The Frank and Walters reveal how an English woman inspired a Cork anthem
The song 'After All' got a new lease of life when it featured on an episode of The Young Offenders, but as RTÉ show Aistear an Amhráin reveals, it's not a song about the city at all
It is a song that was released 32 years ago, was revived on a popular TV show just before Covid and has now become something of a de facto anthem for Cork people at home and abroad.
After All, the most celebrated song from that most Cork of bands, the Frank and Walters, is now as adored as old standards like The Banks of my Own Lovely Lee. Should Cork hurlers manage to live up to early season expectations and win the All-Ireland for the first time in 20 years this summer, it will be sung lustily at Croke Park. It has long been on the tannoy at Turners Cross, where Cork City footballers ply their trade.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
13 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Beyond the Pale festival cancelled just days before kickoff at Glendalough Estate
One of Ireland's most popular music festivals, Beyond the Pale, has been cancelled just days before it was due to begin next weekend. Crews had been working on-site for weeks, setting up stages and preparing the grounds at Glendalough Estate, Co Wicklow. The festival was scheduled to run this Friday to Sunday, June 13–15. However, the main stage was being dismantled today. A funfair, large marquees, tents, toilets, and security fencing had already been erected across the scenic site, which is backed by woodland and bordered by both a river and a lake. Suppliers began removing infrastructure today after being told by organisers that the festival could no longer proceed. The industry was slammed by the Covid pandemic and never fully recovered, a supplier at the festival said. Independent festivals, in particular, are still struggling. 'It seems to be the state of affairs at the moment that Irish festivals are going bust," someone working at the festival said. 'So many of them are gone. 'I think it's an overhang from covid. Insurance premiums going up. A lot of suppliers went bust over covid, suppliers that were left were trying to make up the money they lost so they raised their prices putting pressure on festivals again. It's like a vicious circle. 'Then the cost of living and everything else, there's not as much money around as there was before so they're probably struggling with ticket sales. 'There's pressure coming from everywhere. 'Last year Forever Young went, Indiependence in Cork, Sea Sessions in Donegal." Headliners for this year's Beyond the Pale included Jon Hopkins, Róisín Murphy, TV on the Radio, Boney M, and Jeff Mills. As recently as Saturday morning, tickets were still available on the festival's website — €268.95 for a three-day camping pass and €126.90 for a single-day ticket. Beyond the Pale won Best Small Festival at last year's Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) awards. It launched in 2022 with fewer than 5,000 attendees but grew rapidly — doubling to 10,000 by 2024 with 15 stages. This year, it was set to host 12,000 people. Read More Robert Pether's family to hear of restrictions put on engineer next week
Extra.ie
19 hours ago
- Extra.ie
Inside Miriam O'Callaghan's family life as RTE presenter to release memoir
Miriam O'Callaghan is one of the country's most recognisable broadcasters. The RTÉ presenter, who's been with the national broadcaster for over three decades after working in the BBC, has worn many hats over the years — including hosting Saturday Night with Miriam, Sunday with Miriam on RTÉ Radio One, and Prime Time — making her one of the most well-known presenters on RTÉ. Now, Miriam has announced that she will be releasing a memoir in October, admitting that she is 'really nervous' about telling her story. Sharing the news on social media, she wrote: 'At first I planned it to be just about my work as a journalist, but I soon realised it was impossible to separate the personal and professional parts of my life, that's why it's about life, work and everything. 'In truth I am really nervous about telling my story, that's probably why it took me so long to write it. All I hope is that people will read it and find it interesting, authentic, entertaining and hopeful.' But what of her personal life? Miriam O'Callaghan at the IFTA Awards 2025 at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre. Pic: Brian McEvoy Miriam was born in Foxrock, Dublin in 1960, and is the elder sister of the Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan. Her younger sister Anne passed away from cancer, aged just 33. Her father Jerry was a civil servant in the Department of Energy, but tragically and suddenly passed away from a stroke in 1995. Miriam went on to study law in UCD, and completed a post-grad in European Law — qualifying as a solicitor in 1983. From there, she went on to work as a researcher for a production company after moving to London with her then-husband, poet Tom McGurk — with the pair sharing four daughters together before splitting in 1995. Miriam and her second husband Steve Carson met while working for the BBC, marrying in 2000 and sharing four sons. Pic: Eamonn Farrell/ After Miriam and Tom called time on their marriage, Miriam met her now husband Steve Carson when they both worked on BBC Newsnight — falling 'head over heels' for each other while working on a film about the Irish Potato Famine. However, Miriam ended up going back to Ireland to care for her sister Anne, while Steve remained in the UK — although he was more than understanding of why Miriam had to head home, as he had also lost his mother to cancer when he was a young child. The pair went on to marry in 2000, and after having four girls in her first marriage, Miriam and Steve had four sons — totalling eight children altogether for the broadcaster. Steve currently works for the BBC, with Miriam saying that despite the long distance relationship she wants her husband to be happy. Pic: VIP Ireland With Miriam's career thriving in the national broadcaster, Steve began working behind the scenes — becoming RTÉ's Television Director of Programs in 2009. He was then made the editor of current affairs, and Director of Video, before returning to the BBC where he became BBC NI's Head of Production. He was also heavily involved in launching BBC Scotland back in 2019, with Miriam admitting that a long-distance relationship was tough with her in Dublin and Steve in Scotland. 'I think what matters is that you both end up doing something that you love so that you feel fulfilled,' Miriam told RSVP at the time. 'You've only got one life and I don't want to be on my deathbed wondering what I did with my life. I want to fill every moment of it doing what I enjoy. 'I want my husband Steve to be happy to be able to do what he wants and we are back together before you know it, the week apart flies.' In 2021, Miriam became a grandmother for the first time — after her daughter Alannah McGurk welcomed her first child, a daughter named Éabha, into the world. Speaking on being a grandmother, Miriam said that Éabha was a 'magnificent little girl,' and revealed that Éabha's middle name was a touching tribute to her late sister. 'As you know I have always been careful not to talk about my children and I am conscious that she is not my child, but what I will tell you is that she is a magnificent little girl,' Miriam told VIP at the time. 'She is ten months old, her name is Éabha Anne; they named her Anne after my late sister, and she is divine. I absolutely love her.'
