The Mountain of the Women: Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour

by Liam Clancy

Book Overview

In an irresistible tale of a life lived fully, if not always wisely, Liam Clancy, of the legendary Irish group the Clancy Brothers, describes his eventful journey from a small town in Ireland in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385502044
• ISBN13: 9780385502047
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

There's no raconteur like an Irish raconteur...

Life experience, not so much reconstructed as double-distilled, is recaptured in the telling of Liam Clancy's thrilling and insightful memoir. Here's his hometown, Carrick-on-Suir, an almost mythically Irish hometown in the backwaters of the Emerald Isle. Where careeneth a procession of townsfolk both dotty and dour: Here's the town publican. There goes a creepy-looking cluster of nuns. Hark the churchbell, tolling out the Angelus, and oh, have a heartbreaking serving of tragedy along with your tea. Most important of all, observe the morally upright Mammy Clancy in action, pinning her hopes on her eleventh child: surely this shy impressionable son is a priest in the making. The author's eye fondly revisits family life in loving but not uncritical retrospect, the idealized Irish family, thrown headlong into life's tough struggles.An idyllic setting, interrupted one day by the arrival of one world-weary American heiress with a hidden agenda. She's determined to travel the world collecting folk music with the young Liam as her assistant. But can it be, she wants to snag him and possess him as her own--much as Dido, the evil queen of Homeric legend, attempted to do to Ulysses? And if so, could you blame her? This kid's a natural: a real Irish choirboy with an old-world brogue and a penchant for reciting poetry. He obviously needs seducing.Ah, Liam, me boy, you're in for a bumpy ride... or rather, a picaresque romp from the footlights of backstage Dublin to the hollers of Appalachia, on to Cambridge, Mass., and New York's zany, East Village arts "scene," where you'll meet everybody who's anybody. And, every once in a while, right back home to Carrick again, trailing clouds of cultural alienation. And great green gobs of maternal disapprobation.There are enough imbedded elements of Tom Jones that one could easily conclude this has just got to be fiction. So it's well the author pinches us awake, as social injustice, poverty, narrow-mind religious judgementalism, moral hypocrisy and intellectual vapidity present themselves. Not that any of that stops our hero.As he describes becoming a force to be reckoned with-first on the stage, and then in popular music-Liam Clancy is forthright about a few gaffs and stumbles. The hardest to swallow-given the idealization of family that serves as oxygen during his early life-is brief, bitter mention of a daughter, the product of an early relationship, whom he largely declined to be a father to. An included photograph of the author, posed beside this beautiful child, is simply disturbing. As the memoir ends, The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem are just about to reach the inexplicable pinnacle of fame as accidental musicians. A bit unsettled by the nutty East Village scene, our boys momentarily return to the village of their roots-where the local townfolk haven't changed a bit-they are, as ever, totally insane. Back they go to New York.The reader senses the chronicle ahead. . . Fame is fleeting, the singing group will

Beautifully written and wonderfully spoken

I just finished listening to the audio version of "The Mountain of the Women". It is beautifully written and the music of Liam's voice and the feeling that he brings to recounting his memories of personal, cultural and professional devlopment provides a spell-binding experience. I have been a devotee of Liam's music for many years. I was often at The White Horse back in the 60's when Liam, his brothers and Tommy Maken would hold forth with song and story. This work opens up an entirely new understanding of his background, his upbringing and the forces that shaped his life and career. It is a treat to experience an Irishman's moving memoir that depicts a life that was not founded on drink and poverty, but on culture, beauty and a passion for his profession.

Interesting and Enjoyable

Anyone who has ever heard the recording of "Peter Kagen and The Wind" which Mr. Clancy recorded with Tommy Makem, or heard Mr. Clancy present the poem "Pegasus" knows his unusual ability to involve the listener in the story of a song, or in poetry written by others. For many performers that would be enough. With this book Mr. Clancy proves his abilities extend beyond that. His special way of presenting the series of stories incorporated in this book makes reading a different experience - one has only to open one's thinking, and allow the gentle energy of the unfolding stories to keep the course as he leads the reader through Ireland of the 30's, 40's and 50's. The style makes for easy reading - almost as though someone were there reading it to you. He incorporates much Irish history in some of these stories, yet there is nothing dry about history with this style of presentation. A story from his childhood or youth is being told, then, to establish for the reader a larger grasp of understanding, he slightly opens for the reader a door to a more distant past - perhaps a few hundred years. Stories of experiences. Stories of family. Stories of friends. Then come the adventures in the United States. At rare times exposed to wealth extreme. At other times exposure to the other extreme of the financial spectrum. There are stories of the 60's Greenwich Village. The characters who became friends. Friends, many of whom later came to be regarded as icons of the time. We are led through striving of work to provide sustenance; the fun of the singing get-togethers; the evolving of what would become, with his brothers Paddy and Tom, and Tommy Makem, a group well known in many parts of the world. This is a book written in a style simple enough to include the depth presented. It is the autobiography of the early years of a man. It is the work of a poet. It is the first book in a long time I have felt I wanted to buy as gifts for friends to assure they have the opportunity to experience what it offers. It is a book for those curious about the 60's Greenwich Village scene. It is a book for those interested in Irish history. It is a book for those interested in music. It is a book for "Folkies." It is a book for those interested in human nature and interaction. It is a book about a boy developing, finding out who he is on his way to becoming a man. It is a wonderful trip Mr. Clancy has allowed us to share.

An amazing story told with painful yet refreshing honesty.

Devotees of the Clancy Brothers music may be in for a bit of a disappointment if they are expecting a neat and tidy, A to Z chronology of Liam's life. For this account is not a "poor Irish kid rises to the top" story, but rather an amazingly descriptiveaccount of Liam's nervous childhood, his less than devoted parenting and the countless faces who influenced him as he struggled in a foreign land.As one breezes through the easy to follow passages, it becomes clear the author has set out not to impress the reader, although that wouldn't be hard for Clancy to do, but rather to give and gain perspective about life, love and the music which we all love.I highly recommend this book to anyone......

Liam Clancy Autobiography

The most enjoyable Book on CD'S I have ever read.Liam makes it come alive to the extent that you would think he was at the fireside reading it to you. His descriptions of events are full of colour and shadings that make it really interesting.I can unreservedly recommend this CD collection to anyone. I'm just on the last of the five cd's now and I'm sorry in many ways that I'm almost finished it - I just wish there was more. Still I'll read the whole book next although I doubt if it will be as good as listening to the author reading it.