Order the CD
Get the digital album
Welcome to the ITSC John Donovan Project
Download the sheet music of all six songs from the John Donovan records.
In June 1945, Inishowen singer John Donovan(1914–1949) travelled to Dublin to record six songs on three gramophone discs, later issued under HMV’s Regal Zonophone and Columbia labels. That summer marked a high point in the career of the Peninsula’s most popular entertainer of the day.
As a soloist and as a member of ‘The Victory Band’, and the ‘Seaside Serenaders’, he sang and played the fiddle to packed halls and venues across Inishowen and north Ulster in the 1930s and 1940s, with audiences enjoying nights of singing and dancing. He was sought after to play at Big Nights, and to entertain guests and visitors to local Big Houses and Farren’s Bar in Malin Head. His voice filled the homes of rural Ireland and the diaspora from gramophone players and wireless radio.
Children of Scoil Naomh Mhuire, Malin Head singing “My Lovely Irish Rose” with Lorna McLaughlin (The Henry Girls).
Filmed by Bob Gallagher
However a life that should have held such promise was to sadly end on 28 April 1949 when John was found dead outside Carndonagh Hospital aged only 35. In an Ireland of concealed and unspoken loss, his life was to gradually fade into obscurity, remaining little more than a folk memory among an older generation.
Now in 2026, with the support of the Arts Council and Donegal County Council Arts Office, the three 78 rpm discs loaned by Malin Head Community Centre have been digitised by Alan Morrisroe, remastered by Harry Bradshaw and republished by ITSC. We add this contribution to the earlier efforts of John’s family, Jimmy McBride and others to restore John’s name and legacy.
The six songs are now available to purchase on CD and download, and are enhanced with a number of resources here on the ITSC website.
We hope the John Donovan articles will give you a more realistic picture of: John’s life on Inishtrahull Island and Malin Head; the famed position he held as a singer and musician in 1930s and 1940s Ireland, and a better understanding of his untimely death in 1949.
For ITSC, the ambition was that a voice recorded over 80 years ago would once again be heard and his songs learned and sung. It was with such pleasure and pride that the John Donovan Project Launch which took place in the Ballyliffin Hotel, on 21 March 2026, was marked so beautifully by not only hearing John’s voice, but that of the children of Malin Head National School, Marty Smyth and Inishowen Trad Choir singing John’s songs.
The John Donovan Project will continue as we gather and film stories and reminiscences of John’s life from those who remember him. The proceeds of the sale of the CD and download will be used to fund this next phase of the project so your support is greatly appreciated.
