We recently shared the news that Armagh flute & whistle player Brian Finnegan is to release his new solo album ‘Hunger of the Skin’ on 12 March. The album has already made an impression with the first single ‘Flow, In The Year Of Wu Wei’ nominated in the Best Original Track category at the RTE Radio 1 Folk Awards in November 2020.
Today, we have the pleasure of premiering the video for the second album single Two Trees/Tony. Alan Doherty of Aldoc Productions who made this film has done a grand job. The video is very much a short documentary, a tribute to a great man which Brian talks about in more detail below. It opens to him getting the coal for his home fire to the gorgeous backdrop of mandolin and bass, as the film changes to colour Finnegan’s flute, likewise, introduces more warmth to the tune. Much like Tony, there are two sides and the tune takes flight partway through with a real spark…much like Tony’s road bowling –Ból an bhóthair -…up! There’s more to this fella than meets the eye, what a beautiful tribute, it’s an honour to share this on Folk Radio, it’s also our tune of the day.
Brian on Two Trees / Tony
I live next door to a remarkable man. I see him pass my window several times a day with his faithful hound, returning sometimes with firewood but mostly with other peoples plastic, tin and glass. He goes about the process of cleaning and recycling along the main road as a monk in a temple would tend a zen garden. He has been fiercely independent all his life. He is wise and has stories that are like lotus flowers opening into lives that were lived simply, less hurried, from the time my great grandfather forged out of the house I now live in. He is shamanic in his knowledge of land and people and lore. He threw ‘bullets’ or ‘road bowls’ through the townlands between Armagh and Tullysaran and is still a great champion of this ancient Irish sport.
Last March, 2020, the steady flow of visitors dried up overnight. He is the last of his kind, the world he knew is gone, my children will not know another like him. He is 90 years old today. This is for Tony Donnolly.
Special thanks to the brilliant Alan Doherty @Aldoc Productions who made this film. And to Seán Óg Graham who recorded and mixed Hunger of the Skin And to Bol Chumann Ard Mhacha.
To buy the new album visit: www.brianfinneganmusic.com