Derek Warfield spoke to David Hennessy ahead of coming with The Young Wolfe Tones to The Claddagh Ring and Páirc Summer Series.
Derek Warfield has been on the road for more than 60 years.
He came to prominence with the well known rebel song and ballad singing group The Wolfe Tones.
He was in the band for 37 years before he departed to concentrate on a solo career. He would later establish Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones in 2008 meaning his second outfit has been going for more than 15 years.
They are about to bring their show to The Claddagh Ring in Hendon and Páirc Summer Series in Birmingham.
Derek took the time to chat to the Irish World ahead of those shows.
Are you looking forward to these upcoming shows?
“Yeah, I’ve been playing and performing in London since 1963 and I always enjoyed singing our songs to any community that would enjoy and respond and appreciate the music and ballads that we perform.
“My first overseas performance outside of Ireland was to England, first to Liverpool and then to London.
“The first show that we performed was in Liverpool
“That was 1966, that was the Wolfe Tones but before that, I lived and worked in London in the early 60s for approximately two years and I played in a lot of folk clubs around the city.
“And that was always a nice experience because the early 60s, there was a huge Irish population in London so accents from every part of Ireland were there and of course one thing about emigrants when they left Ireland was they didn’t leave the music behind, they brought it with them.”
Established in 2008, you are just three years off two whole decades with The Young Wolfe Tones..
“When the old band broke up in 2001, I decided that I would pass on any talent that I had to a younger generation.
“I decided to form The Young Wolfe Tones.
“That’s been a journey of immense learning for me because I found that the musicians were much more skilled than they were in our generation.
“They have a new passion for the music and I decided to give them the history and the role that the Irish music played in our heritage and tradition.
“It’s important to remember that Irish music and song is more than just a part of our heritage, it preserved every aspect of our culture down through the years and the years of oppression and colonialism, music sought to represent every positive aspect of Irish Life.
“I think the young people that I have in this band bring an excitement to the stage that I had when I was in late 20s as well and that’s wonderful to see, to be part of it.
“People would say to me at my age I should be retired but I don’t feel I want to retire because these people keep me young.
“Of course I have the good fortune to have probably the best banjo player in Ireland over the last 20 years in the band, Damaris Woods.
“She was born in Luton and her parents were from Meath and Monaghan.
“Irish people when they went abroad seemed to cherish their heritage, they were aware of that tradition and of course, communities across England preserved the music.
“They kept the music, the dance, the song in communities right across and certainly where Damaris came from.
“That was a community that valued their traditions and wanted to keep them as an expression of their culture and heritage.
“The young man who sings now Eddie Kane, is from Co. Kildare.
“He is a man who has a wonderful love and passion for the music and song.
“He has a great connection with young people.
“Paddy McGrandles is a wonderful concertina player.
“I have a lad who plays the keyboards and he’s been with me for many, many years: Andreas Durkan and he’s the son of the great country singer Kathy Durkin.
“That’s the band line up that you’ll see in the Claddagh and of course in Birmingham at the festival.”
What about the young coming to the shows, is there a new excitement for it in a younger generation that you have seen in recent years?
“Oh absolutely, I think the young people today realise the value of what our music has told them through song.
“Every issue and event that happened in Ireland was commented on by our balladeers and poets and by our literary people, both high end literature and the simple songs that were written on the street.
“Our folk music goes up and down in society and always have appreciation in society which is extraordinary so we get all ages at our shows.
“We get the young people there that love the excitement of what our songs generates and they get the older people that just listen and enjoy watching the young people dance.
“Our audiences, even with the old band, have always been intergenerational and that’s very important.”
Did you enjoy your time working in London?
“I enjoyed it.
“I think what I loved about London was there was wonderful entertainment in the theatres and a lot of live music.
“I like live music.
“I liked the theatres.
“I liked the classics, and it was all on your doorstep.
“I really appreciated that.
“Since I was young, I always loved music.
“My heritage, that I was brought up with, was the love of Irish song and music and my father also instilled a great love of the music around the world.
