With Easter upon us it is perhaps timely to dwell on a painting, which not only resonates with the season, but also articulates the horror that continues to unfold in the Middle East and Ukraine. This is Marc Chagall’s ‘Golgotha’ of 1912, perhaps the most luminous, prismatic painting of the crucifixion in art history. It differs from all others in its non-literal transformation of the biblical scene: in place of an adult Christ is a blue child, ‘crucified’ on the arc of an emerald green sky. It is a deeply mysterious vision, one that speaks more, perhaps, of resurrection, rebirth and renewal, than death. And yet it also invites a darker interpretation, one more prescient to our times: that of the child of the Middle East, the child of Ukraine, crucified by war.

Chagall, a Russian Jew, was not one to be confined by conventions, whether they were pictorial, religious or otherwise. As a Jew, images were largely proscribed, and symbolic Christian images, unthinkable. In painting the crucifixion, the young artist from Vitebsk (Belarus) charted a course that broke completely with Jewish cultural norms. When, later in life, he was invited by the newly formed state of Israel to decorate the interior of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), it came with a caveat: there was to be no Christian imagery, a condition Chagall quietly ignored. It wasn’t that he was pro-Christian, it was the fact that the figure of Christ was a part of his personal metaphoric language, a visual lexicon of images which sought to transcend politics and religion, in its depiction of love, suffering, beauty and eternity.

There is no doubt that his ‘Golgotha’ of 1912 is all four of these things. Chagall had a mysterious ability to evoke the eternal in everything he touched. The arc of the child’s open mouth is echoed by the large circle inscribed in the sky behind him, and by the prismatic arcs in the luminous red ground below. The line rhymes and echo shapes, employed throughout, enable everything to visually resound; nothing is static, everything is alive. In employing a programme of prismatic arcs and intersecting spheres, Chagall achieved a magical unity, at once terrifying in its imagery and beautiful in its manifestation. The result is an image which echoes forever in the mind. 

In 2005, I wrote several poems which dreamt themselves, in part, out of Chagall’s painting. One of these was called ‘Blinded Lethe’ (Lethe was a river of the Greek underworld, which invited oblivion): “I am breathless with discovery / And wounded by the glare / Of the gored and shrapnelled child / Bronze fists of anger immeasurable / A wing of leaden death / You make me transparent  / With your pain / Now I understand Christ / Whose limbs flared and shone / Like mirrors / Like glass / Which shattered and fell / In a rain of transcending passion / Upon the fields / Of blinded Lethe / Who, feeling glass soft as snow / Looked up in astonishment / At the son of man.”

The ‘child’ referenced in this poem occurs periodically in my work, and could be thought of as an archetype for the ‘wounded child.’ The poem itself is driven by an incandescent (and impotent) rage at the power-hungry architects of war, with the ‘wounded child’ being their ever-constant victim. The most recent atrocity – the bombing of a school in Iran – resonates Chagall’s ‘Golgotha’ one hundred times over. By saying this I do not mean to diminish such a heart-numbing loss of so many children to a neat line in an article, but to indicate that art is a quivering limb of life, that it is called to address the most urgent questions of our existence.

That is what archetypes are for, and his employment of them is partly why Chagall’s work is so enduring. His mysterious transformation of the archetype in ‘Golgotha,’ its resounding play of arcs and spheres, its deep, prismatic colour, is why I return to it again and again, every Easter; not as a window into a religious rite, but as a dark, pulsing emblem of suffering, as a reminder of art’s purpose, of its empathic power.

Chagall himself said of this painting, in a conversation with Franz Meyer: “Strictly speaking, there was only a blue child in the air. The Cross was of less interest to me.” The vision he had – palpable, non-verbal, mysterious – was everything. That is the truly creative space: the crucible in which spiritual treasures are born.

This month Natalie Webb is showing us how to make Easter chicks.

“These cute chicks popping out of an egg would be great fun as an Easter weekend project!”

Materials: 

•  Yellow and orange card for the chick, and another colour of your choice for the egg.

•  Scissors

•  Glue

•  Markers

•  Lollipop Stick

Draw two egg shapes on your card approx 4” long and cut these out.

Decorate one of your egg shapes in a design of your choice, then draw a zig zag line about a third down and cut along this so that it looks like a broken eggshell.

Cut two little bits of sticky tape and roll them so that you make double-sided sticky tape; attach these on the back of your decorated egg shape – one each side near the bottom – then stick this to the undecorated egg shape.

Cut out a simple shape for a chick from your yellow card – this has to be smaller than your egg.

Draw circles for eyes and cheeks on your chick and cut out a small triangle of orange card for the beak.

Tape your stick on to the back of your chick so that it looks like a lollipop.

Stick the top part of the decorated egg on to your chick’s head.

Now slide the chick in to your egg, from the top down, and hopefully the egg will close and the chick will be snug inside…then when you push the stick up pops your chick!

Happy Easter…enjoy your chocolate : )

They will be releasing their second album this April, in the middle of the month: ‘Evelyn and Dec’. It’s not (yet) a household name but could become one. When their first album, ‘Make for Joy’, was released on Leap Day in 2024, it was named Album of the Week at RTÉ Radio 1. “Their voices are the most idyllic combination,” wrote TradFest (Dublin) last January when they were featured at the festival. 

‘Dec’ is short for a name that will ring a bell for quite a few people: Declan Sinnott. An acclaimed guitarist who worked with Christy Moore for well over 30 years, from the early 1980s until lockdown. He played acoustic, electric and Spanish guitars, violin and provided vocals on Moore’s iconic ‘Ride On’ album (1984) and produced four-and-a-half of his albums. 

