Billy Patterson: Narrator of Joyful Pilgrimage: In the wake of St Columba
To narrate Joyful Pilgrimage we needed someone whose voice would conjure up the spirit and sound of Ireland. Our search quickly led to one of the few remaining crew members from the 1963 voyage, Billy Patterson of Letterkenny, Donegal. Billy not only had the curragh experience but was known throughout Ireland as a celebrity and broadcaster. Now in his mid-eighties, would he take it on?
Billy was the youngest crew member on the curragh in 1963. After the voyage, he became a founding member of The Pattersons, an Irish folk band. The group released 5 LPs and achieved international recognition in the late 1960s and ’70s. They are remembered for their 13 appearances on the Morecambe & Wise show (in the UK) and for playing at the Albert Hall, among many other venues in the UK and USA. You can watch a compilation of their songs here, and their final live performance (highly recommended), here.
In 1990, Billy was one of the founders of Highland Radio, a local radio station broadcasting from Letterkenny, Donegal. He was the station’s first voice and has been a broadcaster there ever since. Highland Radio has the highest market share of any local station within the Republic of Ireland.
A narrator for Joyful Pilgrimage? He seemed too good to be true. A curragh crew member, broadcaster, Irish celebrity, with access to a recording studio and expertise. But would he take it on?
Jonathan Barry, son of the author of Joyful Pilgrimage, knew him, of course, from the curragh voyage. He visited him in Donegal, told him of our project, and put me (in Melbourne, Australia) in touch with him.
So began an email exchange that has entertained me ever since.
Yes, he would read it. But just the central chapters. Not the stuff about St Columba or the curragh. Or the introduction. Yes, he would record it at Highland Radio. His sound engineer, Canice Wilson, would look after the technical side. He’d go through the text and might do a bit of editing. Some things weren’t quite right… And so he went on. Somehow our email conversation got on to two books he’d written (Robert’s War and Troubled Island), both available on Amazon, and how he and his wife had driven from Donegal to the far side of the Sahara and back in a long-wheelbase Landrover called Matilda without even getting a puncture.
Not a man to waste time, his first recording soon arrived. Immediately listening, I was transported to a cottage in Donegal; it was a dark wet night, the wind roaring in the chimney. Billy (now in his mid-eighties) and I were sitting around a cosy peat fire when he turned to me, putting his glass down, and started to speak,. ‘The story of the Iona curragh began, as far as I was concerned….’ The words were John Barry’s but the teller, after all these years, was his crewman, Billy Patterson. More fitting than I could ever have imagined. And the recordings kept coming. Chapter by chapter. Listening to his rhythmic lilting voice I discovered aspects of the story I’d missed when reading it myself.
You can listen to Billy yourself. The audiobook is on Spotify, all the main audiobook sellers and soon on Amazon Audible.