Tom Crean

Tom Crean (RIP)

Tom Crean was a member of Warp Four/The Press Gang.  He passed to Fiddlers’ Green on 8 Sept 2013.

“A kind of fame came with the formation of The Press Gang, an eclectic bunch who, in their then current manifestation (not the first), surprised this writer on first encounter by singing several songs heard first from the Copper and Waterson families (this would have been between 1967 and 1970). The Pressies went through more than one team-sheet but, at that time, worked clubs and other venues all over Dublin (Trinity College Ball one unlikely venue) with a line-up comprised of Tom, Niall Fennell (who also played the French horn – sometimes, indeed, in Slattery’s), Dave Smythe, a photographer at The Rotunda hospital and possessed of a brilliantly wicked wit, and the talented Sean Corcoran – who got things done, often – it seemed – in spite of himself, especially in his home county of Louth and out collecting songs – he it was who introduced me to Mary Anne Carolan, a sublime encounter. The boys were most frequently bewildered by their success, even when they retired and then re-formed for the occasional gig: ‘Who are these ould fellahs …?’ They did make an almost obligatory LP record (a proud possession of mine) but were never, so to speak, wooed commercially.” — Musical Traditions, Roly Brown