Dan Milner

It was reported on 29 September 2023 by the Inishowen Traditional Singers’ Circle that Dan Milner passed away on 27 September 2023.

“In the early 1970s he established the Eagle Tavern Folk Club in NYC. He ran weekly concerts there for 10 years attracting the best of traditional singers and musicians from here and abroad. He was a founding member of the acclaimed band, The Flying Cloud, who performed in the USA including the 1977 Philadelphia Folk Festival. Their one, eponymous recording, was with Adelphi Records. In 1983 he published his first book, The Bonnie Bunch of Roses: Songs of England, Ireland & Scotland.

“Though work dominated his life at this time, he still kept a hand in music by going to sessions and concerts whenever possible. He met his beloved wife Bonnie at one such session at the Eagle Tavern. They were wed in 1989 and she encouraged him to get back to singing which led to a rich and rewarding life.

“Over the years Dan made five CDs: three for Folk Legacy Records – Irish Ballads and Songs of the Sea, Irish in America, and Irish Songs from Old New England and two for Smithsonian Folkways: Civil War Naval Songs and Irish Pirate Ballads and Other Songs of the Sea.”  [Inishowen Traditional Singers’ Circle statement.]

“Dan Milner was a singer of traditional Irish songs, a scholar-teacher and a writer. Born Daniel Michael Milner on March 27, 1945 in Birmingham, England to an Irish mother, Nora Mary Cremin of Brosna, Co. Kerry, and an Irish-English father, Willam Milner, he is the younger brother of Liam Donal Padraig Milner (1940-2008), who was also a fine singer. The Milner family moved frequently following World War II, the result being the brothers grew up in far-flung localities including Birmingham, Ballybunion, Co. Kerry, Toronto, Canada and Brooklyn, New York.”
[Wikipedia]