Beyond the legend

He was the real thing. The classic image is of a bobbing afroginger bush of hair atop a scrunched up face as he bellowed out yet another standard with equal parts passion and ferocity. Yet, there was plenty more to Luke Kelly and his music - not least his activism. Easily as important in the Irish music panopoly as Phil Lynott or Rory Gallagher, Kelly was this country's first urban folk hero.

The standard issue story of Luke Kelly can be heard anywhere at any time: born in Dublin's apocryphal "rare auld times", took the emigrants' boat, came back to O'Donoghues pub, hit the heights with The Dubliners, did a bit of protest stuff and then died early from a brain tumour. While this micro-biography is true in essence, a new documentary feature, Luke, does a mighty fine job of filling in the gaps and fleshing out the detail.

Produced by Noel Pearson and narrated by Stephen Rea, Luke not only contains a huge amount of archive material never seen before but also rounds up an impressive list of contributors who all speak eloquently about the man and the myth. For Bono, he was "a communist" who merited comparison with The Rolling Stones and The Clash. For Christy Moore, he was "deeper than political". For Shane McGowan, he was "the finest interpreter of the Irish ballad form". Certainly, if your only recollection of Luke Kelly is his nigh on definitive versions of Raglan Road, Joe Hill and The Town I Loved So Well, there's plenty in this 70 minute documentary to convince you that perhaps his real import, from a historical point of view, was that he was to Ireland what Phil Ochs was to the US and Ewan McColl to Britain in that Kelly's music, at its best, was inseparable from his political commitment.

Born in 1941 into a family of eight children in Sherrif Street Flats, Luke was 12 when the Kellys moved to Whitehall. The next year he left school and shortly after emigrated to Britain where he undertook a variety of labouring jobs. Although previously a big fan of jazz and the Big Band sound, he had something of an epiphany one night in a Newcastle folk club when he heard a rousing version of The Auld Triangle, a song he would so memorably render himself years later. "Hearing that made a tremendous impression on me" he recalled in an interview. "This was a music I could actually sing. Something I could actually dive into, feet first. I really forgot how to listen to anything else. I just wanted to hear folk songs."

Contrary to popular belief, the folk scene at the time in Britain, particularly the Ewan McColl-driven Critics club in London, was far removed from the stereotypical image of men in wooly jumpers singing interminably about dead sailors and fair maidens while they had a finger stuck in their ear. In fact, the folk community were political radicals, and most of them seemed to be either members of CND or the Young Communist League. As the documentary points out, Kelly got his political education in these environs. Such was his immersion in left-wing politics, that he was offered a scholarship at the University of Prague, but he turned it down to concentrate on his music, and to return in Ireland.

When he arrived back in 1962, he found, as the documentary points out, that "the monoliths of church, state and employer as dominant forces were beginning to break down". Right man, right place. With The Dubliners, he set about overhauling the Irish folk/trad image and presenting it on a world stage. While it would be simplistic to describe Kelly as the "political conscience" of the group, he was certainly responsible for moving the group into areas they may not have travelled without him. When RTE banned The Dubliner's Seven Drunken Nights in 1967, it seemed that Kelly and the band were merrily joining others such as Edna O'Brien and John McGahern, who were intent on dragging the country into the 20th century. Culture and social change went hand in hand in an era that is very well evoked.

Despite the success of The Dubliners, Kelly still referred to his "failed ambition" and "lack of focus". The band had become a touring monster, while all Kelly really wanted to do was to sing as he had sung back in the folk clubs in the early 1960s. Expanding his repertoire, he took an acting job (as Herod in the Dublin production of Jesus Christ Superstar) but he soon seemed creatively unsure of himself and was beginning to pay the price for the full-on rock'n'roll excesses of a successful touring band.

Perhaps the most insightful observations on the documentary come from Christy Moore - someone who has occupied very similar space to Luke Kelly. Moore speaks of Kelly's frustration with his role and how he found himself trapped by success.

Kelly's final years, spent with his partner Madeline Seiler (his marriage to Deirdre O'Connell had broken up) were characterised by health problems (he had an operation to remove a brain tumour) and a sudden retreat from music and those around him. He died in 1984, aged 44.

With an admonition from Gerry Adams not to "iconise" the man, or from Christy Moore not to "create an industry" around him, this documentary succeeds in its portrayal of an exhilarating and natural musical talent. If still alive today, he'd probably be doing raps for Talvin Singh or opening for The Rolling Stones. As it is, the only glimpse of what might have been is his amazing rendition, over the final credits, of the amazing Ray Davies' song, Days. And that alone is worth the admission price.

Luke is on RTE1 on Monday, November 1st, at 9.30 p.m. Recommended: Luke Kelly: The Collection, a 36-song collection of his best moments.