Bob Dylan called Liam Clancy the best ballad singer he’d ever heard. In his memoir  The Mountain of the Women, Doubleday (2002), Clancy describes his life as an actor and Irish troubadour. He and his brothers, “The Clancy Brothers,” became successful during the late 50’s folk boom.  His two careers fed each other.  He says he transformed his singing performances by seeing them as acting roles, trying to make the results conform to his inner voice. He also says, “Plays, like songs, show their worth very quickly to an actor involved in a run of any length. There are songs I have been singing for decades, through thousands of performances, that still move me, that continue to show new facets and layers.”