Danny McCarthy and the Vox Cabaret
by Paul McDermott
This is a series of articles about the production of my latest radio documentary “No Journeys End — the story of Michael O’Shea”.
Part 1 — Michael O’Shea, The Making of… (is here)
Part 2 — Alto Studios — Robert Emmet House (is here)
Part 4 — The Hammered Dulcimer in Ireland (is here)
Update (August 2019) — the finished documentary is below:
Introduction
I’m currently in production on my next radio documentary. Its subject is the Irish musician Michael O’Shea and will be broadcast in late August 2019 on RTÉ Lyric FM.
Part Three— Danny McCarthy and the Vox Cabaret
Michael O’Shea — Danny McCarthy — Ivernia Theatre — Microdisney —Five Go Down to the Sea? — Performance Art — National Concert Hall — and “The Threshold Of Quiet”
Danny McCarthy is a sound and performance artist based in Cork. Last February I met up with him in the National Concert Hall as he was setting up an installation for the NCH’s Sounds Like Art exhibition. Danny’s piece was entitled The Threshold of Quiet and featured a couple of hundred ceramic bells with their clappers removed. Danny was asking people to listen to the sound of silence and ponder, “where did the bells come from, who brought them back, whose wedding anniversary was being commemorated? Who came from Benidorm or who was in Boston and why did they then get rid of those memories by putting the bells into charity shops or antique shops or flea markets or whatever?” In the programme notes Danny describes the experience as, “Pure blank listening… They contain something beyond sound (in)silence.” Later that day I contacted Danny and told him that I’d been thinking about his bells all day, I found the piece moving and incredibly thought provoking.
Danny has had a long and distinguished career in sound and performance art. He was one of the founders of the Triskel Arts Centre and as such introduced Cork audiences to performance art. On 31 October, 1982 he performed on a bill at the Ivernia Theatre as part of a Vox magazine promoted night called the Vox Cabaret. Also on the bill that night were Five Go Down to the Sea?, Microdisney and Michael O’Shea. Though Michael was predominately known for his busking exploits he had performed in July 1982 at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.
The Ivernia Theatre was situated down Grafton Lane off the Grand Parade in Cork and in 1982 the theatre was leased by the Cork Theatre Company. In the few short years that the Cork Theatre Company made its home in the Ivernia they staged a number of plays written by some of the founders of the Company including: Ger FitzGibbon, Emelie FitzGibbon, Fred Williams and Gerry Barnes. It was also where Microdisney played their farewell gig before moving to London in July 1983. Months earlier it was where Vox magazine held their Vox Cabaret.
Danny remembers the night well, “I’ve quite clear memories of the night. I was quite nervous doing the piece. At that stage I had been a founder of the Triskel Arts Centre, and I had been responsible for organising all the performance art stuff in Cork so I knew the audience for performance art and who would normally come along to it, but suddenly this night there was a hall full of people between punks and god knows what and I was wondering what would they make of what I was going to do. So I was quite nervous doing it.”
The piece in question was a performance that Danny called “Skibbereen Is Part Of You All” and the concept revolved around the idea that late at night in pubs after a few drinks people would sing Irish ballads and rebel songs but the following morning they’d be giving out about the IRA. The work consisted of Danny appearing on stage wearing a white shirt accompanied by the melody of the song ‘Skibbereen’ being played on a mandolin whilst the words of the song were recited. Danny recalls, “I then proceeded to roll up my sleeves and write on my arms Skibbereen Is Part Of You All in red marker. I had tried scratching it with a pin but the blood was much too slow and it was hard to read. I then held my arms in a crucified manner for a little while.Then I rolled down my sleeves poured a bucket of water over myself whilst the red seeped through my shirt like blood. The music changed to Céile Band music and I left the stage. The audience went WILD with applause. I couldn’t believe it. I left the gig shortly after as I was drenched and didn’t hang around for the afters. It is strange I have done hundreds of performances many of which I forget but that one sticks clearly in my mind.
Michael O’Shea performed at the Vox Cabaret that night and Danny remembers that, “Michael kind of reassured me and calmed me down, and he was telling me to relax that all would be fine and he was right. I knew he was performing at the time and I knew that he had an instrument made of a door and things like that, but I always remember how nice he was calming me down and reassuring me that this would be OK. My memories of Michael are of how nice he was to me.”
“I had heard of him [Michael], I’m sure I read about him in Vox before the event and knew of him. Maybe Michael was more used to performing in front of that kind of audience or maybe it was his experience at busking or whatever, but that kind of came across to me, his words to me. It’s one of those night’s that is kind of ingrained in one’s memory.”
To be continued…
© Paul McDermott 2019, All Rights Reserved
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Further Reading
© Paul McDermott 2018, All Rights Reserved
Further Listening
© Paul McDermott 2019, All Rights Reserved
