The Green Linnet Tony Mac Mahon (18 April 1939, Ennis, - to date)
Bernard Noel "Barney" McKenna (16 December 1939, Dublin - 5 April 2012, Howth)
The Green Linnet was a series of six twenty-five minute programmes first broadcast in 1979; later restored and rebroadcast in 2006.
Since then they have been available, from time to time, through RTÉ's TG4 Player. Some programmes may be found on YouTube.
The Green Linnet itself was the green Citroen 2CV van that carried the musicians Tony MacMahon (accordion, anglo concertina) and Barney McKenna (tenor banjo, mandolin) on their travels. The programmes were recorded in the second half of the 1970s and the intention, as explained by
Tony in the first programme, was to follow the inspiration of the last of the travelling pipers, Johnny Doran, and play for 'small pieces of money' on the roads and streets of Ireland and Europe.
The series won awards across Europe on its first showing but it was said that, under the pressures of the trip, Tony and Barney clashed so badly that they did not speak to each other for twenty years.
Their reconciliation allowed for that restoration and rebroadcast in 2006. It also allowed of an entirely new programme,
The Green Linnet Remembered that was filmed in Tony McMahon’s house on Good Friday 2006 and included the series cameraman Seamus Deasy.
part 1 Fleadh, Ennis, County Clare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkhSuGqbpis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUAMpzYzDis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJI7XpeelY part 2 Lanrivain, Brittany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJI7XpeelY [Incomplete, from 5:45 for about five minutes only]
part 2 Lanrivain and Kemper [Quimper], Brittany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG_k8nbBPe8part 3 Germany
part 4 Switzerland Florence Italy
part 5 St Tropez, South of France
https://tg4.ie/en/player/home/?pid=5680612578001&teideal=The%20Green%20Linnet&series=The%20Green%20Linnet&dlft=19part 6 Andorra
https://tg4.ie/en/player/home/?pid=5680634404001&teideal=The%20Green%20Linnet&series=The%20Green%20Linnet&dlft=19Part 4 is
not available on the TG4 Player. And both parts 5 and 6 have only 9 days left to view, as at 25 May 2019.