Down GAA has launched a haunting call to the county’s Gaels in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
The GAA clubs of the county have come together to record 'The County Down,' the call from the Mournes to the county’s sons and daughters penned by their own Tommy Sands.
The online collaboration is a virtual coming-together by singers and musicians from 47 clubs.
Down GAA chairman, John Devaney said that with the hiatus in all outdoor GAA activity, members turned to social media for new ways of maintaining interests and connections. Each club was asked to put forward a singer or musician to perform the emotional ballad.
Mr Devaney said 120 people were involved from every club in the county, led by Gareth McGreevy and co-ordinated by Paula Magee.
“The lockdown has unleashed some imaginative ways for members to engage in an interactive and entertaining way. Pulling this together, with so many people involved, has been an impressive feat and the performance is a very professional production,” the Down chairman said.
Folksinger and song writer, Tommy Sands, a member of the legendary Sands Family group who wrote The County Down for his 1990 album Beyond The Shadows, said he was delighted with the production of his song.
“I always feel honoured to hear my songs being recorded by people around the world; but to hear this song from my own place, County Down, being performed so beautifully by young people from every GAA club in this county moves me very deeply indeed.
“It was recorded in these eerie isolation times when young people, unable to be together even for a short time, found a way to celebrate their own native place through music and somehow end up together for all time,” he said.
