Earlier RTE announced Dolores Keane ‘died peacefully in her sleep’ at the age of 72.
I don’t exactly remember where I heard her singing first, probably her singing ‘The Green Linnet’ the Chieftains’ Bonaparte Retreat or the first De Dannan recording.
Her singing was very much part of, if you like, my formative years in this music and to this day I hold all of it very dear. Young Dolores was such a beautiful singer. Her Claddagh lp, There was a maid, and the first she recorded around the same time with John Faulkner, Brokenhearted I’ll wander, were on constant rotation from the mid seventies into the eighties. I wasn’t necessarily taken with every direction she ventured into later but that early stuff remains close to my heart. Perhaps I never realised just how much until a few years ago I was in the presence of John Faulkner who sang the Bonny Light Horseman.
I saw her sing a good few times during the seventies, with the early De Dannan, with Reel Union and with John Faulkner.
RTE news : Obituary: ‘The queen of the soul of Ireland’
I insert one of those early ones here, Johnny, lovely Johnny
And there was this, still gives me goosebumps, that one.