Eamon Carr: ‘Sinéad O'Connor took a handful of crisps and crunched them very loudly into the mic'

Irish Independent

14 hours ago

The journalist talks about his new book looking back on the cultural titans he interviewed, including a sad Rudolf Nureyev and the 'weird homoerotic charge' when they met
Eamon Carr has lived the equivalent of 10 lifetimes, and he's got a multitude of stories for every one of them. That means that there's no such thing as a 'brief' catch-up with the Kells native, who is perhaps best-known as the founding member and drummer of Celtic rock icons Horslips. However, he is also known as a poet, having founded experimental spoken word beat group Tara Telephone in the 1960s; a playwright; an art historian; a sportswriter; a copywriter in an ad agency (where he first crossed paths with some of his future Horslips bandmates) and as an entertainment journalist.
It is the latter profession that's the reason for our meeting today. Carr's new book Pure Gold charts both his journey from reluctant interviewer to seasoned journalist over 35 years, as well as the 'memorable conversations with extraordinary people' that are collected in the tome. It is a hugely entertaining read, packed with not only those aforementioned memorable conversations, but also with Carr's memories of them woven around each tale.