He also worked with Mary Black for 13 years, from 1982 onwards, both as a guitarist and as her producer. Both of these working relationships have come to an end but not in a dramatic way at all, he says during the West Cork People interview. “They were very long collaborations. With Mary Black, I played all the gigs, was her producer, suggested a lot of the songs, and came up with the idea of using only Irish songwriters. I suppose I determined the direction to a large extent. With Christy Moore, although here, too, I was playing all the gigs. I didn’t have as much influence. Christie is very much his own man and I would be trying to steer him towards things that I thought might be good for him to do. However, mostly he would just do whatever he wanted to and I’d go along with it.”

Sinnott (born in Wexford, now resident in Bandon) was one of the original members of Horslips, otherwise known as “the Founding Fathers of Celtic Rock” according to Irish Music Daily. The blog also reveals that three of the core members, including Eamon Carr and Barry Devlin, arrived at the idea of forming a band, in 1970, after they had posed as a ‘fake band’ for an advert (for Harp Lager). They then invited Declan Sinnott and spent two years practising and performing before turning professional. Ironically, he left Horslips soon afterwards when it again appeared in an advert (for Mirinda orange juice), which annoyed him. Nine years later, he was asked by two other luminaries of the Irish music scene, Christy Moore and Dónal Lunny, to join what became the Celtic Rock band Moving Hearts before earning further ‘stripes’ in Irish musical history, as he started to work with Mary Black. During the period he was her producer, guitarist and musical director she went from strength to strength in her career. Two platinum-selling solo albums, plenty of plaudits, sell-out tours, international success (in Europe, the US, Japan). He also collaborated with her sister Frances Black, a prominent singer herself and, since 2016, a proactive ‘seanadóir’.

 The list of people that Declan has formed musical partnerships with over the years (he’s now 75) is long and impressive. As to the main ones, apart from the aforementioned singers, there’s John (Spillane), Niamh (Murphy), Hank (Wedel), Victoria (Keating), Sinead (Lohan), Jessie (Whitehead), Owen (O’Brien). 

And now there is Evelyn (Kallansee). Born on Curaçao, an island and former Spanish and Dutch colony off the coast of Venezuela, she grew up in a midsize town in North Holland. Evelyn sang in large musical and theatre productions such as Les Misérables and Evita, was a backing vocalist for well-known Dutch and international singers, acted in TV-series, and fronted Tristan, an acid jazz band that became popular in Japan and the UK.  

So how did she end up in Ireland?

“My in-laws would always go here on walking holidays and brought back beautiful photographs. After about 15 years of them trekking all over Ireland, my husband and I decided to check it out, went to Kerry and really fell in love with the place. And in 2011 we bought a house on the Beara Peninsula. At that time I stated, on a whim, that we’d move to Ireland in 2020. A nice round number and I would turn 50 in that year so it became our goal. And then we arrived two days before lockdown. That changed everything. Before coming to Ireland, I thought: I’ve had my career and done so many things, it’s okay, I’ll just start singing in pubs. Of course, they all closed down. And then I met Declan. He was such a joy to work with.”

Sinnott: “I was recording with another musician called Hank Wedel. He wanted harmonies on two tracks. When he discovered that Evelyn was in the country, he asked her to come and sing. When I heard her, a light bulb went on in my head and I thought, that’s very interesting. Not just the sound of her voice. Equally, her efficiency and professionalism.”

Evelyn: “I also work as a breath-work coach and do meditation for a Dutch company, the ‘I AM’ Academy. They had commissioned me to write a song for them but I’d just arrived in Ireland I had no idea who to do it with. When I met Declan I knew I had to try it with him.” The song, ‘Love Light’, became one of the 11 songs on Make for Joy, available on Bandcamp. Their second CD, Wait Up, will be launched and presented in April (see below for details). 

A lot of their songs seem to come about organically or should that be intuitively? 

Evelyn: “There is no fixed formula.”

Declan: “For the song called Wait Up, I put down a drum groove. Then Evelyn went to the microphone as I picked up an electric guitar. We just improvised and what we created added up to a well-rounded song. It was the first time we worked like that.”

Their music is very comfortable and reassuring. What stands out are the strong melody lines, the harmonies, Evelyn’s voice. And there is no doubt that whatever string and other sounds Declan produces, they are world class. A balm for the nervous system.

www.evelynanddec.com

Concerts:

April 24, St. John’s Theatre, Listowel

April 25, St. Patrick’s Church, Kenmare

April 26, Sarah Walker Gallery, Castletownbere

West Cork seems to have its own ‘musical ecosystem’. Musicians playing in each others’ – often intersecting – bands. Gigs aplenty. In most genres under the (not very present) sun: Blues, trad, rock, world music, jazz, country, post-punk, alternative, classical. And yes, reggae. Music with a strongly accented sub-beat, originating in Jamaica, that evolved in the late 1960s. Most notably played by two bands in West Cork that partly overlap: Mango Moon and the West Cork Dub Collective.

Mango Moon started with a casual conversation in 2021, as Caz Jeffreys said to Kate Liddell, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a reggae club in Ballydehob? Next I got five of us together for a reggae jam.” Soon afterwards, Mango Moon’s original line-up featuring Caz (vocals, electric guitar), Kate (trumpet, fiddle, vocals), Jane Goss (sax, vocals), Greg Woods (bass), Patrick Healy (rhythm guitar), Ben Crockett (drums) expanded as with the Mexican percussionist, Armando Ramirez, joined them.

