Cork's Ricky Lynch sings 'A Song for Bernie Sanders'

Cork music legend Ricky Lynch sang in Connolly Hall on Monday evening to welcome US senator Bernie Sanders to the Rebel City.

The veteran progressive politician had already signed the distinguished visitors book in City Hall, where the Lord Mayor of Cork, Green Party councillor Dan Boyle, had gently admonished Mr Sanders for not visiting before.

The senior senator for the state of Vermont, and the longest-serving independent in US congressional history, he is in Cork with his Irish-American wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, who has family connections in Youghal.

Mr Sanders has twice sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, in 2016 and in 2020. He lost out to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and to Joe Biden in 2020.

Mr Lynch, who has for years electrified Cork audiences with his own compositions and with blistering cover versions, said Mr Sanders had held his audience rapt with his speech about US and global politics.

“He’s a great speaker, a great orator, he spoke for a good 10 minutes, it was a small gathering, maybe only about 60 people or so, but he was superb,” Mr Lynch said.

“He spoke about Trump, Musk, Zuckerberg and the effect they have had on the world. It was a brilliant speech.

“I was brought in, just in the heel of the hunt to do two or three songs to bring events to a close.

“I did a version of Dylan’s A Song for Woody, which I rearranged for Bernie, and I did a version of Forever Young, which I thought was kind of apt. It’s a good exhortation.” 

Mr Lynch was himself immortalised recently in Christy Moore’s The Big Marquee, where he was listed alongside the likes of Caitriona Twomey, Don O’Leary, Joe Mac, Hank Wedel and Jim Crowley among his favourite things about Cork.

“Saturday night we’re packed in tight all together in The Big Marquee 

When the man from the Cork Examiner comes up and says to me 

How come you keep coming back to The Rebel every year 

The answer’s plain and simple Mick, the reason’s very clear It’s the reels in Ringaskiddy, it’s the jigs in Haulbowline 

Ricky Lynch singin’ in The Corner House, He’s like a vintage wine 

It’s the crack on Sherkin Island, the Hake in Union Hall 

The Turbot caught upon Cape Clear, you can eat the bones and all."

Both Mr Sanders and Ms O’Meara Sanders were in Connolly Hall for a Siptu event, where they received awards as lifelong members of the Cork Council of Trade Unions.

Mr Sanders and Ms O’Meara Sanders are in Ireland for a few days, and are planning to visit the Mother Jones plaque in Shandon on Tuesday afternoon.