The Hungry Voice: The Song Legacy Of Ireland's Great Hunger

When I interviewed the great Dublin traditional singer Frank Harte in 1998, around the time of the release of the Harte/Lunny collaboration 1798: The First Year Of Liberty, he told me that “all of Irish history is reflected in our songs.” Since then, he’s done his best to prove the point, following that album up with My Name Is Napoleon Bonaparte, and now The Hungry Voice. Like its predecessors, the new CD contains extensive notes, running to nearly 60 pages of minuscule type and amounting to a thorough history of what, as Harte points out, is inaccurately known as ‘The Great Famine’. It all makes for harrowing reading and melancholy listening, but Harte’s strong high tenor and Lunny’s restrained accompaniment carry it off beautifully.