Obituary: Mickey MacConnell, journalist, singer and songwriter who scored an cult online hit with The Ballad of Lidl & Aldi
His talent is reflected in the fact that, at the early age of 17, he wrote the popular ballad Only Our Rivers Run Free, about the prospects for a free and united Ireland. He said it was inspired by the fear in his father's eyes after an early civil rights protest was disrupted by police in Enniskillen.
He also recalled that as a fledgling reporter he was covering a council meeting for the Fermanagh Herald where he witnessed the frustration of Catholic families over the allocation of houses to single Protestants. 'It was never a republican song per se, but a song about the love of one's country,' he said. The ballad became a folk classic and recordings were made by the Wolfe Tones, Christy Moore, Mary Black, the Irish Tenors and others, including MacConnell himself, who in due course became known as 'The Bard of Bellanaleck'.
MacConnelll started his career in journalism as a reporter with the Enniskillen-based Fermanagh Herald, later moving to Dublin where he worked with the Irish Press Group. He later moved to The Irish Times, where his duties included covering the Seanad.
When Lord Mountbatten was blown up and killed with other passengers on a boat off the Sligo coast in August 1979, Andrew Hamilton, another respected journalist who came from a Northern unionist background, put a message on the noticeboard inviting newsroom colleagues to stand for a minute's silence in memory of the close relative of the British royal family. MacConnell put up his own message which read: 'Let me tell you Andy, when we come to work on Monday, I'll stand for Lord Mountbatten if you stand for Bloody Sunday.'
MacConnell met his future wife, schoolteacher Maura at a Fleadh Cheoil in 1972. He later left The Irish Times and moved to Listowel, Co Kerry, where he wrote a weekly column for The Kerryman and became a regular musical performer in the late playwright John B Keane's pub, now run by the writer's son, Billy.
Another song MacConnell wrote, The Ballad of Lidl & Aldi, has more than 1.3 million views on YouTube. It tells the story of a man whose wife has a health issue and he ends up doing the weekly shopping. The husband is dreading the prospect until he discovers that the titular supermarkets are selling hardware in addition to traditional groceries.
The song declares that he can buy angle grinders as well as black puddings, streaky rashers and a wetsuit from Japan, a pair of climber's boots and heads of cabbage, an inflatable rubber dinghy and bags of spuds.
A video online shows him performing the ballad in John B Keane's pub. One night, Billy Keane and some of the regulars brought in all the items mentioned in the lyrics. Regular customers were greatly amused, as was MacConnell, who struggled to keep a straight face while singing.
MacConnell was also the resident musician at McMunn's bar and restaurant in Ballybunion at weekends.
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Another well-known song he wrote, Supermarket Wine, describes travelling in a faulty car with his girlfriend to the Galway races, where the couple rely on a man to place a bet for them and the ballad declares that 'the horse he put our money on, I'd swear it's running still'.
MacConnell's first album was Peter Pan and Me (1992) and songs from it were later recorded by other leading artists. In 2016, he received the prestigious Creative Arts Award at the Fiddlers' Green Folk Festival in Rostrevor, Co Down. The first such award was presented in 2000 to Seamus Heaney.
Mickey's sister Maura died in 2007 and his brother Seán, another great wit who served as Agriculture Correspondent of The Irish Times for many years, died in 2013. Mickey MacConnell is survived by his brothers, Cormac and Cathal. A traditional flute-player and singer, Cathal is a founder-member of Scottish-Irish Celtic music band The Boys of the Lough. Cormac is also acclaimed for the songs he has written, including Christmas in the Trenches 1914, which is included on his father's album, Joined Up Writing.
Michael (Mickey) MacConnell is survived by his wife Maura, daughters Kerry and Claire , brothers Cathal and Cormac and other relatives and friends.
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