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11 Jan 2026

'You could hear a pin drop'- Late Late Viewers moved to tears over 'stunning performance'

1957 folk singer Peggy Seeger was a special guest on The Late Late Show and wowed the audience with her performance of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”

'You could hear a pin drop'- Late Late Viewers moved to tears over 'stunning performance'

The Late Late Show Trad Special

One of the most iconic folk singers of all time, Peggy Seeger's, was a special guest on RTE's The Late Late Show Trad special, which saw a spectacular night of trad and folk music with musical legends.

90-year-old Peggy spoke to Patrick about her relationship with her late husband Ewan Mac Coll and then she later performed his iconic love song live on the show.

She revealed that Ewan had written the iconic love song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face about her even though they were estranged at the time.

The pair went on to fall in love and got married in the 70s but before that Peggy told Patrick, "I was 21 when I met him, he said he was 39. He was actually 41, and he was married with a child, and that wasn’t my idea of the perfect match. So we were a bit estranged, and I went back to the United States".

Peggy said that she was told by her producers that they wanted her to do love song.

"I was singing American folk songs where somebody’s getting murdered or being shipped away to Australia or something like that, I didn’t have any happy love songs," she said on the show.

She said that she told Ewan this over 'an expensive transatlantic phone call' and that is the moment when Ewan started to sing the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face to her and she wrote it down.

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Peggy said that she didn’t perform the song for two decades after Ewan’s passing in 1989, but after finding love again with her partner Irene, she said that now when she sings it  "I sing it to and from both of my life partners".

Peggy, at 90-years-old, left viewers shocked and moved to tears during her live performance of the song that is so very close to her heart.

One person on social media commented, "Brilliant!. A wonderful lady….and 90years old".

Other people said, "Stunning performance", "Absolutely amazing" and "you could hear a pin drop in the studio".

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