‘Who then, who will lead the van?’

My new favorite version of Patrick Galvin’s iconic song.  It has a loss about it that none of the other versions I’ve heard before have.  It is a lament, but not of the fire-side type.  There’s no comfort in Connolly’s ghost invisibly guiding the Irish working class as it hovers in their consciousness here.   Here, Connolly’s ghost hovers as a reminder of loss and of failure.  Liam Weldon sings the song from the bottom of a grave, not atop a funeral pyre.  “Where, oh where is our James Connolly?”  Where oh where is our James Connolly?”  “Where, oh where, is our James Connolly?” “Who then who will lead the van?”