures in the folk revival, helping to create the first folk club in Stoke on Trent, joining Ewan MacColl’s Critics Group and presenteing a folk programme for BBC Radio Stoke.
Their most famous composition was the much-covered Song for Ireland, which would score high votes if Ireland ever held a referendum on replacing the national anthem, The Soldier’s Song. Only The Fields of Athenry or Grace would stand in its way.
The past tense, sadly, is necessary because the Colcloughs are now deceased. Sue was only 63 when she died in 2004; her husband survived her by 15 years and passed away ages 79.
This, among other examples of their work, is a thing a rare beauty. And I am delighted to read that Gavin, whose oesophageal cancer led to a crowdfunding appeal for healthcare costs (to which Salut! Live modestly contributed), is apparently well and performing again.
* Another album I cannot readily put my hands on - I divide my life between the UK and France so have loads of CDs and vinyl in eqxh country - is the Colcloughs’ own album.
Back in 1994 interviewed it less than enthusiastically for The Daily Telegraph, essentially saying then singing did not match the high quality of the songs. That was 31 years ago; I’ve been heard to change my mind and would like to hear the album again.
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