Liam Clancy, the youngest of the musical Clancy brothers, moved back from New Hampshire with his wife Kim to a solar-powered house and recording studio designed by their friend Duncan Stewart at Ring, Co Waterford. Kate McMorrow reports.

It's been an incredible journey for singer Liam Clancy, from the house where he grew up in William Street, Carrick-on-Suir to his present home - a palatial solar house by the sea at Ring, Co Waterford.

In between is a story of a rise to fame and fortune that a Louis Walsh boy band would envy. The Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem hit New York's Greenwich Village at the start of the folk music revival in the late 1950s, bowling over audiences with their Tipperary charm and passionate renditions of traditional ballads.

They mixed with the cream of New York music society, befriending up-and-coming stars like Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Barbra Streisand and actors like Robert Redford.

Liam, the youngest of 11, was invited to America by music-loving heiress Diane Guggenheim, who used the name Hamilton to disguise her wealthy background. Here, he met his older brothers Paddy and Tom for the first time - they had left home long before - and, after a brief acting career, began recording under Guggenheim's Tradition Records label.

Through their years in America, Liam and his family spent summers in their cottage in Ring, eventually migrating back for good.

"We had been living in a real old New Hampshire house in the woods with a swimming-pool when I told my wife Kim I'd love to go back. 'I'm not living in that cottage,' she said. 'Build me a house as good as this and we will.'

"So I bought seven acres and built this solar house with a swimming-pool and a recording studio. I put in over 3,000 trees - natural specimens like Scots pine, oak, alder and ash. We even have a hazel grove with a path through, just like W B Yeats."

The youngest Clancy fell in love with Ring when he and his friends The Dubliners "went off on a skite" to Helvick Head during a tour. Dubliner Ciaran Burke had studied at Ring College and it was his suggestion, says Liam.

"We arrived at the little pub just as it was closing and some teachers invited us up to the Irish college for a pint of stout and a session. I woke up in the morning next to Luke Kelly in one of those old converted trains they used to put up excess students.

"I fell in love with this place then and bought a cottage on six acres for £800. Every chance I'd get, I'd come back for an entire summer. I bought a sailboat and learned to sail and scuba dive. We loved the fishing too.

"I remember one day we went with the kids to the Cunnigar, a local sandbar. The kids got hungry and I fed the lot on cockles we picked on the sand. I thought that was paradise - where else could you feed a hoard of kids for free, up to your knees in wonderful warm water?"

The transition from New Hampshire to Ring was easier for their four children because, when living in the US and Canada, every holiday had been spent here. Eben, the eldest, is a video editor with the BBC in London.

Fiona, who's marrying Cork musician John Hegarty in July, is having her reception in the house.

Son Donal, also in the music business, sings with the New York group Solas. Siobhán lives nearby with her husband, sean nós singer Cartagh McGrath, and Ailidh, who is nearly two. "Ailidh is the light of my life," says fond grandparent Liam. "She's 20 months going on 30."

Kim and Liam met at the Abbey Tavern in Howth "when she lent us money to buy drinks for the press. She has dedicated her life to bringing up the family. "

Like many couples, Liam and Kim knew what kind of house they wanted, but had no idea how to translate their dream into bricks and mortar. They were thinking of something eco-friendly, with natural materials to blend in with the spectacular surroundings.

Family friend, architect Duncan Stewart, came to their rescue. Nothing seemed to happen for about a year because a massive rock store was being prepared at the sunny end of the site, using hundreds of tons of crushed limestone.

Heat from the solar panels is stored in the rock, then released back through the house when needed.

"It was working with nature. All the oak planks made the house very much like the underside of a ship. We used pegs instead of nails. I built the recording studio a few paces away from the house, in the same style."

"It's joined to the house by a glassed-in pathway, wide so we can grow vines. Here, you feel like you're going to work, yet you're really at home."

Liam's recording studio has been used by many of the top names in folk music, including the Chieftans and Charlie McGettigan. It has none of the problems which plague city venues, such as keeping a totally dark interior and sound-proofing, says Liam. "We're sound-proofed by our seven acres - the only sounds you hear are the birds singing. Some traditional musicians have included the birdsong on their recording.

"I write here too. On my 60th birthday, I bought a laptop with a typing programme and started writing my memoirs.

"I suffered from panic attacks and stage fright. Writing the book cured me of an intense anger about the Christian Brothers, because we were severely beaten as children. And after telling the story of my sister who died when I was six months old, the stage fright disappeared.

"The bogey men are gone, and now I've taken to writing I don't think I'll ever stop." Memoirs of an Irish Troubadour is published by Virgin Books Ltd.