PADDY IN LONDON:
Previously Unreleased Recordings from 1965
PADDY TUNNEY (2025)
What is Paddy in London?
Paddy in London is an electronic LP released by the Tunney Song Tradition Trust in 2025. It features recordings made by Paddy Tunney during a tour of English folk clubs in the early summer of 1965.
The tour was organised by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, who had been trying for several years to persuade Paddy to come to London.
The 1965 English Tour
Paddy appears to have spent 15 nights in England, performing 13 gigs along the way.
The tour began on Sunday 23 May 1965 at the Singers Club in the New Merlin Cave, King’s Cross, London. From there, Paddy travelled to Ipswich, Colchester, Stoke, Wolverhampton, and Grimsby.
He also appeared at the Royal Festival Hall as a guest of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
Recording with Topic Records
During the same trip, Paddy found time to record two influential LPs for Topic Records: A Wild Bees’ Nest, released in 1965, and The Irish Edge, released in 1966.
Both albums were recorded by the legendary Bill Leader and became important documents of Paddy’s singing at a remarkable moment in his career.
The BBC Sound Archives Session
Arrangements for the English tour had been made during the previous winter. By February 1965, Marie Slocombe of the BBC Sound Archives had written to Paddy inviting him to record for the BBC while he was in London.
A two-hour recording session was arranged for 27 May 1965, from 2.30pm to 4.30pm, in a studio at Portland Place, close to Oxford Circus.
Fourteen Songs, Sixty Years Later
Over the course of that session, Paddy recorded 14 songs. These included Moorlough Mary, The Lowlands of Holland, The Green Fields of Canada, When a Man’s in Love, and The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow.
Each song includes a substantial spoken introduction, suggesting that these recordings capture the kind of “one-take wonders” for which Paddy was famous in his younger days.
Sixty years after they were recorded, Paddy in London brings all 14 tracks together and makes them available for the very first time.
You can access all 14 of Paddy’s recording using the playlist at the link below
Sheila Nee Eyre (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREThe May Morning Dew (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREThe Lowlands of Holland (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREMoorlough Mary (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREBonnie Tavern Green (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREWee Paddy Molloy (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREThe Green Fields of Canada (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREEaster Snow (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREThe Lark in the Morning (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREI Once had a True Love (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREThe Rollicking Boys around Tandragee (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREWhen a Man’s in Love he Feels no Cold (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREDeartháirín Ó Mo Chroí (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HEREThe Mountain Streams Where the Moorcrocks Crow (1965)
Archive: Find the Song Text HERE