Episode 27 – The Irish Persons
SnapSessions! presents Episode 27, a special episode, where SnapSessions shares a recent discovery, a vanished piece of folk music history, a newly unearthed documentary featuring folk music historian, Cairn Krust and his late 1980s uncovering of a lost Irish traditional and very political band—The Irish Persons. In our holiday episode #27 we share with you this newly re-found treasure–“Hey—The Irish Persons, the Disappearance of a Storied Folk Group”. In this podcast we join Cairn Krust on his journey through folk music history.
The Irish Persons were an offshoot of Hit & Run Theater in the 1980s. Here is a piece of PR from the late 1980s advertising their album–’Hey, the Irish Persons!”–
“Here for the first time on tape are the protest songs and boisterous ballads of the Irish Persons—”the rowdy, rollicking, non-sexist, non-racist, Gaellic, revolutionary folk-humor group (try filing that in your record collection)”. Born as protest singers in the first “Ban the Bomb” marches of the 1950s, they sang around the world with the likes of Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, Woody Guthrie, and Ozzie Nelson (5 times they guest starred on “Ozzie & Harriet”). In the 1960s they protested everywhere against anything and everything even remotely protestable; sharing stages with Pete Seger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and—in one helluva night on the Isle of Wight—Led Zeppelin and Iron Butterfly.”
The Irish Persons were made up of Tommy Nukem (Harry Rothman), Sinead O’Grady (Kathy O’Grady), Riona O’Shaughnessy (Ellen Callas), Oonagh McGee (Tracy Burns), Iris McGonigal (Christine Samas), Fergal O’Weinie (Steve Weingarten), Seamus Mahoo (Doug Nunn), Saoirse O’Glickfeld (Sandy Glickfeld), mandolin player Ronan Mahoney (John Chamberlin), guitar player, Argyll “Liam” MacNooky (Lawrence Bullock), tin whistler, Mickey O’Zekley (Mickey Zekley), and keyboardist, Joshua O’Brody (Joshua Brody). Cairn Krust is played by SnapSessions! own Ken Krauss. The original album was engineered in 1986 by Marco MacLean. “Goodbye Mr. Waldheim” was engineered in 2020 by Joshua O’ Brody.
Episode 27 is 46 minutes long. In addition to the documentary, narrated by folk music forensic researcher, Cairn Krust (starts 1:58), Episode 27 includes all 8 songs from the Irish Persons album, “Hey, The Irish Persons” (starts 21:18) and a full listing of all those associated with the band over time.
Additional PR for this episode can be read here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gz6XxmxqNrFmntyGWjUXdg-vVJ1YKmm7/view?usp=sharing
SnapSessions! includes original music by Marshall Brown, production by Marshall Brown and Ken Krauss, voiceovers by Ken Krauss and Doug Nunn, and articles and interviews by Doug Nunn. Our SnapSessions! artist and logo maker is caricaturist, Daniel Stieglitz.
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One Response
[…] John’s contribution as a Mandolin player on Hit & Run’s “The Irish Persons” is lovingly appreciated in a SnapSessions’ episode from December 2020– https://www.thesnapsessions.com/episode-27-the-irish-persons/ […]