Irish Examiner
a day ago
- Irish Examiner
Inside the musical Wicklow home where The Fynches grew up — now for sale for €825k
SELLING Wicklow's vastly upgraded Coningbeg Cottage as a rustic yet accessible lifestyle home, auctioneer Anna Thornton enthuses about the peaceful setting and the sweetest of seasonal birdsong. Glass act Might she mean the sound of The Fynches? They're an Irish band with deep family roots, and who are finessing their first album to be released in November in this musical home's adjacent recording studio, and in West Cork where they regularly both gig and record. Fynches front man Ferdia Walsh-Peelo and crew recorded much of their debut album (launching November 2025) at Coningbeg Cottage's studios The talented band — fronted by singer/actor Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, who was in Oscar-winning Coda, Sing Street and The Vikings — and his brother multi-instrumentalist and singer Oisín grew up at Coningbeg Cottage with two other siblings, after parents, opera singer and teacher Toni Walsh and just retired RTÉ investigative journalist and documentary maker Mick Peelo, made a lifestyle move here near Ashford and just off the M11 25 years ago. Hen party: Vastly extended, on organically tended grounds with veg beds and chicken run The couple had bought a Land Commission 1930s era cottage, which grew with them as their family also expanded to four young creatives: both generations now have had a gravitational pull to West Cork. Folks Mick and Toni are downsize home- hunting around Clonakilty, swapping the east coast for the south-west, while their offspring have worked, gigged, and lived troubadour musicians lives in and around Clonakilty. The doubled-in-size Coningbeg Cottage is now a comfortable four-bed 2,080 sq ft detached family home, with (convertable) detached music studio/multi-use additional building, on c a country acre with lofty interiors with feature timbers such as Douglas Fir, conservatory, glasshouse and organic veg gardens with large hen run (clucking fowl to rival blackbirds and Fynches?). Harmonic home of the Fynches It's guided at €825,000 by DNG Thornton who started first viewings last week, primarily to Dublin families who also want a lifestyle shift close to the capital, just off the M11 and near Rathnew, Wicklow town, and Ashford. Piano nobile... It's likely buyers will follow the Walsh-Peelo family's fledgling footsteps, 'swapping suburban Dublin for peaceful and pastoral Wicklow. Waking up on our first morning, to the sound of horses' hooves, confirmed we had made the right choice ... we continue to say it was our best decision ever,' says mum Toni 'Soprano' Walsh. While Mick commuted to Donnybrook's RTÉ studios, she gave music and singing lessons at this hub of activity, including opera lessons to internationally acclaimed Ava Dodd, while bands like Hudson-Taylor, Gabrielle Aplin, and I have a Tribe 'have also passed through to drink at the well, or swim at local beaches'. Youngest son Ferdia and Fynches frontman was born here, and apart from the band has an acting career that most recently saw him filming the forthcoming Four Letters of Love with Pierce Brosnan, Helena Bonham-Carter and Gabriel Byrne — whose career also started in Wicklow's more fictional Glenroe. Sing Street with Ferdia Walsh-Peelo Swallows of the feathered kind enhance and enrich the garden 'a place of recreation and nourishment, it's been a passion with organically grown veg plus our hens' eggs have never disappointed. Now it's a new chapter for us: needs have changed and new pastures (and, new veg patches) beckon,' Toni chimes. Strike a chord? Balancing that delicate 'selling while buying' bridge (house swap, anyone?), the Walsh-Peelo folk are actively scouring property websites as home-hunters in West Cork as their own Coningbeg Cottage is spruced up for sale, so they have fingers on the property market's pulse and beat at both ends: there could even be a ballad in it? VERDICT: A well-feathered nest that reared a brood of Fynches. What's next?
