NEW LIFE:Former Sultans of Ping member Morty McCarthy has swapped his drumsticks for a career teaching English in Sweden, writes ISABEL CONWAY
AS MORTY McCARTHY tells it, he really didn't have a choice. The former drummer with one of Ireland's most successful bands Sultans of Ping (their biggest hit Where's Me Jumperis still being played on the airwaves) pulled out a long-forgotten qualification that was to chart a new and totally unexpected career in Sweden.
A Cork man through and through – he has even written a book based on his grandmother’s lifelong use of Cork slang – McCarthy (39) can’t remember exactly who persuaded him to take a two-week crash course in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) all those years ago.
But he is thankful. It was probably one of the lads in the music business who, unlike many a foreign-based young Irish soccer talent, had a future eye on the ball when it came to earning a living in the real world.
Coming back to in Ireland, during constant touring in Europe, the US, Canada and even as far as Japan, “someone, maybe one of the lads” advised him to do the short TEFL course as an insurance policy against starvation in some foreign land.
Arriving in Stockholm after a slow warm-up to a pen pal romance, McCarthy, who “never in a million years saw myself as a teacher”, found himself, without a word of Swedish, being plunged into the depths of a tough city suburb, teaching a unruly bunch of pre-teen and adolescent youngsters with a scary attitude to discipline and time- keeping.
“It was rough at the start but I think Irish people are very good at social skills, so I quickly learned the ropes and survived that for a year.
“I came up through the Christian Brothers’ method of schooling, so it was a shock to be standing there in front of up to 25 Swedish pupils with an unbelievably laissez faire attitude. It was a bonus if they turned up at all or didn’t walk out before the end of the English class. The Christian Brothers beat it into us, but you got a good education and you behaved yourself.”
McCarthy had worked in his father’s wine and spirits wholesale business in Cork after leaving secondary school, playing in a fledgling band on the local music circuit in the evenings.
Sultans of Ping were to become one of Ireland's great success stories of the early 1990s, breaking into the scene with a great individualistic style, recording a favourite that crossed the generation gap and was universally loved. Where's me Jumperstayed in the charts for six months and in a poll by Today FM two years ago was voted the second greatest record of all time.
With limited opportunities in Ireland, the band moved to a base in London in 1992 after turning professional, travelling extensively and staying together for a further five years until “the crowds got smaller, we weren’t so popular any more, we had no money left and we had reached the end”.
Since the split they have since reformed for up to 10 shows a year and played a sold-out gig at the Garage in London in October, with more dates scheduled for Ireland next year.
With good contacts in the music business in London, McCarthy drifted into merchandising and there followed an exciting couple of years touring with bands like Oasis and Divine Comedy and even Riverdance “looking after all the stuff, T-shirts, memorabilia, it was fun and meant I could still travel the world”. He still does a bit of merchandising at pop festivals around the UK and Ireland during the summer holidays enabling him to get home more often.
After seven years in London, McCarthy decided to move on, just when the Celtic Tiger had begun to grip Ireland. “When I left it was a poor country, but I just didn’t get the new place, I didn’t feel comfortable, none of it made any sense. Many of us who had lived abroad for a long time felt the place lost the run of itself. Now it has all come tumbling down. There were so many false expectations – I blame the Government for the mess.”
With friends in cities from Berlin to Copenhagen and a pen pal in Sweden – Emma Hartman, who became his partner and is mother of their two children Nina (8) and Kilian (11 months) – McCarthy followed his heart, arriving in Stockholm 10 years ago to “ give the place a try out”.
Today, he teaches English at the Folkuniversitetet, having quickly moved on from dealing with unruly pre-teens. To McCarthy’s astonishment he “absolutely loved teaching, the interaction and sense of achievement it brought, I was in a career I never expected and loving it”.
He also discovered that it helps when people are motivated and have to pay for their lessons – his students at the People’s University include embassy staff, immigrants, business people and pensioners.
To someone coming from Ireland there are many facets of Swedish society that are strange. McCarthy talks of the culture shock of arriving in a country where people place enormous value on honesty, have absolute faith in the authorities, depend on the State to look after them “from the cradle to the grave”, are shy and reserved and do not easily show feelings. In short, a far cry from Irish society.
Yet Swedes can become the most sincere of friends, he learned, and some are even quite gregarious and like the craic. He has got to know many of them through the music scene and also through sport. Missing Cork City FC and the GAA, he helped form a football club with other Irish and English immigrants to Stockholm. Langholm football club now plays in division three of the Swedish national league and, is above all, “a great social outlet” for them.
On a positive note, he says that he truly values Swedish honesty, equality between the sexes, the fact that poverty has been almost eradicated, and the efficiency of state services, such as child care, “which is excellent”. Young children are well cared for in state creches and while fees are income-related, parents rarely pay more than €100 a month.
Ironically, the absolute efficiency of the Swedish system creates a remoteness in contacts, within families and communities. “In Ireland there is a wonderful community spirit, people help each other because they know the State won’t do it. There are big families and a tight social network, the reverse is true in Sweden.”
What McCarthy misses most are family and the Irish landscape, pub culture (though he does not drink) and the ease with which conversations are struck up and friendships are made at home. Like many Swedes, he now has a second home, a quaint traditional timber house in the middle of the country a couple of hours’ drive from Stockholm in the beautiful forested province of Värmland, where he enjoys weekends and holidays with his family.
As a foreigner in Sweden, he also misses the passion of the Irish about family and sport, and our ability to “have a party – even if the ship is sinking”. He was reminded of this when watching TV footage of people jumping in the flood waters in Cork recently “for a bit of craic”. He says the Swedish reaction would have been to march up and down, with placards warning of pollution and disease from contaminated water, or to remain holed up in their homes sick with worry.
“To be eccentric in Ireland is an attribute, but Swedes do not like strange behaviour or to stand out from the crowd, though they tolerate it more if someone is drunk, So it can sometimes be tricky being Irish among the Swedes .”