According to Caz, “My initial idea was to create a kind of club in the basement of Oasis Arts Café in Ballydehob, also for other musicians, but, within weeks, we were invited to play a gig. And lead guitarist Rik Appleby came on board. We became a band very quickly, were building up more songs, gigging. Until Greg, our bass player, fell sick. Sadly, he passed away in early 2024. For a while, I didn’t know if I wanted to carry on but eventually we continued as a seven-piece. Rik transitioned to bass. And since February this year we’re on our third drummer, the brilliant Steven O’Connell.” Apart from reggae – “our backbone” – the band plays ska (a forerunner of reggae) and dub.

In the beginning, Caz Jeffreys supplied all the original material. “Roughly 50 per cent is still mine, the rest are covers. Jane has also written songs while she and Kate often write their own parts so we’re increasingly co-creating.” A party piece is the instrumental Swing Easy, recorded in the 1960s by the Skatalites, a band consisting of the musicians behind many of Jamaica’s hit records. “Swing Easy gets everyone going,” says Caz. “Some people keep dancing all night. It’s so great to connect with the audience in this way. And, the same people come back time and again. It’s like a community.” A word that is frequently used to describe Mango Moon’s musicians’ external activities. Some have MAs in community music (or music theory). Jane Goss conducts community choirs in Dunmanway and Castletownbere. Caz Jeffreys used to lead numerous community choirs (not to mention community bands, even a community musical) but is now creating music installations for community involvement and has set up Creative Voice Projects for fairly experienced female singers. “We don’t just learn great songs and complicated harmonies but also look into what has held us back from doing what we want to do or feeling confident about performing. These are eye-opening and moving conversations, which are now inspiring newly written songs.” Meanwhile, Kate Liddell has embarked on a solo performance project involving a loop pedal, vocals, and multiple instruments.

Last summer Patrick Healy, Rik Appleby, Armando Ramirez and then-drummer Fergal Lee set up the West Cork Dub Collective while continuing to play with Mango Moon. They rehearsed twice. “We chose rhythms from 70s and 80s classic dub tunes alongside chords and a bass line. That’s always our springboard.” So far, they have been doing gigs every four weeks, currently  in Ár n-Áit in Skibbereen on the first Saturday of the month. And every performance is different. The main ingredient, apart from those chords, rhythms, bass lines, is slightly mysterious: dub. 

“Dub started back in Jamaica when reggae was evolving,” shares Rik. “The music producers would record reggae singers and create their own mix based on that recording. And then another version, as they removed a lot of vocals while adding loads of effects. The end result was an instrumental that focused on the rhythm section. A production idea that turned into a style.”

“It was the art of using the studio and/or the mixing console as an instrument,” adds Patrick. “As part of the band. It’s about space and the creative manipulation of sound. Dub is certainly heavier than reggae, with prominent bass and drums while echoes and extra reverb are thrown in. We are also creating those effects, live.”

 Different guest musicians are invited for each Dub Collective gig. So whereas the musical points of departure are always the same, improvisation is the norm so the outcome cannot be predicted. It could be a danceable, vibrating wall of sound dominated by heavy guitar sounds or something entirely different involving a lyrical silver flute, baritone sax, vocals. 

Rik says the band are “working on some recordings from our October gig when the Grammy-Award winning guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, Congolese-born and Ireland-based, was playing with us, as well as Julia Cross on flute and vocals. The sound just took off into areas that were completely unplanned and exploratory and new. Nobody had any idea what was going to happen and it went to really interesting places.”

Their dedication to reggae goes far, has deep roots, and started early. “In Donegal we have the annual community-based Mary from Dungloe International Arts Festival,” says Patrick. “When I was five, my parents brought me along to listen to the Century Steel Band, an Irish reggae-outfit. My dad mentioned to me recently, “It’s no wonder you love reggae so much because you were dancing away when that band was playing.”

Rio’s grandmother lived in a flat in Hackney. “When I was very young, some Rastas lived next door to her. You could hear their reggae through the walls, especially the bass and drums. My nan called it jungle music but as a child I found it deliciously exotic. In my late teens I realised it was something that I could play quite easily as I had a feel for it. I would listen to the sound systems in London. Really heavy dub and very heavy bass. The effect is physical; almost like a physical meditation. You can feel your body vibrating in sync with the music.”

“Maybe reggae is so attractive because it can slow things down,” says Patrick. “Pace the breathing. In our busy, hectic world that steadiness is really appealing.”

West Cork Dub Collective plays Ár n-Áit in Skibbereen on March 7.

DMac Burns and Mango Moon play Connolly’s of Leap on March 16.

Caz Jeffreys runs Creative Voice Projects in the Ludgate Hub (Skibbereen) and at Civic Trust House (Cork).

Mamacha (with Kate Liddell and Armando Ramirez) plays Levis Corner House on April 12. 

Patrick Healy puts his music on Bandcamp as Emerald Lion (a collaboration with Mark Dorrian).

Rik Appleby releases reggae and dub productions on Bandcamp as Lionheart Recordings.

