Benny McCarthy told David Hennessy about 30 years of the band Danú and what getting their Irish World award in the Galtymore meant to him.
Irish World award winners Danú are celebrating 30 years as a band and play two nights at The Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith this month.
Formed in 1995 in County Waterford, the band’s journey began with an impromptu session after a céilí in Dungarvan.
Quite by chance, this led to an invitation to represent Ireland at the Inter Celtique Festival in Lorient, Brittany, where they won the prestigious Boules Des Korrigans award for best up-and-coming band in 1996.
Taking their name from the ancient Celtic goddess Danú, the group have gone on to tour extensively around the world.
To celebrate their 30th anniversary, Danú have just released The Pearl Album (Live in Celebration), a collection of 30 tracks recorded live in over 25 iconic venues.
Can you believe it is 30 years now? Does it seem strange to say?
“It does. It is mad.
“My young fella is 17.
“I was just saying, ‘When I was 17 I was thinking about doing engineering in college and playing music for fun.
“At this time of the year when I was 17, we’d be thinking about going off to the Willie Clancy Summer School and the fleadhs and the sessions that we’d have.
“Music was craic and bang, 1995, we got asked to go over to Lorient.
“We were going off for the craic to Lorient for 10 days.
“It was like a holiday, going to France back in 1995 was quite exotic.
“Anyway, that’s where she started.
“We started out of a session.
“We were having a session on a big stage and about 2,000 French people going nuts to what we were doing.
“We were kind of looking at each other going, ‘Jesus. This is alright. This is what it feels like to be up on a stage’.
“It evolved from there and God, it’s taken us all over the world since.
“And we’ve had some adventures, it became our careers.
“It’s unbelievable really so we’re very thank you for it.”
Was it just that you were going over to play a gig and that was it but then you realised you had something?
“It was exactly that type of thing.
“When we came back, we went into Dónal (Clancy)’s father’s studio, Liam Clancy’s studio, just to record a demo track: Our first time, probably, in a studio as a band.
“And then the year after, we were invited back to Lorient again.
“The year after, we went back as a bigger outfit with a few more people and one festival led to another festival.
“All of a sudden then, we’re getting on an airplane to go to America and we started doing a few gigs in Ireland.
“It was all very organic.
“I honestly think we were about three or four years into it before we actually kind of said, ‘God, this is our job now’.
“We’ve been very lucky.
“It’s been a great outfit all the time.
“We’ve had a few changes over the years but we’ve managed to keep it strong and enjoyable.
“The new live record we just brought out showcases the band nowadays, after 30 years because most of the tracks are recorded in the last five years from various different shows and various different tours.
“It never was an easy game.
“There was always challenges of it but you have to love travel and you have to love the music itself.
“If money is your first love anyway, you’ll be giving it up pretty quickly. I’ll tell you that.
“We’ve done amazing things over the years.
“A lot of our work has been probably stateside.
“We’ve toured all over the UK as well for years.
“We got an award from the Irish World back in 2001 in the Galtymore.
“I remember the night well.
“It was quite special for me that night because my mother and father met in the Galtymore.
“But there was amazing people there that night.
“Richard Harris was there.
“And Colm Murray from RTE was presenting it.
“That was 2001 so 24 years ago.
“Things were kicking off at that point because we had signed with an American record label, Shanachie Records.
“It’s 2025, we’re still here and people still want to come to see our shows and still hear the band.”
What has been a big pinch me moment, a highlight a long the way?
“It’s hard to pick just one.
“Hollywood Bowl was amazing.
“We were there going, ‘F**k me, The Beatles played here’.
“Some of the festivals: Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK.
“In 1999 I remember we were playing on the main stage of Cambridge Folk Festival after James Taylor.
“I was a big James Taylor fan and I was kind of going, ‘Jesus, what’s happening here?’
“James Taylor, of course, was the main act but Cambridge Folk Festival always finished with a folk or traditional act and we got chosen to do that. That was huge.
“It’s very hard to pinpoint one moment because they were all so kind of special at the time and we were all kind of jaws dropped like, ‘Wow, this is deadly’.
“We were having a great time, ‘How is this happening?’ and that kind of stuff.
“Anyway, it’s been a great ride.
“I mean, it’s been a great spin.”
You say the new live album showcases your live show. There’s something special about your live show, isn’t there?
“There is.
“Our music is real music.
“There’s nothing processed about what we’re doing.
“Our live album was recorded and that’s tracks from 25 or 26 different venues so that shows the band in various different places and it’s all about the live thing for us now.
“There wouldn’t be Danú if there wouldn’t be a live thing, it’s all about that really.
“We’re all based in different parts of the world now as well.
“We’ve two guys in America and we have a guy in Newfoundland and we have another man up in Scotland.
“I think three of the band are actually based here in Ireland this weather but that adds in electricity as well in the sense that when we do meet up, there’s a bit of craic and a bit of excitement.
“We must be doing something right anyway.”
You’ve toured all over England and have two shows coming up at the ICC, has it always been good to come over here?
“Absolutely, the UK has been very good to us over the years.
“We got many awards in the UK.
“We got a few BBC Folk Awards over the years.
“We used to tour a lot more in the UK but the logistics of everything nowadays makes it a lot trickier to get even the band together and it’s very expensive, of course, to fly lads in from America.
“We get great work in the US.
“In between we try to get a few things happening here in Ireland and the UK and Europe and stuff like that.
“We do as much as we can.
“The other lads are all pretty busy with other projects as well and we always keep a space within that for Danú stuff every year and it keeps it fresh.
