His personal ballad style had features of other genres, but the precision of intent in his abrasive lyrics was unmistakable.
He sang first at the Central Bar in Aungier St., Dublin, and with his wife Nellie ran gigs and clubs through the 1970s.
[1]In Dublin, he organised the Pavees Club in Slatterys on Capel Street and sessions in the Tailor's Hall and the Brazen Head.
Named after the year of the signing of the Treaty of Limerick, other members of the group included Tommy Peoples, Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Peter Browne, and Matt Molloy, who later went on to form The Bothy Band.
"Dark Horse on the Wind", written in 1966 on the 50th anniversary of the Rising, is a lament for the lost dreams of the 1916 Volunteers and a searing indictment of society in post-independence Ireland and, indeed, a prophetic warning of the political troubles which were at that point imminent on the island as a whole.