Light, daylight, shadow; the richness of the hues, the softness of the shades. What, I often wonder, are we missing when we switch on an electric light, a screen? The microtones, the half-lights, what DaVinci called ‘earth light,’ the mysterious quality of sunlight falling upon a living thing, animating it, responding to its living pores, its pigmentation, the iridescence leant to it by its cells. Or the light of dawn streaming through frosted glass like silver filigreed with gold, imbuing everything it touches, like King Midas, with a mysterious golden hue. And then even the shadows come alive, their edges as soft as DaVinci’s sfumato, the smokey way he drew.

Electric light cuts, makes the shadows sharp, evens out the room.

Sunlight folds in like a sigh, rolls shadows out like living things, softens space.

I’m not a Luddite, I am not pining for a time before electricity. But as a painter, I’m now feeling a difference between the lights on in the studio and the natural grace of the skylight, between the electric bulb on in the bathroom in the morning, and the predawn glow filtering through the frosted glass.

There is poetry in fluctuation, in there being nothing else on but the play of the sun with the atmosphere, the dance of the light with the clouds. I am thinking now of Monet’s waterlilies in Musee de l’Orangerie, the magnificent semi-circular paintings only lit by skylights. You sit and watch as the light swells and fades and swells again, the colours in the paintings constantly changing, brightening and darkening like embers in a fire.

Sunlight is grace.

The nadir of our visual culture’s love affair with conceptualism is, for me, Martin Creed’s ‘Work No. 227 The Lights Going On and Off’ (2000). The ‘work’ consists of two electric lights going on and off every five seconds in a room. The regularity, the coldness, the poverty of vision and experience. The irony, of course, that there is no light in this ‘work,’ only darkness, emptiness, sterility. A statement? Please spare me such statements, I’m looking for transformation.

The opposite end of the scale, for me, is Odd Nerdrum’s painting, ‘Dawn,’ from 1989. Like in some surreal ballet, the four, near-identical seated figures have their faces raised to the sky, their mouths open, eyes closed, in a blind love song to the sun, which is breasting the mountains behind. They are at one with the mountain-scape, their bodies aglow with a sunlit radiance (a stage trick, as the dawn is behind them, not in front).  The richness of this painting is something to behold, a testament to the truism that there are no new subjects, only fresh expressions of them.

Another, perhaps more iconic example, is Vermeer’s ‘Woman Holding a Balance’ from 1662. Light pours in from a high window, delicately catching the gold of the balance, the paleness of the woman’s hand, her face and gown. This is why the world loves Vermeer: because he connects natural light to the figure in perfect, ordinary harmony, because he transforms oil into light. We feel the stillness of the moment, the silence of the transformation, and are more at peace for it.

I am writing this on a laptop, the screen radiating out at me. It is not, I know, good for the eyes, but I am grateful for it, writing is an addiction. At the same time I cannot help thinking of my childhood spent in an old farm house in the Australian bush. No computers or iPhones, of course, and for years we had no television. No screens at all. We rose with the dawn. At night we lit a fire, read books. You could hear the frogs croaking in the nearby dam, the wind rustling the trees, the wooden walls creaking. Outside the stars shone with a rare, diamond-studded brilliance. The cosmos was so vast, so mysterious, an intoxication of fire-laced distances beyond human measure.

Street lights cut out the beauty of the night sky.

But where would we be without street light? Our civilisation is founded on this electric pulse, this illumination, this connectivity of information and purpose. Somehow it keeps all the raw wildness at bay. For we are only one power outage away from the Middle Ages. This is our conundrum, a measure of our fragility. 

How did I even begin thinking about this? For several years I have been imagining scenes in the 16th century studio of Pieter Bruegel, for a novel. Painters at that time were wholly dependent on natural light, could only really work in the spring and summer. Perhaps they could draw in the colder months, by the light of oil lamps and candelabra, but such light was hardly sufficient for painting. The studio was set up in such a way as to make the most of north-facing windows, north-facing, as it offered the most stable, unchanging illumination throughout the day.

Life had a different rhythm, a slower, softer vibration.

I am not pining for a time before electricity. I am a grumpy mess without a hot shower. But we have the luxury of choosing: to at times, turn things off, tune our eyes to the shadows, to a softer vibration, to a silence that truly connects.

Ella Mc Swiney says the new single ‘Misty Ireland’ from West Cork band The Shruggs is a raw and thoughtful composition.

From Bandon, The Shruggs, aka duo Kees Hendrickx and James Downing, compose songs both with roots of folk and the bright colours of pop. The band are highly acclaimed for their harmonising and uplighting melodies, pointed by Hot Press Magazine as “rising acts to keep an eye on”.

The Cork band has received much praise, their music described as “Rhythmically pleasing, with Fleet Foxes-like harmonies that are pitch-perfect” by Remy’s Music and Film Blog; Nialler9 says “There’s an undoubted gift for strong melody present” and Dave Simpson from PureMzine review mentions how “The exuberance of the execution will surely put a smile on even the sternest of faces.”

Their latest release ‘Misty Ireland’ is no different. Written in the perspective of an Irish emigrant, the singer is once again in the emerald isle, admiring the county’s beauty and uniqueness perhaps for the last time. 

The single is one of the band’s rawest songs, its thoughtful lyrics guide the listener through the singer’s nostalgia, while the sailing instruments enhance its honest tone, as if the emigrant himself is heading towards his home land. Collaborated with The Cornwall Chorus, their united harmonies makes the music swell, deepening its reminiscent atmosphere. 

Dedicated to those who are homesick for Ireland, the song is a love letter to the isle and shows how many Irish from the past, present, and future have beloved memories of this small, beautiful, misty island. 

