When Clannad got their first international hit in 1982 with the atmospheric Gaelic ballad (Theme From) Harry’s Game, they had already been active for some 12 years.
They had several releases under their belt, but Harry’s Game introduced them to a mainstream public. It brought them international acclaim and cemented their signature sound: ethereal vocal harmonies and haunting melodies backed by a mixture of traditional instruments with layers of synth and occasional electric instrumentation.
Formed in 1970, Clannad is a family band consisting of the three siblings Máire (Moya), Pól, and Ciarán Brennan, as well as their two twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Duggan (the latter passing in 2016). They started making waves by performing traditional Irish music with musical accompaniment, which gave them a bit of backlash initially. “Gaelic songs were sung unaccompanied,” Moya Brennan explained, “so what we were doing was sacrilege. The only time you were really allowed to add instruments to singing in Gaelic way back, was the harp, and I wasn’t playing the harp like that. So we were kind of regarded as being traitors.”
They were not alone. The Dublin-based band Horslips went several steps further around the same time, mixing traditional Gaelic songs with rock’n’roll, creating rock symphonies based on the traditional works. This was obviously sacrilege of the gravest kind. Clannad didn’t go that far, but certainly also pushed the envelope of a very conservative genre, and purists hated them. At the same time, contemporary artists didn’t understand them. “People thought it was a bit mad that we were singing Gaelic songs,” Moya recalled. “People used to say to us, ‘Listen, you’ll not get anywhere doing that.'”
When a folk revival took hold in Ireland, however, folks were more welcoming to their contemporary take on tradition. Between 1980-82 another Brennan sibling joined the line-up: their youngest sister and soon-to-be-famous singer/keyboardist Enya. During that period Clannad got even bolder with their sound, trading traditional acoustic instruments for synthesizers, horns, and electric pianos.
1982 saw the band at a crossroads. Enya decided to go out her own, embracing the more ambient and atmospheric aspects of folk whereas Clannad stretched towards more contemporary sounds. The split happened just as Clannad got a new record deal with RCA.
Also at that time, Clannad caught the attention of novelist Gerald Seymour, whose best-selling book Harry’s Game was being made into a British miniseries. He had heard their music and was keen to see it used in the series.
The story of Harry’s Game centres on a British spy who went undercover in Northern Ireland during the violent conflict known as The Troubles. Spending time amongst members of the IRA leads him down unexpected paths, and he eventually finds himself in a no-win scenario.
Clannad were hesitant to get involved with anything political, but they liked the story’s message about the futility of killing and liked the thought that the music could potentially underline that aspect.
Seymour initially wanted to use Clannad’s Scottish-Gaelic tune Mhorag’s Na Horo Gheallaidh as the theme, which the band had released as a single in 1981 and included on their sixth album Fuaim in 1982. The band thought Irish-language lyrics would be more appropriate for the story and it was agreed that they would make that song from scratch.
In order to contrast the horror of the three-part TV drama, they came up with what Pól Brennan later described as a ‘hymn’. The verse took inspiration from a Connacht Irish proverb in a 1948 anthology, glossed by Moya Brennan as “Everything that is and was will cease to be.” This was considered appropriate to the miniseries’ depiction of the futility of political violence.
Moya recalled in a 1993 interview, “Ciarán elaborated on the proverb with the moon and the stars, the East and the West, a young man and his fame. It was a kind of lament. The ‘Fol lol the doh’ part was really mouth music, if you think of a fiddle playing; Fol de liddle, taddle do, diddley idle oh. Well we just slowed it down because of the sentiment of what we were singing, we sang it very slowly. We wrote it in a couple of hours and thought, great, it’s a nice tune and everything, but we didn’t realize the sound we created had developed over the six albums before with all the experimentations we did with words and voices and harmonies.”
Imtheochaidh soir is siar
A dtainig ariamh
An ghealach is an ghrian
Fol lol the doh fol the day
Fol the day fol the day
The song was written “in a couple of hours”, credited to Pól and Ciarán Brennan. It was the first song the band had attempted after their decision to move away from traditional Irish music arrangements towards lush slow layers of synthesiser and vocal harmony, and the song marked the arrival of what would become their signature style for the next decade.
There were early signs that the song was going to be special for the band. They were invited to London to watch Harry’s Game at a full theatre of press. All three episodes were shown, with a short intermission between each. At the end of the first one, people started getting up and going out the moment the credits hit, meaning they didn’t really pay attention to the theme which played during the credits. The band members could not help but feel a little disappointed, but after the second episode a lot less people got up. After the final episode, with its poignant ending, the theatre just went to dark and not one person moved as they all sat there, clearly moved by the music following what they’d seen. It was a powerful moment.
The single was released in October 1982, and following the airing of the TV drama, sales started taking off.
“We went on to Germany to do this folk tour,” Pól told Prog in 2020, “and within 10 days we were flying back to do Top of the Pops – it was just mind-boggling! It was a lot smaller than I thought: the show itself just had this huge voice, but what an underwhelming production. That was the moment. Suddenly there was a bidding war for Clannad – that was unreal!”
The song became a big hit in the UK, where it peaked at #5. The song is to date the only British hit single ever to have been sung entirely in Irish. “Appearing on TOTP singing a Gaelic song – you knew something was happening!” Moya told Prog in 2020. “People are asking you, ‘What’s it like writing a hit song?’ We’re looking at them, ‘We didn’t write it as a hit song!’”
Pól says he’d have no problem at all if Clannad are only ever remembered for Harry’s Game. “It made the change from doing okay to being a million-selling band,” he argues.
After the success of the single, RCA delayed the release of the group’s next album, Magical Ring, so they could include the track on the album. It helped fuel the success of their 1983 album Magical Ring, but an even bigger TV tie-in was waiting around the corner as they went on to create the BAFTA-winning music for the Robin of Sherwood TV show, featured on their next album Legend (1984). But that is another story…
U2 can be found amongst the people who count themselves as fans of the track. They would immediately start using this track as their concert outro music during their War Tour in 1982 and 1983, as heard on their live film U2 Live At Red Rocks: Under A Blood Red Sky. Bono was also thrilled to join Clannad on their 1986 track In A Lifetime.
It would take a bit longer for the song to make an impression in the US. In 1992, it was used in the political thriller Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford, in a scene where an IRA member watches the music video on television. The song got further exposure in the form of a TV commercial for the Volkswagen Passat. Viewers were less concerned with the vehicle and more interested in the unique song. They flooded Volkswagen’s customer service line with inquiries about the record.
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