Christy Moore recalls garda detectives raiding album launch as "a memorable event"

Christy Moore has recalled when members of the Garda Special Detective Unit raided a launch for one of his albums.

The singer produced H Block in 1978, an album released to highlight issues republican prisoners were facing in the Maze Prison during The Troubles in the North.

Moore spoke to All-Ireland winner Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning on their Free State Podcast about the album, which Brolly's father Francie featured on, and the raid by detectives.

READ MORE:Joe Brolly's act of kindness to family of murdered Garda Colm Horkan recalled after RTE Late Late Show appearance

Asked if he ever thought about "taking a step back" due to the heat his involvement in political issues was bringing on himself, Moore replied: "Not really, no. The special branch raiding the launch of the H Block album gave it really an essential bit of publicity because nobody would have known about it until that happened.

"I remember very well sitting up there at the table with Piaras Ó Dúill and people from the relatives action group committee and in the branch came. Looking back on it now, it was just a memorable event and I'm so glad the way people came together for that album as well.

"Matt Molloy played on it, Stephen Ray read two Bobby Sands poems, the late Dan Dowd played pipes on it, Donal Lunny, Mick Hanly, everybody just came on board and we made that album and I'm very proud of that album."

Explaining where his political interests come from, the 78-year-old added: "My dad was in Fine Gael, but Máirín de Burca said to me recently, I met her and she says she remembers in the 50s being at a collection for prisoners at the chapel gates and she was getting harassed and my father came over and stood beside her and she always reckoned after that that my father was a socialist who somehow ended up in Fine Gael."

He continued: "My mother was very involved in politics. When daddy died, she took up his seat on the county council in the town commissioners and after a while she jumped ship from Fine Gael and went independent and my sister Terry was in Sinn Fein and was a candidate for European elections in the early European elections for Sinn Fein.

"So from early on there was an awareness in the family of the different sides of the road, but my father and my mother were always involved in helping anybody they could help."

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