The Cork band came together in 2014. Independent, The Shruggs have a collection of covers and songs of their own, with their biggest hit ‘West Cork’ reaching more than 40,000 views on YouTube. 

Often collaborating with local and international artists, The Shruggs create songs with catchy lyrics, loyal use of acoustic instruments, and an upbeat yet steady energy that makes it impossible not to tap your foot along too. Their most popular songs range from their recent ‘Last Call’, the humourful ‘Potholes’, cheerful ‘The Ooh Song’, and viral ‘West Cork’. 

‘Misty Ireland’ was released on February 4 and can be listened to on Spotify, YouTube, and supported through Bandcamp. 

A series of art fundraising workshops are helping to raise funds for a Bantry community centre writes Ella Mc Swiney

Donation-based art classes delivered by local artist Constance McKenna and running over a six week period at Gortalassa Old School House will help raise funds for the centre, which has become a valuable part of the local community. The classes are centred around the arts and crafts of weaving, coiled baskets; and cubism, where participants will get the opportunity to paint a fruit tile and explore cubism’s key role in art history. 

Gortalassa Old School House, also known as GOSH, has a history of its own. The two-room building started out as a national school in the 70s. Following the school’s closure it was turned into a mass centre but this also closed, resulting in the heritage building falling into disrepair. Fortunately, a small but determined group of local volunteers decided to bring the building back to life and today it is a thriving community centre reimagined as Gortalassa Old School House. Located on the north side of The Sheep’s Head Way, GOSH has become a beacon for people dealing with isolation in a rural area, facilitating lifelong friendships and strengthening a sense of pride in the community.  

Run by a driven local committee, GOSH is open on Wednesdays for its weekly social gathering, community library, and countless different activities that take place throughout the year, with craft and art sessions, exercise classes, and information talks being just a few.

The community centre has charitable status, relying on grants and fundraising events to help maintain the building. When grants aren’t enough to cover renovation, the events have come to the rescue for its upkeep, raising enough money for the instalment of a fully accessible toilet, the replacement of a flat roof, and the addition of an outdoor shed, among many other renovation jobs.

The centre also supports charities when it can through fundraisers such as craft fairs, coffee mornings, plays, concerts and more. 

GOSH urges people in the locality to attend fundraising events and to join the committee, as the centre is able to function only because of its dedicated team of volunteers and donations. To lend a hand or give a fiver would truly make difference for a lively centre that combats rural isolation, offers free vital information, a space for creativity, a sense of community, and where friendships have and continue to grow.

To book the cubism workshop contact @constancemckennaarttherapist on Instagram. Donations are encouraged for the ongoing maintenance of Gortalassa Old School House.

This month Natalie Webb is showing us how to make a frog with a blow out tongue

“This cheeky frog is always poking out his tongue!”

Materials: 

•  Green card

•  Black and white paper or card

•  A straw

•  Red tissue paper

•  Sticky tape

•  Glue 

•  Scissors

•  Marker

•  Pencil

Draw a circle on the green card, approx 13cm diameter. Fold in half and cut a little hole in the middle of the fold.

For the frog’s eyes cut out two green circles, two smaller black circles and two even smaller white circles. Layer the circles from small to big, then stick on to the fold of your green semi circle, half on the card and half sticking out above.

From the rest of your green card cut out two frog’s legs and stick these inside your semi circle so that they are poking out the bottom.

Cut out two strips of tissue paper approx 4cm x 18cm then glue the strips together along three sides, leaving the top open. When the glue is dry poke the straw into the top end until it is about 8cm down.

Push the straw up inside the frog, so that it comes out through the hole at the top. 

Tape
everything down inside, placing your sticky tape over the straw and the top of the tissue paper tongue so that there are no gaps.

 Decorate your frog’s body with a marker, then roll up his tongue before blowing through the straw. The tongue should uncurl and stick out!

John Philip Murray at Crane Lane.

Rhythm is everywhere (if we pay attention). The wind, waves, birdsong, car traffic, a crackling fire, speech. It’s the backbone of popular music. That must be why drummers are the best-known members of any band. But is that really true? “No,” says John Philip Murray (a drummer). “You know that hoary old joke: A band is four musicians and a drummer. Whereas drummers are the spinal cord of any band. They give everyone else clues and lead them through the form. A lot of orchestration occurs in a real drummer’s mind. Technical fireworks may impress but only those who truly focus on the tune will touch the hearts of their audience.”

Murray’s musical area is very specific (and challenging): jazz. A genre based on improvisation that clearly punches above its weight although its commercial market share is minute, compared to pop, rock, and hip-hop (often less than two per cent). The Guinness Cork Jazz Festival is one of Ireland’s largest annual music events. It draws 100,000-plus visitors and pumps almost €50m into the economy. 

Murray is not ‘just’ a freelance drummer. He also leads several bands. The John Philip Murray Quintet played five times during the Jazz Festival weekend in three different venues in Cork City and Kinsale. Another of his bands, which has been around “for ages, probably since 2000” is called Filology, a play on his middle name and the term philology, “the study of the structure, historical development, and relationships of a language or languages”. The ensemble itself has always been very flexible. “It has morphed into various different formats such as trios, quartets, quintets featuring an ever-changing cast of excellent jazz musicians (as people have so many commitments).” In addition, he plays with the DD Trio, which consists of David Desmond (keys), Martin Vallely (bass), and himself. Among others, they do a monthly jazz session at Ár n-Áit (Irish for ‘Our Place’), a former abattoir and artist-led hub for creative expression and collaboration in the tiny picturesque alley quarter of Skibbereen. This month’s  concert is on Sunday, January 18 (5-7pm).