“We’re not burnt out like if we were touring all the time.
“If you haven’t toured, you don’t know what it’s like.
“Not everyone’s cut out to do this.
“It’s actually very few people actually really cut out to do it long term.
“You have to really like it.
“Some people are home birds and the being away from home is a bit too much for them.
“You don’t meet too many people that would have been touring for a long time.
“I’ve loved it.
“It’s been a huge adventure for us over the years playing in India and playing in Hawaii and touring Europe and playing all these festivals and touring right across Canada.
“And of course, we’ve played in nearly all the states in America at this point.
“We’re lucky.
“Whatever we’re doing, it seems people are still interested in it.”
Was it always going to be music for you, Benny? Did you always know it was what you wanted to do?
“I was kind of a late starter.
“I started to learn music when I was 13.
“I was a late starter but I really got stuck into it and I wouldn’t leave it out of my hands.
“I didn’t ever think of it as being my career but I always thought, ‘Look, it’s a great sideline and it’s a great passport to going anywhere and having your instrument with you.
“If you land in any city or any place in the world, you’ll probably find some kind of an Irish session or something that you can fall in with.
“It has always been there.
“I love music and I love everything about music.
“I never thought of it as a career but it just happened and I wasn’t going to refuse it, I suppose.
“When I was 17 I was thinking of, ‘What will I be?’
“So we were filling out kind of these forms and going, ‘What will we do in college? What would I like to do?’
“But it wasn’t music.
“I wasn’t going to go off to college studying music or anything.
“The music was my pastime and hobby.
“It just evolved that way.
“But no major thought went into steering it or anything, it just kind of organically turned into what it turned into.
“And then all of a sudden, bang, it’s 30 years later.
“It’s bizarre really because I can still freshly remember all of it, I can remember nearly all of the journey.”
How did you come together with your fellos band members before the whole Lorient thing?
“Myself, Dónal and Donnchadh (Gough) went to school together.
“We were in secondary school together and 1994 they had a big festival in Dungarvan which is our nearest town.
“We were in town and there was friends of ours down Daire Bracken down from Dublin.
“We were having sessions and a guy from Lorient was sitting at one of these.
“It wasn’t even a concert.
“It was like a ceilí turned into a bit of a session on the stage.
“And this guy came up to us after and said, ‘Would you come to Lorient next year for the festival?’
“And we said, ‘Jesus, yeah, course we would, no bother, give us a shout’.
“And that’s how easy it happened.”
So there was a great deal of chance in it that he was there given all it led to..
“There is chance by that but I’ll tell you what’s kept the whole thing going is the music, great musicians.
“I’m sitting on stage with some of the best musicians that came out of Ireland of our generation.
“They’re just great musicians and we strive to make great music.
“We’ve never waned from that.
“We’re never half arsed about the music.
“It’s 100% when it comes to the music and when we go on stage.
“No one is up there half arsed, they’re giving it all.
“Even though it started off probably as a session, we were still striving to play great.
“We were still trying to play really well and have really nice tunes.
“A huge amount of thought that went into every single piece of music we’ve ever done.
“It wasn’t kind of like, ‘Ah, that’s grand. We’ll just horse into that’.
“We couldn’t do it that way.
“And even nowadays, we still perform pieces that we’ve done 29 years ago.
“I suppose we’ve honed as performers too.
“I love going to honed professionals’ shows because they’ve dealt with audiences all over the world for many years.
“We did a few shows with Liam Clancy not long before he passed away.
“We felt like kids up on the stage going, ‘Jesus. This man has some command on an audience’.
“We’re very aware of that.
“We’re really looking forward to coming to London now for the two nights.
“It would be nice to be in London for two nights.”
As you have said yourself it’s always been evolving but staying true to the roots of it, isn’t that right?
“It’s mad.
“We’re very close to what we were 30 years ago.
“Even though we’ve had different people coming in and out, the essential band sound is there all the time or the essential band ethos is still there.
“We’ve seen all the different styles of sounds of folk music around us even within our lifetime in the band but we’ve still managed and luckily there’s still an audience there for what we do.
“We’re meeting people all the time and they’ve always liked what we’ve done.
“They’ve followed us on the journey as well, they’ve kept with the band so anyone that might have heard us 20 years ago will still enjoy the band nowadays.
“We’re doing something right.”
You said your parents met in the Galtymore so were they in London for a time?
“Yeah, my mother and father were in London there in the 60s.
“They went over late 50s, early 60s and they met at the dances.
“The Galtymore was famous for the Irish music and the dances.
“They actually met there in the Galtymore so I suppose London has something for me because my parents were there and my two older brothers were actually born in London.
“They came back to Ireland in the early 70s but they always talk fondly about the Galtymore and I was hearing this as a child growing up.
“It’s no longer there, is it? A piece of history gone.”
Of course you are celebrating 30 years of your own history. Let’s look to the future though: Will Danú still be going in another 30 years?
“Who knows? Please God.
“Everything takes on its own life and who knows how long anything will work or keep going for but as long as it is enjoyable and feasible and as long as there’s an audience still there for us, we’ll keep going.
“But I think we’ll know when it’s time to put it to bed.
“We could be here in 20 years’ time and we could be saying, ‘We’re going for 50 years’.
“30 years is quite an achievement.
“It’s definitely a milestone anyway.
“There’s not too many bands that make the 30.
“I mean the Beatles only did 10.”
The Pearl Album (Live in Celebration) is out now.
Danú play The Irish Cultural Centre on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 June.
For tickets and information, click here.
For more information about Danú, click here.
