'An infrequent conversation between fans of music, some of it long-lost’
The American singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan, who turns 80 years old today, is no stranger to Ireland and to Irish popular culture. So we’ll begin with an obvious reference to the Clancy Brothers, from Tipperary, and Armagh’s Tommy Makem who, in Greenwich Village’s clubs and coffee houses, played re-imagined Irish folk songs that so influenced him... Continue Reading →
The writer and biographer, Johnny Rogan, died on January 21st, 2021. His death was announced on February 12th. Seán Aylward remembers his good friend. The noted music biographer, Johnny Rogan, who died recently in London, was born in 1953 and grew up in England. He was the son of 1940s emigrants from Waterford. He was... Continue Reading →
In 1988 Public Enemy played Trinity College, Dublin. Kieran Cunningham, Chief Sports Writer with the Irish Daily Star, and someone who once had musical notions of his own, wrote an excellent guest post for us back in 2018 about the gig. Since then, some old photographs [courtesy of Trevor Butterworth] have emerged and Kieran's memory... Continue Reading →
Forty years ago, next month, a fire that broke out during a Valentine’s weekend disco at The Stardust nightclub in Artane, on the northside of Dublin, resulted in the deaths of 48 young women and men. As Kathy Sheridan reminded Irish Times readers in a 2006 feature piece, ‘of the 48 who died, half were aged 18... Continue Reading →
One of the few positive aspects to the last six months has been the melding of the creative arts and music with science, technology and opportunity. I’m not equipped to capture this in a mathematical formula but, were it not for the spaces and gaps opened by the lockdown, and the ready availability of personal... Continue Reading →
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