Download Now | Garry McMahon - Songman

** The Album is downloaded in MP3 format. **

Proceeds from the download of this CD will benefit
St. Gabriel's Centre,For the mentally and physically Handicapped, Dooradoyle, Limerick.

One of County Limerick's best known solicitors has selected a dozen of his self-composed songs and compiled a CD for charity. A native of Listowel, All-Ireland football medallist, raconteur, writer, singer and composer Garry McMahon is hoping to raise money for the new hydrotherapy unit at St Gabriel's Centre, Dooradoyle, where his daughter, Treasa, is a physiotherapist.

Mr. McMahon, who practiced in Newcastle West for 46 years, always retained an affinity with his Kerry heritage, and this is reflected in the selection of songs on the CD, which was recorded at Brendan Frawley's Brenhaven Studios in Limerick, with all the arrangements created by Mr. Frawley’s and electronically synthesized by him.

"I cannot speak too highly of Brendan Frawley," said Mr. McMahon. "He had a natural affinity with the songs, and the arrangements were exactly right. Mr. McMahon wrote all of the lyrics himself and, with one exception, also wrote the original music. Mostly in ballad format, Mr. McMahon's baritone voice presents the songs in a lilting traditional fashion. "The voice is holding up," he said, "not bad for a man coming up to 70."

The songs reflect Mr. McMahon's life interests, and he freely admits the influence of his late father, author, teacher and broadcaster, Bryan McMahon. Garry sings of days of emigration and the nostalgia of the exile, of his love of his two home places, Kerry and West Limerick, of his love for his wife and family, of his desire for peace and of sport and of his abiding deep religious convictions. One of his songs, The Land of the Gael, has already been recorded by a number of other artists. His pro-life song, Let me see the World, a plea for life from within the womb could, he said, become an anthem for the pro-life movement in America. He would love Sinead O'Connor to record it. The song, Golden Leaves was written on the occasion of late father's 85th birthday.

The CD is called Songman. "My father was known as The Storyman, from the title of his second volume of autobiography," he recalled. "I was back in Dingle and a woman came up to me, not knowing for sure which of the McMahon brothers I was. An fear na h-abhran tusa?' she asked; Are you the songman?' So that's how the name came about." Despite not being able to read or write music, and not being proficient with any instrument, Garry McMahon has been composing songs and more ambitious works since his twenties.

He was a renowned singer of sean nos and ballads. He has written two Masses in Irish which have been broadcast on RTE. One of them has since been translated into English. His composing style is practical, given his lack of formal musical training. In the case of Songman, he handed the manuscripts to Brendan Frawley, who arranged the accompaniments, and the actual recording took only 12 to 14 hours.