Dónal Lunny

Dónal Lunny died of cancer on the morning of Friday 23 October 2026 at St James's Hospital in Dublin, aged 79. He had been seriously ill since 2024, when major surgery forced the cancellation of The Bothy Band's reunion concerts, and documentary maker Nuala O'Connor said he suffered his first serious bout of illness while her film about him was being made.

The Irish Traditional Music Archive announced his death on Friday morning, saying his musical life was founded on creativity, friendship and collaboration and that his election to Aosdána reflected the wider significance of his contribution to Irish artistic life. Broadcaster Philip King called his contribution immense and described him as the Quincy Jones of Irish producers, while friends and collaborators across Irish music hailed him as a genius. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of the first reports.

Dónal Lunny was born on 10 March 1947 in Tullamore, County Offaly. His father, Frank, came from Enniskillen in County Fermanagh, and his mother, Mary Rogers, from Ranafast in the Rosses of County Donegal. They raised four boys and five girls, and Dónal was the middle child. The family moved to Newbridge, County Kildare, when he was five.

He was musical from the start, learning the harmonica at six and later teaching himself drums, bodhrán, guitar, bass, mandolin and keyboards. He went to Newbridge College and in 1963 moved to the Patrician Brothers' school for his Intermediate Certificate year. Christy Moore, two years ahead of him at school, later recalled meeting him in 1959 and remembering mostly his lack of homework and his love of trying to tickle trout in the Liffey. As teenagers Lunny, his elder brother Frank and Moore played pubs as the Rakes of Kildare.

In 1965 he enrolled at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, where he studied basic and graphic design for three years. He became a skilled gold and silversmith, but practised the craft only briefly before devoting himself to music.

In Dublin Lunny played in The Parnell Folk and then Emmet Folk, which ran The 95 Club on Harcourt Street. Emmet Folk merged with the Byrne brothers of Spiceland Folk to form Emmet Spiceland, a harmony trio whose debut album The First appeared in 1968 and whose single Mary from Dungloe reached number one in Ireland.

In 1970 he formed a duo with Andy Irvine, and the two ran a club night called The Mug's Gig downstairs at Slattery's pub on Capel Street. After they and Liam O'Flynn played on Christy Moore's 1971 album Prosperous, the four formed Planxty, which played its first professional show at Slattery's in early 1972 and became the leading voice of Irish traditional instrumental music. Lunny left in 1974 to form The Bothy Band, whose fiery playing was hugely influential before the group split in 1979. In 1981 he reunited with Moore to found Moving Hearts with the young piper Davy Spillane, combining traditional tunes with rock and jazz until 1985. The band reunited in 2007 and toured again in 2008 and 2009.

After Moving Hearts he turned increasingly to production. He was involved in founding Mulligan Records and produced and played on albums for Paul Brady, Elvis Costello, Indigo Girls, Sinéad O'Connor, Clannad, Baaba Maal and others, played with Kate Bush and Mark Knopfler, contributed synthesiser to Mary Black's No Frontiers and was producer and music director of the 1990 BBC series Bringing It All Back Home. He scored the Irish film Eat the Peach.

He kept forming new groups: Coolfin in 1998, Mozaik with Irvine from 2002, LAPD with O'Flynn, Irvine and Paddy Glackin from 2012, Usher's Island from 2015, and a trio with Zoë Conway and Máirtín O'Connor from 2016. He also presented television series including Sult and Lorg Lunny, in which he built an acoustic drum kit designed for Irish traditional music.

Lunny was the brother of the musician and producer Manus Lunny. His first marriage was to Judy Slott, with whom he had a son, Oisín, a musician who was part of the hip hop group Marxman. His daughter Cora Venus Lunny, a violinist and composer, was born to his relationship with the German photographer Julie Buthe. He later married the Japanese musician Hideko Itami, and they had a daughter, Sora. He also had a son, Shane, with the singer Sinéad O'Connor; Shane died in January 2022, aged 17. His granddaughter Phoebe Lunny fronts the punk group Lambrini Girls.

Friends described him as a natural musician without ego who lived for playing. In 2024 he fell seriously ill and underwent major surgery, forcing The Bothy Band to cancel its reunion concerts for that year. He left hospital for a day late in 2024 to film a song with Christy Moore for a documentary, and in September 2025 made a surprise return to the stage in Cork with Andy Irvine.

Lunny is credited with bringing the bouzouki into the heart of Irish traditional music, adapting a Greek instrument with a flat back to suit the music's open accompaniment, and with giving traditional bands new harmonic and rhythmic foundations. Through Planxty, The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts he helped define the sound of modern Irish folk, and as a producer he shaped records for many of Ireland's best known artists. Philip King said that Irish music would not sound as it does today without him, hearing his influence in younger acts such as Amble and Kingfishr. He was a member of Aosdána and received the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2025.