McVeagh

[Martin Carthy]

This is one of the few original tunes written by Martin Carthy. He recorded it for his 1988 album (both on LP and CD) Right of Passage and played it in the video British Fingerstyle Guitar (1993). He commented in the LP sleeve notes:

McVeagh is John McVeagh, a man with whom I struck up a real friendship in the space of less than a week during a tour of Ireland in 1974. I never saw him but once briefly after that and heard by the most extraordinary of routes, that he had died in a swimming accident in Tralee Bay. Seven hours on a bus between Athlone and Belfast reflecting on the whole thing produced this tune.