The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem significantly influenced the young Bob Dylan and other artists, including Christy Moore and Paul Brady.

Diane Hamilton, a friend of Paddy Clancy in New York, followed in the footsteps of her mentor, Jean Ritchie, and came to Ireland in search of rare Irish songs.

[16] Paddy agreed and together he, Tom, Liam, and Tommy Makem recorded an album of Irish rebel songs, The Rising of the Moon, one of the new label's first releases.

[12] But the album was a local success and requests were often demanded for the brothers and Tommy Makem to sing some of their songs at parties and informal pub settings.

Liam had developed some guitar skills, Tommy's hand had healed enough he was again able to play tin whistle and Uilleann pipes, and the times spent singing together had improved their style.

Unable to agree on a name (which included suggestions like The Beggermen, The Tinkers and even The Chieftains) the owner decided for them, simply billing them as "The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem".

[12] The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem proved successful as a singing group and in early 1961, they attracted the attention of scouts from The Ed Sullivan Show.

The Clancy Brothers' mother read news of the terrible ice and snow storms in New York City and sent Aran jumpers (sweaters) for her sons and Tommy Makem to keep them warm.

[21] On 12 March 1961, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performed for around fifteen minutes in front of a television audience of forty million people for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show.

[9] A previously scheduled artist did not appear that night, and the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem were given the newly available time slot on the show, in addition to the two songs they had initially planned to do.

For their first album with Columbia, A Spontaneous Performance Recording, they enlisted Pete Seeger, one of the leaders of the American Folk Revival, as backup banjo player.

The record included songs that would soon become classics for the group, such as "Brennan on the Moor", "Jug of Punch", "Reilly's Daughter", "Finnegan's Wake", "Haul Away Joe", "Roddy McCorley", "Portlairge" and "The Moonshiner".

He collected their first three Columbia albums, A Spontaneous Performance Recording, Hearty and Hellish!, and The Boys Won't Leave the Girls Alone, brought them back home to Ireland, and played them on his radio show.

But it was the Clancys' boisterous performances that set them apart, taking placid classics and giving them a boost of energy and spirit (not that they took this approach with all their songs; they would still sing the true mournful ballads with due reverence).

Their last three albums for Columbia Records in 1969 and 1970 represent a significant shift in style for the group, with a multitude of string instruments and synthesizers added to the simpler traditional Clancy mix of guitar, banjo, tin whistle, and harmonica.

Together they made two studio albums for Audio Fidelity, Save the Land and Show Me the Way, on which they experimented with modernising their sound, musical style, and material, even including pop songs like Elton John's "Country Comfort".

The temporary dissolution of the group permitted Paddy Clancy to devote his full attention to the dairy and cattle breeding farm in Tipperary he had bought with his wife in 1963.

Tom's acting career flourished in Hollywood, where he regularly appeared in movies, TV films and shows, such as Little House on the Prairie, The Incredible Hulk, Charlie's Angels and Starsky and Hutch.

His gigs in Calgary caught the attention of a TV producer, who signed Liam to host twenty-six episodes of his own music and talk show.

Tom was at the height of his new career in Hollywood and Paddy was busy with his farm, so it was ultimately decided to tour on a part-time basis and only in the United States.

"The Green Fields of France", also known as "Willie McBride", by Eric Bogle had become a hit with a recording by the Clancys' old back-up musicians, the Furey Brothers, in the early 1980s.

In 1988, the Clancy Brothers (Paddy, Tom, and Bobby) with Robbie O'Connell recorded a poorly mixed live album at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, Tunes 'n' Tales of Ireland.

Released in late 1995, Older But No Wiser introduced all newly recorded songs with the exception of "When the Ship Comes In", which the group performed at the Dylan concert.

One performance in Clonmel as part of their Irish tour was televised and later released on video and DVD as The Clancy Brothers and Robbie O'Connell: Farewell to Ireland.

In March 2006, fifty years after the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem recorded their debut album, Conor Murray wrote the first full-length biography on the group.

His last album, The Wheels of Life, was released in October 2008 and featured other prominent musicians, such as Donovan, Mary Black, Gemma Hayes, and Tom Paxton.

In December 1964, Billboard Magazine listed the group as the eleventh best-selling folk musicians in the United States based on sales figures for that year.

The Clancys recorded numerous 1960s folk singers, including Jean Ritchie, Ed McCurdy, Ewan MacColl, Paul Clayton, and John Jacob Niles.

The 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by the Coen Brothers, includes a performance of the Irish song, "The Auld Triangle", by four unnamed folk singers in Aran sweaters intended to be Clancy Brother-like figures.

Additional characters in the film were modelled after other real-life singers from the Greenwich Village folk scene in 1961, including friends of the Clancy Brothers like Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan, and Jean Ritchie.