When the news came through

When the news came through it was well after midnight. The Hot Press production crew were doing their usual crazy stint trying to pin the beast down, and put it to bed. In the middle of the mayhem and the pressure, it still came as a terrible shock. Frankie Kennedy, one of traditional music’s gentlemen and a prime mover in Altan, had been ailing for a long time. His battle with cancer had been hard-fought and harrowing. Your heart went out to him, and to those close to him but the process wouldn’t be reversed, not for all the love in the world. None of us has anything much more than a frail grasp on life at the best of times. Ravaged by a pitiless illness, Frankie’s slipped. And all around him, those who have loved him, or been close to him, are being confronted now with the grievous finality of it all.

I have been down to that fierce and lonesome place. Until you’re there, you cannot ever truly know what it’s like, looking for the last time at someone whose joys and sorrows you have shared, down all the days. It’s a journey to the heart of darkness, to know that this is all there is. There is no romance in death. None at all.

There was, however, in the music that Frankie Kennedy breathed life into – and which will live on. It’s a subject touched on in an interview with John Banville in this issue of Hot Press. An artist leaves behind their work as a legacy, and in Frankie’s case that is no small imprint. Altan had developed, over the years, into one of the most vibrant, powerful, exciting Irish groups of all time, their exuberance and finesse captured magnificently on a series of landmark albums. Frankie Kennedy’s life may have been cut tragically short but every time an Altan track is played his spirit will rise again. It will live on, too, through the future achievements of a group who hopefully will grow and flourish.

There could be no greater tribute to Frankie Kennedy than that Altan would continue to create the kind of spell-binding musical magic which had always been the Holy Grail for everyone involved in the enterprise. In the meantime, as another issue is completed, and people begin to get the opportunity to let what’s going on in the world around us to really sink in, I think I speak for everyone in the Hot Press extended family who has ever known and loved their music in expressing the deepest regret and sympathy to all the members of Altan, and to Frankie Kennedy’s partner, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh in particular.

Tangled up in blue.

• Niall Stokes

Editor