Remembering Dermot O’Brien & The Clubmen
While he was generally acknowledged as one of the country’s best ever accordion players, Dermot O’Brien was in his late teens before he took up that particular instrument. He was equally adept at football and went on to win an All-Ireland senior medal with the Louth team as well as two Leinster medals. A broken finger put an end to his sporting career in 1960.
In his early teens, he was learning the piano, but in later years with his own band was seen to be well able to master guitar and trombone among others.
A native of Ardee, Co Louth, Dermot started as a ceili musician and joined the Emerald Ceili Band based in Slane (Co Meath) in the early 1950s and in 1953, he joined the very successful Vincent Lowe Trio.
Two years later, the St Malachy’s Ceili Band came into being, fronted by Dermot. His prowess as an accordion player was becoming more evident. However, as the 1950s came to a close Dermot realised that the days of the ceil bands were numbered and so began his band, The Clubmen in 1959 in a semi-professional capacity.
In the early 1960s, he and Maisie McDaniels starred on the RTÉ television shows ‘ Country Style’ and ‘Jamboree’. McDaniels had a string of hits around that time, including the evergreen ‘Pick Me Up On Your Way Down’ and her own favourite recording, ‘Room Full of Roses’. Dermot was also seen on TV around that time as part of The Vincent Lowe Trio.
The Clubmen included Timmy Regan doubling on guitar and vocals, Eamonn Campbell (guitar), who many years later became s session musician and was part of The Dubliners for a period, Denis O’Loughlin (sax), Willie Healy (trumpet) and Johnny Barton (drums). They were very successful and the following year, undertook a tour of England.
They were now securing engagements in some of the Dublin ballrooms and 1962 eventually saw them turn professional under manager George O’Reilly and become one of the top attractions on the showband scene. That same year, Tom Dunphy and The Royal Showband recorded ‘Come Down The Mountain Katie Daly’, the first ever showband record, but it would be another four years before Dermot would record his first, which was the Johnny Cash hit ‘I Walk The Line’. This made it to No 3 in the Irish Charts. But it would be his next release that would make him a household name and a top attraction in the dance halls. ‘ The Merry Ploughboy’ went to No 1 and remained in the charts for ten weeks. The band undertook a tour of Britain in 1967.
The band split in April, 1968 and Dermot went on to form a new band which included Sonny Knowles on sax and vocals who had been with Sean Fagan and The Pacific. Lots of tours followed including trips to the USA, Germany and Great Britain. In 1971, ‘The Galway Shawl’ became a huge favourite with audiences everywhere. However, illness struck which forced The Clubmen to disband as Dermot was confined to hospital for over three months.
Dermot now took more to writing and producing, as doctors advised him to cut down on what had been a five and six nights a week schedule.
So, by the end of 1972, Dermot had disbanded the Clubmen and announced he was moving into the cabaret scene. For the next decade, Dermot was
regularly to be seen on television which he juggled with his cabaret work and writing, while at the same time producing records for some of the top names in the business.
An array of hit records followed. In 1974, ‘Spancil Hill’ made it to No 3 in the Irish charts followed by other hits such as ‘The Green Fields Round Ferbane’ and ‘ The Boys of Killybegs’. Over the next three decades, numerous LP, CD and video collections would follow.
In 1983, Dermot and his wife Rosemary left Ireland for New York but returned annually to tour Ireland and the UK. In 1995 he joined ‘Jury’s Cabaret’ which was extremely popular at home in Dublin and also in New York.
As the new millennium dawned, Dermot once again went on a solo run, performing during the summer in Ireland and working the rest of the year from his home in New York. We were thrilled to have played host to himself and his wife Rosemary at The Village Arts Centre, Kilworth in the early 2000s. He was a gentleman to deal with and we were saddened to learn of his wife’s death in January of 2005. After Rosemary’s death, he returned to his family home in Ardee, Co Louth but shortly after was diagnosed with cancer and, at age 74, he passed away on May 22, 2007. The aforementioned Maisie McDaniels died the following year.
Dermot O’Brien’s playing of iconic tunes such as ‘ The Gay Gordons’, ’The Blue Danube’, ‘The Cuckoo Waltz’ and ‘ The Swiss Polka’ will be forever treasured by lovers of good accordion music.