The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy

This splendid documentary from Alan Gilsenan recounts the rise of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Taking in everything from the iconic outfit’s small-town beginnings in County Tipperary to lording it over Greenwich Village during the swinging sixties, it’s one hell of a ride.
The tone is largely contemplative, as befits a project featuring so many of the dearly departed. Bookended by shots of a lonesome Liam Clancy on a darkened stage, his supporting cast – the late Tommy Makem, Pete Seeger, fellow Clancy brothers – materialise as deftly selected archival footage and where possible contemporary interviews.
It’s a neat framing device for a thrilling tale well told. A folk riposte to Hammer Of The Gods, a complex, intimate biographical portrait and an account of not one, but several major paradigm shifts, The Yellow Bittern wears the weight of history with no little aplomb.