MUSICAL VOICES AND STORIES

Featuring a Novel, a Memoir and a Biography

This 3-part series of interviews in which the worlds of music and literature intersect has been specially produced for ICC Digital. The highly successful singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke will discuss his recent novel The Pawnbroker’s Reward which is set during the Famine; the renowned fiddler Martin Hayes will discuss his memoir, Shared Notes: A Musical Journey;  Richard Balls will discuss his biography of Shane McGowan, A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane McGowan.

Richard Balls, A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane McGowan (Omnibus Press, 2021)

The complete and extraordinary story of Shane McGowan, the Pogues’ notorious frontman, legendary drinker and Irish musical icon has never been told until now.  A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane MacGowan vividly recounts the experiences that shaped one of the greatest songwriters of his generation: the formative trips to his mother's homestead in Tipperary, the explosion of punk which changed his life and the drink and drugs that nearly ended it.

As well as exclusive interviews with Shane himself, author Richard Balls has secured contributions from his wife and family, and people who have never spoken publicly about Shane before: close associates, former girlfriends and the English teacher who first spotted his literary gift. Nick Cave, Aidan Gillen, Cillian Murphy, Christy Moore, Sinead O’Connor and Dermot O’Leary are on the roll call of those paying tribute to the gifted songwriter and poet. This frank and extensive biography also includes many previously unseen personal photographs.
 
Richard Balls was a newspaper journalist for twenty years, almost half of which he spent in Ireland. He is an established writer and rock biographer, whose previous books are Sex & Drugs & Rock’n’Roll: The Life of Ian Dury (2011) and Be Stiff: The Stiff Records Story, (2014).

Interviewer: Anne Flaherty

A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and  The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from  Africa and Asia.  She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey.

MUSICAL VOICES AND STORIES

Featuring a Novel, a Memoir and a Biography

This 3-part series of interviews in which the worlds of music and literature intersect has been specially produced for ICC Digital. The highly successful singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke will discuss his recent novel The Pawnbroker’s Reward which is set during the Famine;  the renowned fiddler Martin Hayes will discuss his memoir, Shared Notes: A Musical Journey;  Richard Balls will discuss his  biography of Shane McGowan, A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane McGowan.

Martin Hayes, Shared Notes: A Musical Journey (Transworld, Ireland, 2021)

Martin Hayes is a renowned fiddler from County Clare. He won his first of six All-Ireland Fiddle Championships at the age of 13. He has toured and recorded with guitarist Dennis Cahill for over twenty years, he is a founding member of the Irish-American band The Gloaming, and a member of The Martin Hayes Quartet and The Common Ground Ensemble. He has played with many of the greatest traditional Irish musicians of the past thirty years, as well as Sting, Paul Simon and Yo-Yo Ma. He has won TG4 Gradam Ceoil Musician of the Year and BBC Instrumentalist of the Year. He is widely regarded as one of the most significant talents in Irish traditional music. In his memoir Shared Notes Hayes traces the remarkable journey from his childhood on a farm in County Clare in a household steeped in musical tradition, to dropping out of college, working as an illegal immigrant in the States and ultimately to building a hugely successful musical career.

Interviewer: Anne Flaherty

A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and  The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from  Africa and Asia.  She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey.

MUSICAL VOICES AND STORIES

Featuring a Novel, a Memoir and a Biography

This 3-part series of interviews in which the worlds of music and literature intersect has been specially produced for ICC Digital. The highly successful singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke will discuss his recent novel The Pawnbroker’s Reward which is set during the Famine;  the renowned fiddler Martin Hayes will discuss his memoir, Shared Notes: A Musical Journey;  Richard Balls will discuss his  biography of Shane McGowan, A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane McGowan.

 Declan O’Rourke, The Pawnbroker’s Reward (Gill Books, 2021)

Declan O’Rourke is one of Ireland’ most popular and successful singer-songwriters.  His award-winning album, Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine, was released to critical acclaim in 2017. It illuminated an extraordinary series of eye-witness accounts, including the story of Pádraig and Cáit ua Buachalla.

Four years on, in Declan’s meticulously researched literary debut, the story of the ua Buachalla family is woven into a powerful, multi-layered work showing us the famine as it happened through the lens of a single town – Macroom, Co. Cork – and its environs. Local pawnbroker Cornelius Creed is at the juncture between the classes. Sensitive and empathetic, he is a voice on behalf of the poor, and his story is entwined with that of Pádraig ua Buachalla. Through these characters – utilising local history and documentary evidence – Declan creates a kaleidoscopic view of this defining moment in Ireland’s history.

Interviewer: Anne Flaherty

A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and  The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from  Africa and Asia.  She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey.

