Cork streets cultivated Rory Gallagher's musical talents, says brother Dónal

Irish Independent

4 hours ago

Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, Donegal, and spent his early formative years in the city of Derry, but it was Cork that gave the blues genius his musical upbringing. Living in the heart of the city, on McCurtain Street, Rory thrived off the city's up-and-coming music scene, and famously bought his 1961 Fender Stratocaster, reportedly the first in Ireland, at Crowley's Music Shop.
'Rory grew up in the heart of the city,' said Dónal, at the launch of a number of new initiatives to honour the musician at City Hall. 'We had been up and down, but this was the final stay. We lived in Sidney Park, then the Douglas Road, and then finally the Well Road.
'Coming from the north, Rory had opened his ears to a lot of music. When we were in Derry, it was where the Americans were based for the Second World War and stayed for the Cold War, so we would listen to American radio.
'Then, we came down to Cork, and you suddenly found that you were in one of the main streets of the city. The whole culture and internationalism of the city, because there was still shipping going on in Cobh.
"We lived in a bar on McCurtain Street and got to know all the characters, of all sorts: educated men, dockers, whatever, right across the board. It was a very easy city then, and due to its size it was a nice urban place for Rory, who was already developing his songs, talent, and music, and could identify with what other cities were like.
'He was out on the streets.'
Dónal, speaking right across the road from his very first school (the Model school, now the site of a courthouse), says that the city was extremely kind to both himself and his brother, who returned regularly to play concerts at the City Hall, which are woven into the city's lore by those who attended (as well as the many who claim to have!).
'It wasn't a bit intimidating, traversing the city over and back to go to school from McCurtain Street. On my mother's side of the family, there were tons of cousins – more than we had in Derry – so to have that was all good.'
Dónal would act for many years as his older brother's right-hand man. A manager, and mentor, and carving a path few, if any, Irishmen had done before. However, it could have been so different if he had been a bit more sensitive in his youth.
'I got fired once by Rory for dissent on stage,' Dónal told the many amassed at City Hall to celebrate the launch of the campaign about some of Rory's earliest gigs.
'He'd gotten on so well that they had asked for an encore, so he asked me to come on stage and do my party piece, which was 'The Scottish Solder', because I could do the accent.
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'I started off with the song, and Rory started to join in with the guitar. So I stopped and I said to him 'there's no guitar on this', so the next thing it was all over, at seven years of age I was fired!'
'Cork Rocks for Rory' is the first major attempt by the city to truly commemorate the life and times of a man who was counted by many of his peers as the best guitarist to walk the earth. Cork City Council have worked alongside members of the family, as well as Sheena Crowley in a number of events in memory of the former member of Taste, and successful solo artist, 30-years on from his death.
While last weekend, the main roadway at Cork Airport was renamed 'Rory Gallagher Avenue'.
'All four corners of Ireland have Rory at their heart, and each town has its own story,' said Dónal. 'People of all races, creeds, and colour, see Rory as a model person. He was very modest, but who actually travelled the world and brought Irish music and culture as well.
'Even though he was playing rock and roll, his talent paved the way for Irish musicians thereafter. There had almost been a stigma that if you're Irish, you can't play modern music. When Rory broke down those barriers, people began to take Ireland more seriously and went to look at the talent in Ireland.
'And of course, they found a goldmine!'
For that, Rory and indeed the city can thank Mike Crowley's decision to allow a young Gallagher to purchase the Stratocaster for £100 on credit, whose previous owner belonged to Jim Conlon, of the Royal Showband, who decided to sell the guitar because its colour wasn't exactly what Conlon had in mind.
Mike's daughter Sheena, who remembers as a 16-year-old the then revered Gallagher coming into the shop regularly to talk tech with her Dad, was a key part of the success of the exhibition, attending the auction in Bonhams to purchase a number of items, and many prospective buyers backed off once they learned why she was present.
'You'd be on a high thinking about it really,' Sheena said at the launch. 'You'd be thinking about what my Dad must have been thinking, what Rory would be thinking, it's fabulous really.
'I'm absolutely buzzing,' said the owner of Crowley's Music shop, adding that she would like to soon scale up to a larger premises, having vacated their shop on McCurtain Street in August 2013, before reopening a new shop on Friar Street a decade later.
Rory's nephew, Eoin, has now been living in Cork for the past 20 years, following in both his uncle's and father's footsteps, and has continued the family's impact on the city through over a decade's work in the arts, before focusing full-time on keeping alive his uncle's legacy.
'When you're born into a family where you have someone like Rory Gallagher, who's just your uncle starting out. When you become a teenager, you get into your own music, and then Rory died, and when you compare contemporary stuff, you see how great he was and the talent that he had.
'Newer generations are finding out about him and seeing the lineage that traces the music they like, all the way back to him, so there's always work to be done!'
The new project has all taken place within a whirlwind four months, that saw constant collaboration between Eoin and City Council, in securing vital exhibits for the Cork Public Museum in Fitzgerald's Park and in the atrium of City Hall, as well as a number of other exhibitions across the city, complimented by a 'Stompin' Ground' walking train, which acts as a permanent legacy, 'highlighting the places and streets that were Rory's stompin' ground' across Cork.
'Cork City Council have been absolutely fantastic in their help. It's been intense but everyone has worked extremely hard, and I'm very optimistic about the future in honouring Rory and his Cork roots.
'I think he would be extremely proud, especially in his hometown. He was a fantastic musician, but at the end of the day he's our Rory, from our Cork, our man.'