In late August, 2025, Ár n-Áit appeared in the ‘What’s Hot’ column of the Irish Times described as a “gorgeous coffee spot… serving up Leonard Cohen on vinyl, chilled vibes and quality roasts.” Shane Breen, who created and manages the space, is really happy with the jazz session. “John Philip Murray is a legend and the trio bring in friends who join them for a few songs such as vocalists Josephine Smyth and Ciara O’Driscoll. I am surprised really at how many young people turn up who are curious about the music and really love it.” Especially in summer, Breen runs a full and eclectic programme, last year a/o featuring bands from New York, France/Peru, West Cork, and a Brazilian pop-up night with DJ Pedro Ahnuc with food cooked by the eminent Polish chef Peter. Plus, the Ciorcal Comhrá Irish class, Fridays 6-7:30pm, and trad music sessions some Saturdays, as well as another monthly resident band, the West Cork Dub Collective ft Rik Appleby, Patrick Healy, and Armando Ramírez plus guests (with an upcoming gig on Valentine’s Day). 

  John Philip Murray fell for music – hook, line, and sinker – aged six, when he was asked to play a drum to ’La Paloma’ (The Dove) at a school concert. Since then, “he has followed the pulse of music throughout his life” as he writes in his bio. “The teachers had put together a small percussion band,” he clarifies. “Three of us were given little drums. We played them vertically, like the bass drums in a New Orleans funeral march. I was the only one that really got the rhythm; I couldn’t understand how the others didn’t as I just felt it, loud and clear. That’s 67 years ago. The intuitive knowing is still in me. However, I truly connect to the essence of the tunes I play through singing.” He lives in Lissardagh (Cork) and grew up in Mount Merrion (Dublin). A music-focused school helped. “When I was 12, four of us had a little band that played songs of the Yardbirds, Monkeys, Beach Boys, Beatles until we progressed to blues standards, which offered a great foundation. Then, in my mid-teens, I was sitting in English class beside a friend, Killian. As was my norm, I was tapping on the desk. A rhythm by Ginger Baker, rock drummer. Suddenly Killian asked, how would Ginger Baker compare with Joe Morello? Joe Morello was the drummer of the Dave Brubeck Quartet who challenged the ensemble’s alto saxophonist Paul Desmond to compose a piece in 5/4 metre, which resulted in Take Five – the biggest-selling jazz single of all time. I thought Killian played the classical piano but when he mentioned Morello it was only a matter of time before we put a jazz band together in his front room and I was hooked for good.”  A seminal learning moment occurred when, aged 23, he purchased the Charles Mingus album, ‘Let My Children Hear Music,’ and put it on his portable record player with Dave Fleming, a bassist he still plays with. “The two of us started listening to it at 4pm and by 6am the following morning we could sing all the main themes and solos. That’s how you get to know a tune.” 

Murray is not just a musician but also a talented visual artist. “Painting is a parallel strand, another way of explaining the world to myself. A visual equivalent to music.” He has held over 20 solo exhibitions, participated in many group shows, and won a joint Oireachtas Award in 2008. He started to paint at around the same age as his musical talent came to the fore. And he approaches both art forms in similar ways. “My paintings often start from ideas, literature, history rather than visual imagery. With music, a tune or melody or harmonic twist is more likely to engage me than whatever the drummer is doing. I once saw Elvin Jones (an American jazz drummer who played with the stellar saxophonist John Coltrane) and his sound completely overwhelmed me… Great waves of rolling tones. Pure music! Some paintings bring tears to my eyes but it happens rarely. Maybe three times in my life. Fra Angelico (15th century) springs to mind. Whereas with music, if a month goes by that something hasn’t touched me, that’s a very bleak month. The brain isn’t involved at all. It’s just straight to the heart. When I’m playing, I consciously do not think.”

“Timeless Jazz” (John Philip Murray, Dave Fleming, Pierrick Menuau, and Tommy Halferty) play a concert at the Briery Gap (Macroom) on February 22

www.brierygap.ie

www.ar-n-ait.com

Moze Jacobs chats to Maria Doyle Kennedy (MDK) ahead of her gig at Levis’ Corner House in Ballydehob.

MDK plays Levis’ on Saturday, November 13, 8pm, not with a group of musicians, but with her husband Kieran, who is almost a band in himself. He plays (steel) guitar, piano, banjo, mandolin, looping pedals, sings backing vocals. He also produces, arranges, and composes most of the music for MDK. The duo played Levis’ last year, also in mid-December. In a glowing review of that gig Jason Ward wrote “Kennedy once said she wouldn’t miss acting but could not pass a day without singing. And when she starts, you realise why; because her songs and her voice come from her soul. This isn’t the fake soul of pained expressions on TV talent shows […] It is the soul of telling a story, of expressing an emotion and telling a truth.” 

Maria Doyle Kennedy was one of the breakout stars of The Commitments (1991), a film based on a Roddy Doyle novel, which tells the story of the rise and demise of a soul band in Dublin, comprised of friends, foes and strangers, 

Today the singer isn’t very keen to talk about The Commitments.

“No, I don’t have anything to say about that. I’d much rather focus on what we’re making now. It was released 34 years ago.” It’s not really necessary, either. The successful cult film, with a cast that included Colm Meaney, Glen Hansard and Andrea Corr, can be watched for free online while there are plenty of YouTube videos of Maria belting out ‘I never loved a man’ with the passion of a great soul singer. 

