Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Legendary Irish folk musician and protest singer, known for unparalleled influence and controversial, politically charged lyrics.
On the island
Eight records
Well, the first singer who caught my attention was my mother. My mother sang all the time. She sang at the sink, she sang in the kitchen, and she also sang in the Dominican church in Newbridge and County Kildare. And that was always a very strange sensation to be at Mass on Sunday morning and to hear my mother in the organ loft singing sometimes Ave Maria.
Well I befriended Mike Watterson in the late 60s when I played in his folk club, or the family folk club in Hull. And this song I heard his brother-in-law Martin Carthy sing it and I just thought it was very very powerful and it's one of those songs that people don't quite know how to react to it. I think it's a really good piece of writing.
In my earlier days I used to play piano, but what I loved to do then was to try and play early rock'n'roll. And this is one of the songs I used to play on the piano and I used to sing.
Well the Clancy brothers changed my life. I heard the Clancy Brothers and I averted my gaze from Elvis and Buddy Holly and all those American rock'n'roll singers and I heard this sound that was in my own dialect. I heard these songs that I seemed to know and it was every bit as exciting and I wanted some of it.
Táimse im' ChodladhFavourite
I first heard the Ilen pipes when I was 17 or 18 and it so happened that the first player I heard was also the player I perceived to be the best, Liam O'Flynn from Kildare and he was a member of Planksty along with myself, Andy Irvine and Donald Lunny. And this piece of music is very special to me for many different reasons, but probably mostly because of the way it sounds.
When I first heard Luke Kelly sing I was very, very struck, not only by the power of his voice, but by the emotion he he put into his singing. I worshipped Luke Kelly because of the way he sang. And I would love to hear Luke Kelly sing the Ballad of Johil.
Well, as I said, I first encountered Ewan in his club in King's Cross about nineteen sixty eight, and right through I would keep hearing new McCall songs, and then when I heard this song, The Joy of Living, which I believe may have been his last song. I thought what a beautiful way to mark. The end.
I heard John Riley first. I was seventeen or eighteen. And John was a a man of the road, a knight of the road. He was a tinker man, but he had a store of the most beautiful songs. I never forget John Reilly he's with me all the way along the way, and I still sing some of his songs, but not so often these days. But when I do I'm imbued with the spirit of his singing, and uh it's it's a beautiful thing.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:05Would you regard yourself as a romantic?
Now that you've asked the question, perhaps I would regard myself in that way. But I think a carrier of news. The old ballad singers used to um carry the news. They would sing the songs on the streets and sell their broadsheets. And I think perhaps some of the s these songs carry my version of the news.
Presenter asks
9:41What do you remember about the impact of your father's death when you were eleven?
Well, it it was the biggest thing in all our lives, and to this day we we still uh w were affected greatly by it. He went in to have a toenail removed. And uh something went wrong and uh he didn't survive the toenail being removed. ... My next memory of it was I was in fifth class in national school, and the priest, Father McNally, came in, and Father McNally told me in nineteen fifty six that I think you should go home. I think your mammy wants to see you. And when I got home I knew there was something awry. The house was in darkness, and all the neighbours were there. I remember a man called Joe McGown, a neighbour, saying to me, You're the man of the house now.
Presenter asks
21:37What actually happened when you released the H-Block album?
Well, there was a launch in the Brazenhead in Dublin, and the launch was raided by the Special Branch, and they took everybody's name and address, and they confiscated all the albums. And of course you couldn't have better publicity for an album. Everybody in the country wanted it after that, so the Special Branch did a right bit of PR for us.
The keepsakes
The luxury
A SET OF ILIN PIPES. They say it takes twenty one years to master the Illin Pipes, and I would have the time to dedicate it, and my playing would not be infringing on anybody else.
Presenter asks
24:44Why did your sympathy for the IRA stop abruptly in 1987?
I suppose Enniskillen Enniskillen and then Warrington and Proxy bombs. ... It was just the end of um the line for me. I I could no longer Support the armed struggle.
Presenter asks
28:09What happened when you suffered a complete breakdown in the late nineties?
Well, certainly what happened to me initially was much more than a panic attack. Everything was taken from me. And I could not communicate with anybody, I could not go out the door, answer the phone, pick up the guitar. And uh I really believed I would never walk again.
“I simply get lost in performance. Uh I feel like I'm in a place that I cannot be reached. And I believe in performance it's the three elements of the song, the singer and the listener that make for the magic that sometimes happens at concerts.”
“I've developed a a relationship with my father over the years, and uh in the last twelve or fifteen years I have a really good relationship with him now. I talked to both of them and um It seems to help.”
“I still suffer to this day from anger. It surges up into me sometimes, and it's horrible.”
“I recovered and I came back out and my intention wasn't sufficient. I went back to drink again. And that's when I realized that uh I I can't handle this. I really am I'm beaten here. And that's when my journey began, when I reached out uh for help.”