THE LAST OF the original Dubliners, Barney McKenna, packed a venue for one last time yesterday, as many hundreds of family members, friends and fans squeezed into St Patrick’s Church in Trim, Co Meath, yesterday for his funeral Mass.
The congregation, which was led by his sister Marie, brother Seán Óg and his partner, Tina Hove, included President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina; the Taoiseach’s aide de camp, Comdt Michael Treacy; Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams; economist Colm McCarthy, former Siptu general secretary Des Geraghty; and mourners who had travelled from Norway, Holland, France and elsewhere across Europe.
They crammed into pews and thronged the aisles and vestibule as the hearse arrived bearing the dark oak coffin draped in a green flag borrowed from the Republican Movement.
Laid alongside the coffin was a laurel wreath from Sinn Féin, as well as floral tributes from sympathisers as disparate as U2, Johnny Logan “and Mick”, and Sinn Féin councillors Larry O’Toole and Mícheál Mac Donncha, whose offering bore an Easter lily sticker.
His old friend John Sheahan, with a host of musicians, including Seán Óg, Gerry O’Connor, Eamon Campbell, Pádraig Drew and Phil Coulter, played him into the church with the signature set of reels – Fermoy Lassies and Sporting Paddy – that kicked off Dubliners concerts across the world for five decades. Noel O’Grady and Seán Cannon sang a capella at the Communion, and old songs such as Fiddler’s Green and I Wish I Had Someone to Love Me, beloved of McKenna fans, were performed here as haunting instrumentals, with a tender, muted choral accompaniment from the congregation.
Items on the “memory table”, created by family members, representing the life and passions of the man known as “Banjo Barney from Donnycarney”, were described by Fr Mark Mohan. They included a banjo and plectrum, a melodeon he played in memory of his father, Jack, a model fishing trawler to mark his passion for the sea, and his Breton-style fisherman’s cap.
They didn’t include a representation of the animals for which he had special empathy, or the rich bird life, which, said John Sheahan, McKenna kept in his kitchen, a menagerie liable to burst into song at odd hours when McKenna played on his mandolin.
The convention whereby friends or family may deliver a eulogy in the church at the end of Mass is not followed in the Meath diocese, so Sheahan was obliged to address mourners under a cold, intermittent drizzle at St Loman’s cemetery, which provoked some fractious comment, given that many in attendance were elderly.
While piper Peter Donnan played McKenna to the grave with Raglan Road, the President was afforded shelter under the undertaker’s gazebo and umbrellas were snapped open. Sheahan movingly described the gentle-natured man he had known since they were teenagers in the early 1950s, meeting in places such as The Piper’s Club and the Fiddler’s Club, after which McKenna often walked home to Donnycarney, carrying a banjo “that must have weighed a couple of stone”.
His playing bypassed the intellect and went straight for the heart, said Sheahan. His technique was beyond analysis. McKenna once explained that “holding a plectrum is like holding a fledgling bird. If you squeeze it too hard, you’ll choke it, and if you hold it too gently, it will fly away, so it’s somewhere in between”.
He lived in a parallel world to the rest of us, said Sheahan, a place called Barneyland. “When he was in Barneyland, you had to tune into his frequency.”
Barneyland involved a time zone that seldom synchronised with anyone else’s and a way with the English language which produced something his friends called “Barneyisms”.
Sheahan recalled how they played together with their friend Michael Howard for the last time last Wednesday at the funeral Mass of Dara Ó Broin, an RTÉ colleague, where Barney had evoked a spontaneous round of applause for his emotional rendering of Ar Éirinn Ni Neosfainn Ce Hi. Afterwards, he was “in top form, regaling us with stories and anecdotes”. At breakfast the next morning, in the company of Michael, “he dozed off for the long sleep. What a lovely way to go, having a cup of tea with your friend.”
How the Dubliner ended up in a quiet Co Meath graveyard was explained by Fr Mohan. McKenna’s grandparents arrived in the parish in January 1920, to work Kirwan’s land. As a lad, Barney visited his grandmother Rosaleen and, through her, had been inculcated into the world of music. He never lost that love of Meath. In fact, he had his bags packed to travel to his home there on the day he died, said Sheahan. “He loved spending time here. I’d say he was nearly more of a Meath man than a Dubliner.
“He was my brother, my friend, my fellow troubadour,” said Sheahan. “Life will be the poorer for his passing. I will miss him greatly. May his gentle soul find a new and lasting harmony in the company of [fellow late Dubliners] Bob, Luke, Ciarán and Ronnie.”
To the strains of an uilleann piper, Barney McKenna was laid to rest beside his father, mother and sister.