It is but one of her numerous manifestations. She sings in many different voices. Folky, ethereal, earthly, lyrical, poppy, hauntingly dark. The many praiseful reviews of her albums and performances reference the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Ros, as well as Sandy Denny, the Cocteau Twins. She is described as “a powerful mixture between a folk siren and a punk-diva…one of the great voices of Ireland. The Celtic Patti Smith” (Basel Zeitung). And, “MDK is still one hell of a musical force to be reckoned with” (Irish Times). She, or rather ‘they’ have released 12 albums to date. And then there are the other roles she fulfills. Mother of four sons. Songwriter. Polymath. Actor in over 50 films and TV series. Video director/producer. Composer (together with Kieran). Artist.

‘Maria + Kieran Rehearsal’ (Mermaid Records, 2025) is their latest album to date, released November 17. The cover is adorned with (an artistic impression of) husband and wife. The album features rehearsal versions of existing songs in updated arrangements. The latter has happened before. On their Bandcamp page are two very different versions of a song called Mother. The first is on the album ‘Mütter’ (Mermaid Records, 2007) and the second on ‘Songs from the Kitchen Table’ (also on Mermaid Records, their own label), released January 1, 2020, just before Covid. 

“The Rehearsal album was unplanned,” says Maria. “We were practicing for the upcoming Irish tour and Kieran was recording without even telling me. Just for his own benefit. It was very relaxed.”

The result is surprisingly good. Especially as the songs were recorded in their kitchen.

“At one end of the kitchen table is what we call Kieran’s office where he has his speakers and mixing desks. He works away down there all the time. Whereas I find it very difficult to record or write at home. My eyes just wander over to the laundry and I’m clocking up in my mind all these other jobs that I have to get to. Under lockdown, we recorded most of Fire on the Roof of Eden in the kitchen. There’s a lot going on in the background on that album. If you listen closely, you can hear a child come in and ask, What’s for dinner. Or a cat, a rumbling washing machine. Kieran doesn’t mind. He likes to be immersed in the sound of the family. It’s funny, we’ve each got different requirements for creativity.”

The Rehearsal Album is up on Bandcamp. On Maria’s Instagram there are little backstories for the individual songs. She wrote about ‘Comfort Song’: I was apart from Kieran and missing him. To calm down, I started to hum melodies to myself and tried to put into words what it was I was missing. I realised that a lot has to do with the sound that he makes. The constant hum of his presence and commentary on the day, his sighs and clicks, maybe stomping and laughing.”

The couple met in a nightclub. “It was very late at night. We talked at the bar but didn’t make any plans.”

“He’s very cute,” says Maria. “I had left the band I was singing in. Then Kieran got in touch and said, I have a band and I wonder if you would like to do some singing. I said, Do you want to send me the music? I didn’t find out until 10 years after we married that he didn’t have a particular demo that he was planning to make at that time. He just wanted to ask me out. So he got somebody to give him some money to record a demo, got people together and booked a studio. And that became The Black Velvet Band.” 

Their first solo release, ‘Charm’, was in 2001 and their next album will be released in 2026. It contains brand-new songs.

“Mostly recorded in Kilruddery House, where we were artists-in-residence,” shares Maria.

One of the songs, ‘Every Day, Every Night’, can be heard in a video on MDK’s Facebook page. Poignant lines are, ‘Love is coming/Grief is my partner, she’ll see it through to the end’.

“Singing this song was helpful and comforting,” says Maria. “In the past years, we lost people that were very close to us, including a friend I’d had since age 17. It kickstarted this whole album, trying to process the loss and grief. Music is an incredible treasure trove. That’s why I connected with it so deeply, like many people, from the time I was in my teens, looking for something to explain the raging madness that your mind and body has turned into while you don’t have the emotional language for the bigger feelings.”

Born, bred and living in Dingle, Pa Sheehy used to be the lead singer of ‘Walking on Cars’, a remarkable Indie pop band that rode a wave of success for over 10 years (between 2010 and 2020). 

His family wasn’t big into music but he was drawn to it from when he was a child. “I was always singing along with whatever was on the radio and in my teenage years, we started a little rock band in school. I didn’t play an instrument then, so during our first rehearsal there was the drummer, the bass player, and the guitar player, and they threw a lyric book at me. It was the first time I ever wrote a song. I was about 13.”

Fast forward nine years and Pa and four other people he had known since childhood and played with at local venues, “we were kind of the only musicians in our age group”, became very serious about forming a band. Together, they moved into a secluded house. Quite a radical step. All they did (it is said) was write songs. “A couple of friends staying in a little cottage with no huge pressure on us at all. We were on the dole, so we had a bit of freedom to make music and not worry about other things for a couple of years. We wrote some cool tunes. It was just an uncomplicated time in our lives without any expectations and we were living very simply.” One of their songs was ‘Speeding Cars’ and the band eventually called itself ‘Walking on Cars’. Nobody knows why, exactly. The drummer came up with it and it stuck. Maybe it was its very incongruity (who walks on cars?) that made the name memorable. 

The band’s self-released first single, ‘Catch Me If You Can’ (2012) was played on radio, attracted a fan base, and gained them national popularity. Three years later it was re-released by an official record label, Virgin EMI /RCA and appeared on their debut album, ‘Everything This Way’, which reached the top spot on the Irish Albums Chart in 2016 and stayed there for three weeks. Perhaps their best-known single was ‘Speeding Cars’ (2015). It gave them international recognition, has by now had over 52 million views on YouTube and been streamed 117 million times. More singles followed, tours of Europe, Australia. They played large venues and festivals, gave interviews, did radio, TV. Quite the career. 

