NORWICH – The Chenango County Council of the Arts, Norwich, is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in style this year with the next generation of the world famous Clancy family – The Clancy Legacy – on Saturday, March 10, at 7 p.m.
Robbie O’Connell and Aoife Clancy are the next generation of the Clancy Brothers clan. The first cousins got together for a workshop called “The Clancy Legacy” during the New York Irish Arts Week in 2006 and continue to do concerts together. They have recently been joined by George Keith on fiddle and Erik Wendelken on double bass. The first Clancy Legacy CD was released in March 2010.
O’Connell was born in Waterford, Ireland and grew up in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, where his parents had a small hotel. He began to play guitar and sing at age 13 and soon became a regular performer at the hotel’s weekly folk concerts. He spent a year touring the folk clubs in England before enrolling at University College Dublin where he studied Literature and Philosophy. During school vacations Robbie worked as an Irish entertainer in the U.S.A. A nephew of the Clancy Brothers, he began touring with his uncles in 1977 and recorded three albums with them. In 1979 he moved to Franklin, Massachusetts.
With the release, in 1982, of his first solo album, “Close to the Bone,” Robbie emerged as an artist of major stature. Soon after, he began touring extensively with Mick Moloney and Jimmy Keane, and also with Eileen Ivers and Seamus Egan in the Green Fields of America. In 1985, the trio’s first album, “There were Roses,” was released. His album of original compositions, Love of the Land, was voted the #1 acoustic album of 1989 by WUMB in Boston. In 1991, he won a prestigious Boston Music Award as Outstanding Celtic Act and was also featured in the highly acclaimed TV series “Bringing It All Back Home.”
“Never Learned to Dance,” his 1993 album of original songs, was critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1994 he headlined a celebration of Boston based Irish Music at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. “Older But No Wiser,” his last CD with the Clancy Brothers was released on Vanguard in 1995, followed in 1997 by the “Clancy, O’Connell & Clancy CD and in 1998 by “The Wild and Wasteful Ocean” CD with Liam and Dónal Clancy. “Robbie O’Connell, Live, Humorous Songs” and “All on a Christmas Morning” with the group Aengus, were released in 1998. “Recollections,” a twenty-year retrospective collection album was released in 2001. He is currently working on a new CD of original material.
Aoife Clancy (pronounced “Eefa”) brings a refreshing new voice to folk music, one that ranges from traditional Irish songs to ballads and contemporary folk. Aoife comes from the small town of Carrick-on-Suir, in Co Tipperary, Ireland, where her musical career began at an early age. Her father Bobby Clancy of the legendary Clancy Brothers, placed a guitar in her hands at age ten, and by age fourteen was playing with her father in nearby pubs.