“He loved the classics.
“He loved opera.
“He loved every type of music so it was a natural thing for me to appreciate the music that was on your doorstep in London.
“When I worked in London, three of us would play in London, we used to play a gig in New Cross back in the 60s.
“The folk music scene was very powerful across London back in the 60s and we performed many of those pubs.
“We founded the Wolfe Tones in 1963 when we went to Kilrush to the Fleadh Cheoil.
“We were in a small little pub in County Clare and that was the beginning of a journey that lasted almost over 40 years.”
What was a special stand out moment of that journey?
“Well, of course, there was so many of them.
“I always chose the memories of playing the National in Kilburn.
“We played there regularly for many years and the Irish and the London Irish community responded with great enthusiasm to our music.
“And we recorded an album live in London, the only album that we ever did live was in the National in Kilburn.
“Of course it was an iconic venue.
“It’s a great memory for me anyway and I’m sure for anyone who went along to the shows there.
“I used to go for a drink in the (Sir) Colin Campbell up the road.
“I remember one time before we went in to do the sound check and as soon as I came in there was a traffic jam on the Kilburn High Road.
“A couple of buses had come from different parts of London.
“A man turned around to me at the bar and he goes, ‘Who is this Wolfe Tone geezer?’
“And the landlord says, ‘You’re standing beside him’.
“We got some laugh out of it then.
“That was probably the best venue that we played in London.
“You have to remember that during the troubles, it was a difficult time for many Irish people in England and those like myself who were singing out our music.
“Immigrants made a huge contribution to English society and their presence was very much part of how the whole city of London emerged from the war. A lot of the Irish involvement saw to it that it was done very quickly.”
Was it hard for you in those difficult times? Singing nationalistic Irish music at a fractious time?
“I’ve always understood from the time I worked in England that English people are very different from English authority.
“There’s a huge difference.
“Most English people with no Irish context that I’ve come into contact with over the years have a very great sympathy for Ireland and are appalled when they know a bit about the history.
“I think there’s a detachment between them and the government’s policy to Ireland over the years over the generations and particularly the partition of the country.
“That was done without any consideration of how the people of England felt about it and the people of Ireland felt about it.
“I do think the authorities have a lot to answer for creating difficulties for some Irish people, for the continuing of the conflict because they hadn’t addressed the real problem of why they came into Ireland and colonised it.
“And they haven’t really addressed how to dismantle that colonial policy.
“They haven’t made any attempt to dismantle it. They put a partition in Ireland that had never been partitioned.
“You partition a province. I’ve always believed that counties like Donegal and Monaghan are really separated from their natural hinterland of Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone.
“The partition of Ireland was devastating for those communities, particularly Donegal which still pays the price today for the partition of Ireland because of the structure of communication, roads, rail and everything else.
“I don’t think it’s been given enough consideration by English authorities and I do think that having travelled around Ireland all my life, I can see the devastation that it caused in local communities across our country.”
Have we seen that same link of disregard towards Ireland with the whole Brexit debacle and then the Amnesty bill?
“Absolutely, it’s lack of understanding of the consequences.
“Decisions are made in offices that affect communities in reality and it’s devastating for the province of Ulster that Donegal was isolated particularly for communication.
“The border has had a devastating effect on the violence of this country and the potential that it could reach.
“We were the first colony and it hasn’t been addressed to undo that colonisation.
“I think it needs to be addressed by the English parliament and crown.
“I think the travesty is that religion was created as a divisive thing.
“I know history and the English authorities tried to do the same in America in the American Revolution, to divide communities with religion.
“But American society had the ability to overcome that.
“I think today religion is not an issue amongst people who have allegiance to the United States, the same should be true in Ireland.”
It becomes less of an issue even in Northern Ireland, it’s spoken about more and more, do you see a united Ireland as an increasing inevitability?
“Well it will only happen if the government allows and wants it to happen.
“They are the ones that created the partition, it wasn’t the Irish people.
