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.