In conversation with FRANCES O'ROURKE
JOE O'CONNOR
is a best-selling writer who has written stage plays and film scripts and broadcasts a weekly radio diary on RTÉ's Drivetime. A new collection of his short stories is due to be published in October. His adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel My Cousin Rachel has just opened at the Gate Theatre, Dublin.
‘I felt I’d known Philip for years just from listening to his show, South Wind Blows, because of the particular broadcasting style he has, which is so intimate. You hear his voice on a Sunday night saying ‘welcome to the westernmost tip of the Dingle peninsula’, and feel that you know him. Listening to what I think is one of the best music programmes in the world, I have the strange sensation that he’s selecting every track for me and my 10 closest friends.
“It was another friend who brought us together, a lovely woman called Ciara Sidine. Three or four years ago she brought out a calling card CD of three or four songs which she’d written and I thought right, I’ll make it my mission to have Ciara Sidine played on South Wind Blows. So I sent it to him; he rang me up when it arrived, and that’s how we met. We just hit it off.
“Then Maureen Kennelly of the Cúirt Literary Festival in Galway suggested we might do an event together, that Philip would interview me on stage about music in my work. Philip suggested that before that event, I would be on his programme , so the first time we really met was in the RTÉ studio in Galway. We had a great old chat; I thought he was fab.
“The event sort of took off, we’ve done it many times since, it’s become a show called Whole World Round and we’ve performed it all over Ireland and in New York, and we think we’re going to do it in England in June.
“I do love radio. One of my proudest moments was when Lady Gaga and my Drivetime Diaries CD were at number one together – it was probably for about half-an-hour on a Wednesday night. My Cousin Rachel is the first adaptation I’ve done . . . Daphne du Maurier wrote it in the the 1950s. All sorts of taboo things happen in it. Rachel’s a fantastic character, very intriguing.
“I’ve never been in a band, but I love music. I often went to see Scullion [King’s band] when I was in UCD. The great thing about Philip and Nuala’s story of Irish music, Bringing it all Back Home, is that their work is as important in Irish music as the work of the great Irish song collectors.
“Philip’s a very witty man, very passionate about the arts, is full of projects and ideas and films he wants to make. His conversation is peppered with quotes from everyone from Little Richard to Seamus Heaney. He’s a force of nature and very loveable. Philip has a gift for friendship . . . if you walk down the street with him in any town in Ireland, he knows someone – and if he doesn’t at the start of the walk, he will by the end.
“He has a Mediterranean streak, back-slapping and hugging. And he’s so full of music . . . he jangles the change in his pocket in three/four time.”
PHILIP KING
is a musician – founder of band Scullion – filmmaker and broadcaster. His TV series Other Voices is in its 10th year; another, Bringing it All Back Home, won an Emmy. He broadcasts music programme South Wind Blows on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday nights.
‘My first meeting with Joe was on air – I do a radio programme, South Wind Blows, on RTÉ on Sunday nights. I knew of Joe and his writing, might have shaken hands with him once and he started sending me emails now and then. Then Maureen Kennelly, the producer of the Cúirt Literary Festival in Galway, wondered if we had common interests in literature and music. So our pen-pal correspondence on air turned into a meeting.
“We had a wide-ranging conversation on music and literature, then did a couple of South Wind Blows and we did our first stage show together at the Cúirt festival. We made up a CD of a number of songs, rambled on stage, sat there in two chairs and said to the audience, listen to this.
“It was very emotional: we played songs by Bob Dylan, June Tabor, Paul Brady; Joe read from Star of the Sea and Redemption Falls . . . and our relationship developed.
“We did a similar evening in the Peacock, words and music linked together: the show is called Whole World Round, from an old Appalachian song. Joe is a brilliant reader of his own work and he keeps a diary for his Drivetime show, so he comments on contemporary events. We had a fantastic night doing the show in Le Poisson Rouge on Bleecker Street in New York. Martha Wainwright, Laurie Anderson, Gabriel Byrne, Roddy Doyle and Colum McCann were amongst those there, and at the heart of that was Joe O’Connor.
“On our New Year’s Day broadcast we had Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Andy Irvine, Sonny Condell, Robbie Overson, Ciara Sidine, Steve Cooney and Joe’s sister Sinéad O’Connor. We did a gig in Carrick-on-Shannon in Leitrim for a few hundred people, with Robbie Overson of Scullion. Now there’s talk doing something in London.
“Irish music left an indelible imprint on American music, on bluegrass, country and on the beginnings of Broadway, Tin Pan Alley . . . the Irish and the Jews made American music what it is. And Joe has an encyclopaedic knowledge of music of every sort. Listen to his sister Sinéad . . . there’s music in their bones.
“It’s very hard to know when acquaintance turned to friendship. By now we’re close friends, talk regularly – the boundary between work and pleasure has blurred into an open ended music /literary/friendship conversation. I’ll read something, he writes me notes, I’ll send him notes .
“Joe and I, we’re in tune . . . there’s no ageism in trad music, blues, they link the generations together. I have an eclectic taste in music and literature and so has Joe. We fell into friendship.
