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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Breaking Out: The remarkable life of gregarious and charismatic songwriter Fergus O'Farrell
The late songwriter Fergus O'Farrell wrote music of heartbreaking beauty and of breathtaking tempestuousness. So it is apt that his story should be brought wrenchingly to the screen by director Michael McCormack with the documentary Breaking Out (RTÉ One, Wednesday, 10.35pm). It is a feature-length sobathon filmed over 10 years and forged grippingly from the stuff of life itself: hope, struggle, death and the redemptive power of a great tune. But there is humour too – and a surreal cameo from movie star Jeremy Irons , a neighbour of O'Farrell's in west Cork who we see appearing to the singer in a dream, after he suffers an accident and wonders if he has the will to carry on. READ MORE O'Farrell passed away in 2016 during the shooting of the documentary, shortly after he had finished the album he had set out to make with his band Interference – and with the help of his friend Glen Hansard , of The Frames. Diagnosed in childhood with muscular dystrophy, the Schull, Co Cork, artist was forced to stop touring just as his career was taking off. 'An Irish Jeff Buckley' is how he was described by Steve Wall of The Stunning, a contemporary of O'Farrell's in late 1980s Dublin, when every new Irish band was heralded as potentially the next U2. [ North Circular review: 'You'd have robbed cars flying around ... It used to be chaos, but good fun' Opens in new window ] As a kid, O'Farrell was always less athletic than his siblings. When he was eight, the postman told his parents there was 'something wrong' with their son, and they took him to Cork city for tests. His mother recalls how the doctor ignored Fergus and told her that her son would be in a wheelchair by 12. 'And at 18 … he snapped his fingers.' But Fergus made it past 18 and, having moved to Dublin, found healing in music. Gregarious and charismatic, O'Farrell was a lodestar to other artists. He came from comparative wealth (he was educated by the Jesuits in elite Clongowes Wood College) and his father had been able to lease for him an old shoe factory in Dublin that served as both digs and rehearsal space. Actor Jeremy Irons was a neighbour of O'Farrell's in west Cork. Photograph: Joaquin Corchero/Europa Press via Getty Images 'There was a constant shuffle of sleeping bags,' recalls singer and actor Maria Doyle Kennedy . 'It seemed to be a home for the bewildered.' O'Farrell was an artist's artist – an inspiration to a young Glen Hansard and countless others. 'You could see this frail being – this huge ego of a soul trapped in a very limited physical body,' recalls Hansard, who describes O'Farrell's singing as the sound of 'pure freedom'. Hansard felt he owed a creative debt to O'Farrell, and he repaid it by having Interference's song Gold feature in the soundtrack to his movie Once. [ Lucy Letby: Who to Believe review - Baffling exploration of convicted neonatal nurse's case Opens in new window ] The track took on a life of its own – it was performed at the 2012 Tony Awards and, in one of Breaking Out's most moving sequences, we accompany O'Farrell to New York where, alongside Hansard, he plays it at the famed Radio City Music Hall. But it is O'Farrell's final years in Schull that yank at the heartstrings. McCormack doesn't soft soap the impact of O'Farrell's declining health, nor the pressure it places on both O'Farrell and his wife, Li. In the end, Breaking Out is really about their relationship as much as it is about Interference or their fans. 'She is my controlled nuclear explosion, she is my happiness,' says O'Farrell, recalling how they met when he was in hospital in Cyprus and she was the nurse assigned to care for him. It's one more emotionally devastating scene in a film packed with them. Breaking Out can be viewed on RTÉ One at 10.35pm.
Extra.ie
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
RTÉ to air documentary on late Interference frontman Fergus O'Farrell
RTÉ have announced they will air a number of music documentaries this summer, including a film about the late Interference frontman Fergus O'Farrell, as well as a feature on American singer John Murry. The line-up of Irish productions will be airing across RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Breaking Out premiered in cinemas in November 2021, and tells the story of O'Farrell and his band, Interference. The film chronicles his adolescent years in Dublin and Czechia, the success of his song 'Gold', Interference's show at Radio City Music Hall, and O'Farrell's struggles to complete his final album in West Cork. Fergus O'Farrell and Glen Hansard on stage. Photo Credit Denise Foley. 'Gold' was featured in the soundtrack to the John Carney film Once , starring The Swell Season's Glen Hansard and Markta Irglov. RTÉ will also be showing The Graceless Age: The Ballad of John Murry. The feature documentary on the American covers his neglected childhood in Mississippi, trauma, his battle with opioid abuse, his creative burnout after his album Graceless Age in 2013 and how he found solace in Ireland. Also set to be shown are Don't Forget to Remember by Ross Killeen, a delicate story about the Irish artist Asbestos and his mother's advancing Alzheimers disease; as well as North Circular , a 2022 documentary which the length of Dublin's North Circular Road and uses music as a storytelling device. The latter features musical performances by John Francis Flynn, San Tama, Eoghan O'Ceannabhin, Ian Lynch, and Gemma Dunleavy.
