Music was the main form of entertainment wherever people gathered together. “Well, there was little else to do to keep you out of trouble. I remember going away over to my sister’s farm to see the cattle. I took Charlie Waters with me expecting to be but an hour or two. We were holed up for four days in a deserted house 'till I had every damn song he ever knew, and vice versa!”
        Packie’s life was filled with the songs and stories of those around him. His mother was a fine singer, as was Gran-Uncle Pat and Gran-Aunt ‘Big’ Bridget Sweeny. Every household had a musician in those days and there’d be a sooty, blackened fiddle hanging on the flag across the wall over the hearth. Packie’s father, Con Byrne was a matchmaker and would often be called across the mountains to discuss the merits of a suitable woman over a drink. “He was bred into compulsive talking and could always persuade any listener of the virtues of a particular wife: ‘That woman’d take music out of a fresh loaf!’ he’d say.” He was himself a fine singer though he preferred comedy songs and supplied plenty of comic material for Packie’s stories. He gave Packie many songs, amongst them a marathon with twenty four verses to it that Packie had once sung as slowly as he could while his dad was waiting to get away to a Poteen gathering, until he leapt up saying, “That’s not a song, that’s a bloody endurance test!”

Packie Byrne can be heard on: VT132CD