During the interview in this podcast Claire discusses her recently published novel Small Things Like These. Set in 1985 in New Ross, Co. Wexford during the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces his busiest season.  Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Claire Keegan grew up on a farm in Wicklow. Her first collection of short stories, Antarctica, was completed in 1998, for which she was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her second short-story collection, Walk the Blue Fields, was published to enormous critical acclaim in 2007 and won the 2008 Edge Hill Prize for Short Stories. Foster, a short novel, was published in 2010 and won the Davy Byrnes Award. Claire currently holds the Briena Staunton Fellowship at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

Anne Flaherty: A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from  Africa and Asia.  She is a graduate of  Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s  Literature from the University of Surrey.

We are pleased to present Jan Carson in conversation with Anne Flaherty.

About Jan Carson: born in Ballymena, Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator now based in Belfast. Her writing includes Malcolm Orange Disappears (2014), Children’s Children, (2016), and two micro-fiction collections, Postcard Stories 1 and 2 (2017 & 2020).  

Jan won the Harper’s Bazaar short story competition in 2016 and has been shortlisted for the BBC National Story Prize and Sean O’Faolain Short Story Prize. Her most recent novel The Fire Starters (2020) won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland, the Kitschies Prize for Speculative Fiction and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Book Prize. Jan’s most recent 10 part short story series, The Last Resortwas transmitted on BBC Radio 4 in early 2021. In January this year she hosted an online symposium showcasing contemporary Northern Irish writers: Prophets, Makers and Risk Takers.

She is currently writer in residence on an AHRC-funded research project at Queen’s University Belfast exploring the depiction of Dementia in contemporary fiction. 

Jan’s third novel, No Promised Land will be published in Summer 2021.

About Anne Flaherty: A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from Africa and Asia. She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey.

We are pleased to present Glenn Patterson in conversation with Anne Flaherty.

About Glenn Patterson: born and based in Belfast, Glenn Patterson is a graduate of the University of East Anglia creative writing course. He is the author of 11 highly acclaimed novels, including Burning Your Own (1988), Fat Lad (1992),  That Which Was (2004), The Mill for Grinding Old People Young (2012) and Gull (2016). He also co-wrote the screenplay of the film Good Vibrations (2013) about the Belfast music scene of the 1970s. Glenn is also well known for his non-fiction titles which include his collected journalistic writings Lapsed Protestant (2006), Once Upon a Hill: Love in Troubled Times (2008), a memoir of his grand-parents and Backstop Land (2019) concerning Northern Ireland and Brexit. He has also written plays for Radio 3 and Radio 4. 

Glenn is the recipient of numerous awards including Rooney Prize for Irish Literature (1988), Betty Trask Award (1988) Guinness Peat Aviation Book Award (1993),  Arts Council Northern Ireland Major Individual Artist Award (2006), and Heimbold Visiting Chair of Irish Studies (2016).  

He is currently Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast.

About Anne Flaherty: A journalist born in London and growing up in County Clare, Anne has worked for The Irish Press in Dublin and  The Irish Times in Belfast as well as reporting from  Africa and Asia.  She is a graduate of  Trinity College Dublin, and holds an MA in Anglo-Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey.

We are pleased to present poet Frank Ormsby in conversation with Anne Morrison.

About Frank Ormsby: Born in Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh, Frank  Ormsby was educated at Queen’s University in Belfast and until 2010 he was Head of English at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.  He is the eighth Ireland Professor of Poetry, a position he took up on 1 November 2019 and will hold until 31 October 2022. 

Frank has consistently been seen as one of Northern Ireland’s foremost poets and to date has published 7 collections of poetry: A Store of Candles (1977), A Northern Spring (1986), The Ghost Train (1995), Fireflies (2009), his retrospective Goat’s Milk: New & Selected Poems (2015), which was shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize,  The Darkness of Snow (2017) which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for a National Book Circle Critics Award in the US and his most recent work, The Rain Barrel (2019). 

Frank was editor of The Honest Ulsterman from 1969 to 1989.  He has also edited Poetry Ireland Review, along with a number of poetry anthologies and several books.

In 1992 he received the Cultural Traditions Award, given in memory of John Hewitt.  In 2002 he received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the University of St Thomas at St Paul, Minnesota. 

About Anne Morrison: Anne has a long and distinguished career as a television executive and producer in documentaries and other factual programmes. She is currently Creative Director, Factual at Nevision production company, having held senior roles in the BBC for many years. She was Chair of BAFTA and founded the BBC Academy. In 2018, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Nottingham Trent University for services to broadcasting and the arts. She was born and brought up in Belfast and now lives in London. 

Lucy Caldwell discusses her most recent publication, Intimacies (2021), in conversation with Keith Hopper.

