Remember the Foxrock Folk Club? If you do, there's a celebratory concert next week that will reunite many of the musos who appeared there, writes JEREMY KEARNEY
“A concert has been arranged by the Foxrock Folk Club, which has based itself on the people of the area for the past two-and-a-half years and always welcomes visitors as well. It’s at the Parish Hall, Bray Road, Cornelscourt (beside the Magic Carpet) next Sunday. Buses 84 or 46 to door, 46a to about half a mile away. Admission 40p; artists and groups taking part are The Chieftains, Danny Doyle, Brian Fry and the Louis Stewart Quintet with Mike Nolan (trumpet).”
'T HE ABOVE notice appeared in the What's On section of The Irish Timeson Monday, December 13th, 1971, inserted thanks to the support of the paper's then jazz critic George Hodnett ("Hoddy" to everybody who knew him). Those few lines capture the essence of what made the Foxrock Folk Club so special for the four years it existed between 1969 and 1973.
What started in 1969 in a rundown local hall at Cornelscourt as an activity to give local teenagers something to do at the weekends had, within two years, expanded into a club that was presenting music by the most exciting Irish traditional band of the time, then in the midst of launching their international careers (the Chieftains), a jazz guitarist who had just won a major award at Montreux, the most prestigious jazz festival in Europe (Louis Stewart), and an Irish folk and ballad singer who was experiencing major national popular success in the charts (Danny Doyle).
And despite this, the audience was still the same teenagers who would arrive at the club after one or more bus journeys, queue patiently outside the hall and pay the 30p or 40p admission fee.
The club was established in 1969, with the encouragement of a local priest, Fr Dermot O’Neill, by a group of teenagers who lived in the area. They were all interested in music and involved in various community and social activities via the local church and wanted to have an outlet for their interests.
The first session was a fairly relaxed affair that involved a variety of different local and visiting acts and was attended by an audience of between 50 and 60 young people, with the majority still at school and none aged over 20. The system for advertising sessions was suitably parochial as it involved producing tickets that were then circulated around the schools. Hand-drawn posters were also put up on lampposts around the local area. Although only one of the organisers had ever been in a folk club in real life, it grew quickly from its small beginnings to encompass folk, traditional and jazz music and poetry and theatre.
It ran consistently on Sunday nights every two weeks between October and May for the next three-and-a-half years. From somewhat amateurish beginnings, it soon developed into a venue for some of the most important names on the Irish music and arts scene. It unwittingly captured the spirit of the times, which included a huge burst of creative energy among Irish musicians and artists, presenting sessions by such legendary performers as Luke Kelly and Ronnie Drew of the Dubliners, Dónal Lunny and Andy Irvine (two of the founder members of Planxty), Horslips, Tír na nÓg and Mellow Candle; poets such as Roger McGough, Brendan Kennelly and Pearse Hutchinson; Niall Toibin and the Abbey theatre group, as well as many others.
A key influence in the development of the club was Lar Cassidy, who lived in the area and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz, blues and modern literature (he went on to become the literature officer of the Irish Arts Council until his untimely death in 1997 at the age of 47). His contacts with musicians and poets were crucial in making the links with the artists who played the club.
One of the special things about the club was that it was a community-based activity, organised by young people for young people, which made it very different to the standard image of folk clubs of the time, which mainly attracted an older audience of folk aficionados who were only interested in one kind of music. The vast majority of the youthful audience would never have been to a music session of any kind and were hearing these musicians for the first time.
All the artists were treated equally. So at any particular session the jazz guitarist Louis Stewart might be followed by a local teenager, Charlie Delaney, who played flamenco guitar, and then Pat Gormley, who lived in Cornelscourt, might play Swinging Shepherd Bluessupported by Lar Cassidy on the piano. After that, a poet might read – Brendan Kennelly, Pearse Hutchinson or Peter Fallon, for example – or there would be an appearance by the Chieftains, Andy Irvine or Al O'Donnell, and all would be crushed in together in the little side room of the hall, which served as the hospitality suite, dressing room and rehearsal space. The success of the club was to a large extent due to timing. There were relatively few places where musicians could play, and none on a Sunday night, so that many musicians were willing to make the 11km journey from the city centre to Foxrock. The club was also catching the revival in traditional and folk music that was taking place in Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It is only in recent years that those involved in organising the club have become fully aware of its individual nature and the fact that so many artists who appeared there later went on to play important roles in the growth of Irish music. This year is the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the club, and a celebratory concert is planned for June 14th, in the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire that will bring together many of the musicians and artists who played there. The line-up is growing by the day, with Louis Stewart, Myles Drennan, Tír na nÓg, Al and Alison O’Donnell and Peter Fallon already on the bill, and it promises to be a great night.
For information about the concert see http://foxrockfolkclubproject.blogspot.com
