Tommy Makem left his native Keady in Co Armagh in the 1950s hoping for a career on the American stage. There's now little doubt that theatre's loss became folk music's gain, though the style of his performance always had something of theatrical showmanship about it.
Long before the likes of Bob Geldof, U2, Enya and Christy Moore brought international attention and acclaim to music-making in Ireland, one group in particular had already made an enormous impact, not only at home but also in the United States where they created a huge new audience for songs that had originated in an entirely different culture across the Atlantic. Makem, along with the Clancy Brothers, were filling venues such as New York's Carnegie Hall and London's Albert Hall, as well as appearing on what was then the pre-eminent entertainment showcase on US television, the Ed Sullivan Show.
Today, in what some regard as a far more musically sophisticated era, it is difficult to imagine the huge popular appeal of such old-fashioned, pure-sounding ballads and their simple acoustic accompaniment. Makem's own initial success in America in fact predated the folk revival here in the 1960s - he had, with singer Joan Baez, achieved the distinction of being proclaimed the most promising newcomer at the legendary Newport Folk Festival.
Makem and the Clancy Brothers, knew exactly what the audiences wanted - both in Ireland and America - and whether it was rousing rebel songs, sea shanties or wistful ballads, they gave it to them with gusto and professional panache. Their position, it could be said, was at the pinnacle of the Irish cultural firmament of the time.
In the aftermath of the break-up of the Clancy Brothers, the singer returned to successful solo performances, but the period of his career cherished most deeply by his fans is probably the years of his duo partnership with Liam Clancy.
Widely known as the Bard of Armagh - and in some trad quarters the Godfather of Irish music - Makem obviously inherited the gifts of his mother, Sarah, a legendary folk singer herself. As much a wit and storyteller as a musician, he held audiences spellbound with his distinctive baritone voice and little more than the unadorned self-accompaniment of his banjo and tin whistle.
Those audiences were never more enthralled than when he was performing his own composition Four Green Fields, and through a whole legacy of other songs with which he will always be associated - Red is the Rose, Gentle Annie and The Winds are Singing Freedom - he certainly enriched the folk repertoire.