About Lucy Caldwell: born in Belfast and currently living in London, Lucy Caldwell is the author of 3 novels: Where They Were Missed (2005), The Meeting Point (2011) and All the Beggars Riding (2013). She has written 2 collections of short stories, Multitudes (2016) and Intimacies (2021), along with several stage plays and radio dramas.  She is also the editor of Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (2019). 

Lucy’s work has attracted numerous awards, including The George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright (2006), The Susan Smith Blackburn Award (2007), Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters’ Guild Award (2009), The Richard Imison Award (2009), the Dylan Thomas Prize (2011), Arts Council Northern Ireland Major Individual Artist Award (2012), The Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award (2013) and the Commonwealth Writers’ Award, Canada and Europe (2014).  She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.

About Keith Hopper: Dr Keith Hopper lectures in Writing & Literature at the Yeats Academy of Arts, Design & Architecture at the Institute of Technology, Sligo. He is the author of Flann O’Brien: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Post-modernist (revised edition, 2009); general editor of the twelve-volume Ireland into Film series (2001-2007); and co-editor of Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays (2011) and The Short Fiction of Flann O’Brien (2013). He also co-edited a series of four books by and about the Irish writer Dermot Healy (2015-2016). Keith is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, and is currently writing a book on poetry and the sense of place in the digital age.

Michael Longley discusses his most recent publication, The Candlelight Master (2020), in conversation with Anne Morrison. 

About Michael Longley: born in Belfast, Michael Longley, the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of 12 collections of poetry, has been a central figure in the poetry of Northern Ireland since the 1960s. From his first collection, No Continuing City: Poems 1963-1968 (1969) to his most recent publication, The Candlelight Master (2020), he has received numerous awards for his work. 

These include the Whitbread Poetry Prize (1991), the American Ireland Fund Literary Award (1996), the T.S. Eliot Prize (2000), the Hawthornden Prize (2000), the Wilfred Owen Award (2003), the Irish Times Poetry Now Award (2012), the Griffin International Prize (2015), the PEN Pinter Prize (2017) and the inaugural Yakamochi Medal (2018)

Other major achievements include the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry (2001), a CBE award (2010), and from 2007 to 2010 Michael was Ireland Professor of Poetry. In 2015 he was made a Freeman of the City of Belfast, and in the same year he received the Ulster Tatler Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of Aosdana.

Michael has also written widely on the arts in Northern Ireland.  He and his wife, the critic Edna Longley, live and work in Belfast.

About Anne Morrison: Anne has a long and distinguished career as a television executive and producer in documentaries and other factual programmes. She is currently Creative Director, Factual at Nevision production company, having held senior roles in the BBC for many years. She was Chair of BAFTA and founded the BBC Academy. In 2018, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Nottingham Trent University for services to broadcasting and the arts. She was born and brought up in Belfast and now lives in London.

Launching our series on Northern Irish Voices, Mary McAleese discusses her recent memoir, Here’s The Story (2020), in conversation with Carlo Gébler.

About Dr Mary McAleese: Born in Belfast, Dr Mary McAleese is a law graduate from Queen’s University.  In 1975 she was appointed Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College, Dublin.  In 1987 she returned to Queen’s as Director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies and in 1994 she became its first female pro-Vice Chancellor.  She is the first President of Ireland to have come from Northern Ireland, a position she held for two terms from 1997-2011.  The theme of her presidency was “building bridges” and she has a longstanding interest in many issues concerned with justice, equality, social inclusion, anti-sectarianism and reconciliation.  Since stepping down as President she has gained a PhD in canon law (2018).

Throughout her distinguished career Mary McAleese has received numerous prestigious awards and honorary doctorates: amongst others these include The American Ireland Fund Humanitarian Award (2007) and honorary doctorates of law from the University of Otago, New Zealand (2007),  Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, (2009) and Fordham University in the Bronx, New York (2010). In 2009 she became the third living person to be awarded the Freedom of Kilkenny. In 2013 a ceremony was held to rename a bridge on the MI motorway near Drogheda as the Mary McAleese Boyne Valley Bridge to honour her contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process.

About Dr Carlo Gébler: Carlo Gébler is the author of nearly 30 works including novels, plays, short stories, children’s fiction, travel writing, historical pieces and a memoir. His more recent work includes The Wing Orderly’s Tales (2016), The Innocent of Falkland Road (2017) a retelling of Aesop’s Fables (2019) and Tales We Tell Ourselves: A Selection From ‘The Decameron’ (2020).

 He has contributed extensively to a wide variety of publications including  Critical Quarterly, The Dublin Review, Fiction Magazine, The Financial Times, The Guardian and The Irish Independent.