Pa Sheehy thinks that part of their “expansion” may have been due to management. “To be fair, we had a brilliant UK-based manager. Actually, they were a duo and they orchestrated it really, really well. They had a lot of clout in the industry and, because of it, we started making bigger moves.” 

Walking on Cars also tried to break through in America. That didn’t go so well. “A friend of the managers was the A&R (Artists and Repertoire) at Capital Records in the US, a huge label. We were so excited, convinced this was our big chance. The entire band went out to America for two weeks to do a promo trip. And then we spent 10 out of the 14 days sitting by the pool in LA. Nice holiday, but nothing came of it. Before we had made it to America, our contact person was fired. So basically, the ship had sunk before we even got there. A classic record industry drama.” It was one of the signs that the tide was turning. “For a while, everything was wonderful but making our second album was a big hurdle,” shares Pa. “There was a new manager, our guitarist had left the band. We were dropped by the label. A lot of our time was wasted in meetings with lawyers about contracts and rights and the album wasn’t a commercial success compared to the first one. Then Covid hit. We went our separate ways.” 

Ever since, Pa has been pursuing his own career. To date, he has produced ten singles, three EPs and an album, ‘Maybe It Was All For This’ (2024). “Once the band finished, going solo felt like the natural next step. I knew I had creative energy and there were songs to come out of me.”

But things have changed. For the better, as far as his personal life is concerned. “A lot of Walking on Cars songs were based on sadness and break-ups. Now, I feel freer to be whatever and whoever I am. When this all started I wanted us to be the biggest band in the world. I thought we were the best. That there was no stopping us. It was a delusion, of course, but it gave us the energy to get as far as we did.” 

Does he still have ambitions of musical world domination? “I really don’t. I love the level I’m at. When I was in ‘Walking on Cars’ there were lots of times when I’d be noticed around the place. Lots of people wanted selfies. Now I’m happy flying under the radar. It’s like a sweet spot.”

I feel the enchantment of many; some I’ve managed to collect, others, I dream of doing so. A small Michael McSwiney lights my morning, its infinitesimal shifts between turquoise, silver and amber on a crumbling bed of tar, evoking a world. The etchings of Roman Sustov also hover in my vision: steam punk apparitions which conjure stories beyond words. I would love a Tom Climent: those searing crystalline peaks breathing a purity of colour, which surely refracts the colours of the artist’s soul. I could also live well with a work by Carol Hodder, whose Turneresque paintings bloom fire and light out of sumptuous impasto. They are the magicians who spark my own fire. None of it comes with ease: the artist must dig, must enter the flow, is not content until a certain feeling is recognised, a certain arrangement felt.

Inchoate and inexplicable is the world of art; a language of substances and non-verbal nuances, which draw us without us knowing why. The artist plays a chord upon the hinterland, between what is known and unknown. One chord beckons another, the artist drawn and enchanted, curious and enlivened. What is this form, this colour, this feeling?

When it comes to figuration, one enters a stage, where the actors are all frozen mid flight. The best of the New Masters conjure their figures with as much bravura, presence and subtlety as the old, painting archetypes, respelling ancient stories, providing continuity in the Grand Tradition. Jannik Hosel from Germany, the Italians: Arrivabene, Sicoldr, Samori; Kaja Norum in Norway, Ireland’s own Molly Judd. They are but a few who come to mind, and each of them brilliant in their way. They call to the conjurer in me, to the story teller, a very different persona to the intuitive forger of colour-scapes.

We are all feeling our way, and autumn is a good time to trust in our own instincts, to turn off the screens, to awaken to our own inner world. There is an occasional tapping on the roof of my new studio, an inquisitive bird, I imagine, pecking at the roof tiles. I’ve heard them in the trees, pecking at wood, no doubt looking for insects. It is a reminder to tap, with whatever tools we have, on the roof of our consciousness, with curiosity and openness. Perhaps a window will open? Or an echo will inspire?

Words can be slow to come, and that is fine. The works of so many painters drift over me, each of them focused, each of them possessed with the courage to evoke the mystery. All I can do today is let them drift. My new studio awaits, and I wonder what might be conjured in that space? Thoughts of the new studio beckon memories of another, the student studio at the Nerdrum School in Norway, where I studied for two months in 2017. Below are diary entries from August 15 and 16 of that year:

“‘Tis a cold and stormy night by the north sea. I can feel the walls shaking in the wind. Masterpieces lurk in the darkness below, oblivious to the storm. How quickly they have become objects to navigate on the way to elsewhere.”

“The morning after the storm the skies are washed clear as a white milky blue. The grasses are heavy with the remnants of frost and the rocks sit like seals which have basked in the sun, the moon, the waves and the ice for millennia. Roedvik Gaard is the name of this place, fingers of stone trailing into the sea, knuckles of sandstone and marble littering the shore. And further back a tower, tucked into the trees. There a dreamer wanders, from canvas to canvas, from shadow to shadow, from light to light.”

The dreamer, in that case, was the master, Odd Nerdrum, who has inspired and guided many of the figurative painters mentioned above. But it is also, by extension, every artist and every person who dreams and creates, in whatever space they can carve out. So, to the breaches, to the roof tops: it is time to tap like the bird, to listen, to tap again.