“Nobody wanted the country to be separated in Ireland, north or south so they created the partition, they’ll have to undo it, they are the people who are responsible for it.
“Winston Churchill said one time, ‘What every Irishman wants is the reunification of his country’.
“It should never have happened.
“It should be a live issue with the parliamentarians in London because they were our closest neighbour, we got on very well at the local level.
“I never felt any animosity with the people that I worked with because I was Irish.
“The history of Irish people going to England didn’t start in my generation, Irish people have been going to Lancashire and to Yorkshire to live from the time of the hunger in Ireland in their thousands and their contributions are enormous and their descendants are still there today, and proudly part and leaders of the country.”
You have been privileged to, as the Young Wolfe Tones, be part of poignant moments such as the 1916 commemorations and playing for the President of America..
“I was asked to perform 2016 on O’Connell Street on 24 April at the very time that Padraig Pearse read the proclamation.
“That was a distinctive honour for me to do that.
“I think another important milestone of my career was was when the Speaker of the House in America John Boehner invited me to play for the President back in 2015.
“I remember first of all when I got the call from his people, I thought he was joking.
“I thought someone was playing a prank on me.
“’Would you like to play on St Patrick’s Day?’
“I said, ‘Absolutely, I would love to play for the President’.
“Of course President Obama was President that time and Joe Biden was Vice- President.
“It was a great endorsement and I said it in Washington at the time.
“I said, ‘I’ve sung about injustice all my life. It speaks volumes for America that the speaker John Boehner would ask me to perform for his country that have maintained the freedom of speech where many of the countries around the world have stifled creativity in the speech through censorship’.
“We sung a few songs and of course the Taoiseach was there as well and there were many other celebrities.
“It was a very, very nice endorsement I have to say and I’ll always remember it.
“I’ve been given many tributes in America from different societies but to play for the President was special.”
You mentioned free speech there.
What’s your view on performers like Kneecap speaking out on issues like Palestine and the attempts to silence them?
“I hate to see injustice, I think it’s a crime to see people treated like animals, it’s horrible.
“The same is true of the war of Ukraine.
“There’s two wars going on at the same time.
“It’s so horrible.
“It’s not a nice world when you see those wars going on and the rest of the world living in comfort, and it’s absolutely shocking to see the images on the television of Palestine and the wreckage of the place and everything else.
“It’s just appalling.
“And every time people speak out, it has cost.
“I know that from personal experience.
“When I spoke out during the troubles, it had cost for me and my family.
“I got threats, I got everything so when you speak out during a conflict, there’s always response and I know that from my own personal experience of speaking during the troubles in our country.”
You have mentioned the old band a few times meaning, of course, The Wolfe Tones. The trio played possibly their final shows last year. Some wanted to see some sort of reunion and you feature before they finished up, was there ever any likelihood of it?
“Our manager who managed The Wolfe Tones Oliver Barry asked me would I do a reunion, I said I would.
“He tried.
“It was something that we tried and it just didn’t work out.
“That’s as far as I can take it.”
You remain proud of your work in The Wolfe Tones as well as since you left..
“I’m very happy.
“I was 38, 39 years almost 40 years we were together.
“We had wonderful success for years and the same is true with the Young Wolfe Tones.
“There are a huge amount of people around the world that appreciate the music and the sentiment of our songs and there will always be somebody to take those songs around the world.”
You said before people ask you about retiring but you have no plans for that, you will be around for years more?
“The one thing the Young Wolfe Tones has probably given to me is lots of fun.
“It’s going to be very hard to give it up.
“I think it’s a powerful tonic for you and for the audience that you go to play for no matter where you are across the world, whether it’s in England or whether it’s in Australia.”
Derek Warfield and The Young Wolfe Tones play The Claddagh Ring in Hendon on Saturday 23 August and Páirc Summer Series on Sunday 24 August.
Páirc Summer Series takes place Saturday 23- Sunday 24 August.
For more information on The Young Wolfe Tones, click here.
