About Martin Doherty

‘Oh Peggy Gordon you are my darling’. Dedicated followers of folk music will recognise the first line of this popular Scottish folk song, so they will also know the name of one of Australia’s favourite folk singers, Martin Doherty.

‘Peggy Gordon’ was the first song that Martin learned as a child in his native Ireland and his music career began when he won his first singing competition at six years of age singing a song called ‘Cindy Oh Cindy’ at a carnival  in Dublin. Since then he has gone on to much bigger and better things.

Coming to Australia in 1970 with his brother Ned, Martin worked for construction companies during the day, but always found time to play music at night and weekends. The first band he played with was called ‘Bold Crew’, followed by ‘Raglan Road’ and ‘Roisin’.

Coming from a very talented musical family was a good grounding for Martin, his father in particular was a great singer, and that talent has also been passed on to  Martin’s  daughter Tara who often performs live with Martin as well as on his CD’s. Sons Patrick and Matt have also inherited their father’s love of music. Patrick is an artist and Matt a pilot in the Navy, even granddaughter Keira, who is not yet two, loves to play along on the bodhran.

Martin has performed with many of the world’s great bands and artists, including ‘The Dubliners’, Mary Black, Christy Moore, John Denver and ‘The Wiggles’. He particularly enjoyed being involved in the Guinness Irish Music Tours which saw him travel all over Australia performing with many overseas and local artists.

Some highlights of Martin’s career that stand out for him are: being asked by Mick Jagger if Mick  could sing “Wild Colonial Boy” with him at the Mercantile Hotel when he was in Australia filming the Ned Kelly movie; performing the music for the movie ‘Act of Betrayal’ which starred Elliot Gould, and being the first musician  ever to perform at Parliament House in Sydney during the 2004 tour of Irish political leader Gerry Adams.

Martin has always been involved in the Union movement, he is an honorary life member of the CFMEU, and he is always happy to support Union events.

Now living in his “little piece of heaven” at Wallerawang, Martin and his wife Lynne have slowed down their pace considerably. Martin is still writing and performing on a regular basis with guitarist Leigh Birkett. Their recent CD ‘Many Roads’ is selling well, and a CD single that they recorded to support Kidney Health Australia called, ‘March of the Brave’ has been well received.

Martin is at present in the process of setting up a recording studio to be called ‘Bald Rock Studios’ which will give him even more artistic scope and save him quite considerable amounts of time as he will no longer need to travel to record.

When speaking of his involvement with Lithgow Folk Club, Martin expresses how proud and appreciative he is of the talent, friendship and hospitality that is shown by all the musicians who are involved with the Folk Club, and how much he enjoys each session.

Fintan aka Craig Batty

Glenda Phipps

Gary Bucholtz

Linda Mehrtens

Mark Roebuck

Cil Van der Velden