DANIEL O'Donnell was allegedly present in the audience, and so, too, was May O'Higgins, the writer of Beautiful Bundoran, Ireland's preemptor of that other touristophile anthem, Viva Espana. Certainly, two of The Clancys the elder Paddy and Liam were on stage. Also playing were singer/guitarist Robbie O'Connell, nephew of the two lads, and another offspring, Finbar, son of Bobby, on five string banjo and flute. These explanations helped ease the nagging notion that this concert had as many reasons to be titled a hello event as a farewell one.

Paddy Clancy led the show in that careful, hands akimbo, word economical Irish American way. From the chorus of their first piece, "and the land lubbers lying down below, below, below", already in the idea of farewell, we were missing Tommy Makem's whooping drive force. Bitt settling into Liam's Ar Eirinn Ni Neosfainn Ce Hi with Paddy on harmonica, then the power of Roddy McCorley, an era ambience was conjured up. The Bob Dylan rewrite of their Brennan on the Moor was a signpost to these men's impact within the music cauldron of the 1960s. The Galway Races and The Irish Rover, Finnegan's Wake and Holy Ground brought them together in a moving strength and, in a quieter, sensitive Jug of Punch, Paddy hit an old fine form.

It was in sentimentality though in Liam's wonderful Band Played Waltzing Matilda and Robbie's terrific Kilkelly that they set standards, with the stray cell phone ringing in the audience to remind us that ballad style has hugely changed. In some moments they got it, in some they didn't, but their great laugh at life epitaph could stand up anywhere "Let's not have a sniffle/let's have a bloody good cry/and always remember the longer you live the sooner you're going to die.