FOR Andy Irvine, Woody Guthrie has never been merely an influence.
He has been a companion, an influence to some degree, across a lifetime.
Just to remind you: Guthrie was one of America’s most influential folk singers and songwriters. Born in Oklahoma in 1912, his songs chronicled, among many other topics and causes, poverty, injustice and the people working the land.
This bond between Guthrie and Irvine lies at the heart of Devoted: Songs of Woody Guthrie, Irvine’s new album, released at the beginning of September. Bringing together 11 Guthrie compositions and one song of Irvine’s own, it completes a project that had been taking shape for more than 30 years.
Andy IrvineIrvine first encountered Guthrie’s name on the sleeve of a Lonnie Donegan record while growing up in London. (The Glasgow-born Irish Scot was an inspiration to a generation of musicians in Britain and Ireland.) Irvine subsequently found More Songs by Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston in a record-shop window. He knew he had discovered the music he had been seeking.
The connection became unexpectedly personal. As a teenager, Irvine corresponded with Guthrie through Sid Gleason, who helped care for the American singer while he was seriously ill with Huntington’s disease. Irvine sent tape recordings of songs and was later told that Guthrie had sung along with them.
Devoted carries that youthful enthusiasm into the present day. Recorded between 2019 and 2025 with support from the Arts Council of Ireland, it places Guthrie’s American songs inside arrangements informed by Irvine’s long immersion in Irish and European folk music.
The collection includes Buffalo Skinners, Pastures of Plenty, Rambling Round Your City, 1913 Massacre and Tom Joad. The subjects are unmistakably Guthrie’s: migrant workers, poverty, injustice, political struggle and people obliged to live at the mercy of more powerful forces.
Yet this is no exercise in imitation. Irvine sings the material in his own voice, one of the most distinctive in the folk music of these islands. He accompanies himself on bouzouki, mandola, bassouki, guitar and harmonica.
Dónal Lunny, Bruce Molsky, Michael McGoldrick, John Doyle, Rens van der Zalm and Nikola Parov provide a richly varied supporting cast, bringing in everything from uilleann pipes and fiddle to banjo, kaval and nyckelharpa.
Produced by Flood, the album closes with Irvine’s Never Tire of the Road. Written as a tribute to Guthrie, it includes an additional verse and a chorus drawn from Guthrie’s defiant You Fascists Bound to Lose.
The title Devoted is well chosen. This is not simply a collection of cover versions but the settling of an old debt: an Irish folk musician, now in his eighties, returning with gratitude to the man whose songs first showed him which road to take.
Devoted by Andy Irvine is available here.
From child actor to giant of Irish folk music
LONG before he became one of the defining figures in Irish folk music, Andy Irvine appeared to be heading for a very different kind of career.
Born in London in 1942 to a mother from Lisburn, Co. Antrim, and a Scottish father, Irvine was eight when he secured his first film role, playing Jimmy in A Tale of Five Cities. The picture starred Bonar Colleano and Barbara Kelly, with Gina Lollobrigida appearing in scenes filmed separately in Italy.
Television work followed. At 13 he played Nokie in the children’s series Round at the Redways, a commitment which led him to leave boarding school and pursue acting professionally. He appeared in television dramas including The Magpies, Escape to Happiness and Run to Earth, and portrayed the young television pioneer John Logie Baird in A Voice in Vision.
By his late teens, however, acting had lost some of its appeal. Music was taking over. Irvine had studied classical guitar — initially with the celebrated Julian Bream — before the skiffle craze and Lonnie Donegan led him towards American folk music and Woody Guthrie.
After two years with the BBC Repertory Company, Irvine moved to Dublin in 1962. He continued acting for a time, but increasingly found his home among the singers and musicians gathering in O’Donoghue’s pub.
In 1966 he formed Sweeney’s Men with Johnny Moynihan and Joe Dolan, later replaced by Terry Woods. The group helped widen the horizons of the Irish ballad boom, mixing Irish material with songs and influences from Britain and America.
Irvine subsequently travelled through Eastern Europe, absorbing the unusual rhythms of Bulgarian music. Those discoveries fed into Planxty, the ground-breaking group he formed with Christy Moore, Dónal Lunny and Liam O’Flynn in the early 1970s.
His later career has encompassed the celebrated Andy Irvine/Paul Brady album, Patrick Street, Mozaik, Usher’s Island and an extensive body of solo work. He also helped establish the bouzouki as a central instrument in modern Irish traditional music.
In 2018, Irvine received the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards. The child actor had long since found the role that suited him best: singer, musician, traveller and tireless keeper of songs.
September 2026 UK Tour dates with QUILTY:
Thursday, September 24: Birnam Arts, Birnam, Dunkeld
Saturday, September 26: The Hug & Pint, Glasgow - Matinee Show
Sunday, September 27: National Centre For Early Music (NCEM), York
Monday, September 28: The Lowther Pavilion Theatre, Lytham St Annes
Tuesday, September 29: Victoria Hall, Settle
Wednesday, September 30: The Greystones, Sheffield
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