The final resting place of Luke Kelly and Christy Brown

Intro music courtesy of Jory Nash www.Jorynash.com
Link to Ronnie Drew video
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Luke Kelly
Luke was born into a working-class family in Lattimore Cottages at 1 Sheriff Street. His maternal grandmother, who was a MacDonald from Scotland, lived with the family until her death in 1953. His father who was Irish- also named Luke - was shot and severely wounded as a child by British soldiers from the King's Own Scottish Borderers during the 1914 Bachelor's Walk massacre. He was taken to Jervis Street hospital with a bullet wound through the lung and was not expected to recover.
His father worked all his life in Jacob's biscuit factory and enjoyed playing football. The elder Luke was a keen singer: Luke junior's brother Paddy later recalled that "he had this talent... to sing negro spirituals by people like Paul Robeson, we used to sit around and join in — that was our entertainment". After Dublin Corporation demolished Lattimore Cottages in 1942, the Kellys became the first family to move into the St. Laurence O’Toole flats, where Luke spent the bulk of his childhood, although the family were forced to move by a fire in 1953 and settled in the Whitehall area. Both Luke and Paddy played club Gaelic football and soccer as children.
Kelly left school at thirteen and after a number of years of odd-jobbing, he went to England in 1958.
Kelly himself spoke about his problems with alcohol.

Christy Brown
Christy was born into a working-class Irish family at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin in June 1932.
Social worker Katriona Delahunt became aware of his story and began to visit the Brown family regularly, while bringing Christy books and painting materials as, over the years, he had shown a keen interest in the arts and literature. He had also demonstrated extremely impressive physical dexterity since, soon after discovering several household books, Christy had learned to both write and draw himself, with the only limb over which he had unequivocal control: his left leg. Brown quickly matured into a serious artist. Although Brown famously received almost no formal schooling during his youth, he did attend St Brendan's School-Clinic in Sandymount intermittently. At St Brendan's he came in contact with Robert Collis, a noted author. Collis discovered that Brown was also a natural novelist and, later, Collis helped use his own connections to publish My Left Foot, by then a long-gestating autobiographical account of Brown's struggle with everyday life amidst the vibrant culture of Dublin.
When My Left Foot became a literary sensation.
Death
Brown died at the age of 49 after choking during a lamb chop dinner.
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