Multi-instrumentalist Paul Furey of The Furey Brothers, one of Ireland's most successful folk groups, has died of complications resulting from an operation for cancer of the bladder. He died on Sunday after several days in a coma at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin.
Born on May 6th, 1948, in Ballyfermot, Dublin, Paul's introduction to music came from his father, Ted Furey, an internationally acclaimed fiddle-player and avid collector of folk songs, whose body of work has been carried on by The Furey Brothers.
Paul Furey began his career in the early 1970s as a member of folk group The Buskers, alongside musicians Brendan Gleeson, his brother George Furey and Scottish singer/multi-instrumentalist Davey Arthur.
While touring in Germany, the group was involved in a car accident, necessitating the return from America of brothers Finbar and Eddie Furey to tend to their brother. On Paul's subsequent recovery, the group Tam Linn was founded, which was eventually renamed The Fureys & Davey Arthur. It was this incarnation of the folk group that became the most commercially successful, with a UK Top 20 hit single, When You Were Sweet Sixteen, in 1981.
In 1984, their album Golden Days sold more than 250,000 copies, making them the most commercially successful popular folk act of their day.
"Paul was known in The Fureys by his nickname of The Spoofer," Joe McCadden, his manager of 14 years, told The Irish Times. "He was a laugh-a-minute kind of man, always up for the one-liners. Every night he'd go on stage, he'd always have a different story to tell."
While The Fureys (as they became known when Davey Arthur left in 1993) produced a middle-of-the-road folk musical path which purists argued diluted "real" folk music, their supporters say the group broadened and strengthened the appeal for the genre worldwide - a point proved by the band's continuing popularity in places such as England, Germany and Australia.
Furey is survived by his wife Catherine and three children, Michael (21), Eddie (20) and Vincent (16). The removal will be at 5 p.m. today to The Priory, Tallaght village, with Requiem Mass tomorrow at 11 a.m.