In this restored programme from the RTÉ Archive Unit, musicians Tony McMahon and Barney McKenna of The Dubliners visit St. Tropez in the South of France as part of their award winning 1978 RTÉ travel and music series: The Green Linnet.
Tony and Barney arrive at St. Tropez and play on a beach where they stand out in their heavy clothes and boots on the beaches filled with tanned topless women! Walking through the streets Barney shows Tony how to work the street taps to drink water. Playing on the side of the street they meet someone from Dublin on a boat. They join him on his boat (called Dublin) for a chat and a drink. Barney plays to natives and one joins him and plays the accordion, he also meets a cousin of his and they play together too.
In this episode Tony plays an extremely beautiful redition of the tune ‘The Green Linnet’.
It began with two men, one banjo, & one accordion. But squeeze boxing the artistic temperaments of Barney Mckenna and Tony McMahon into a green Citroen De Chevaux in 1978 proved to be combustible. Add to the mix a hot summer, German autobahns, sparse food and middling camp sites and their rows reached fever pitch.
So was it all worth it? When the dust had settled, Barney and Tony refused to speak to each other for twenty years. Yet in the year it aired, The Green Linnet TV series won awards across Europe. The use of hand held camera and the mix of music in dramatic settings was seen as innovative. The travelogue of Brittany, St. Tropez, Andorra, Germany and Italy brought Irish audiences straight into the EU.