The Fuchsia Band Man
-He says more than his prayers, I could imagine my aunt saying the first time I heard Máirtín de Cógáin of The Fuchsia Band. Well, he is a seanchaí after all.
-He says he has a great band, an Irish Fester announced to me as I watched Máirtín singing at Molloy’s:
Well, when I was a boy it was always me joy
To go to the pub each night
There were arguments scraps and killings perhaps
And everyone thought he was right
There were badgers and dogs
And men from the bogs
And young fellows acting the tool
But now there’s no crack
For everyman Jack
Has his arse in the air playing pool
I hadn’t heard The Pool Song since emigrating. Máirtín was good. He did a lot of talking; Well, he is a seanchaí after all. And he played the bodhrán. He played it well. Two KC Irish Festival directors asked me what I thought of him.
-He’s very attractive
When Máirtín came back to KC, he brought the boys with him. Eoin Verling, Mick Heffernan, Kevin McNally and Máirtín played the KC Irish Fest every day in every corner. Legend has it they played both the Terrace Stage and the Boulevard Pub Stage at the same time. In amongst the pink hotpants (promotional, like) I was talking to Máirtín one afternoon at the Festival, when we looked up at the top of the Westin Hotel at the room where the Fuchsia Band were staying. We saw a bare male backside.
-They must be playing pool
Máirtín and The Fuchsia Band were fabulous in our midst in 2005, fierce traditional, and pulsating with it. Perhaps the only foot they put wrong was the pink hotpants. It won’t always be so; The Fuchsia Band are too good. And relentlessy they make friends everywhere they go, from West Cork to Finland. It’s great that Kansas City has been a part of their story, and it continued at the KC Irish Festival again in 2006, but Milwaukee and greater pastures aren’t far away.
2006 also saw Máirtín de Cógáin star in Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or Cannes Film Festival winning movie about Irish Independence and the Irish Civil War, The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Máirtín plays Sean and gets to sing Óró sé do Bheatha Abhaile as well as play with guns.
Here’s a video of Máirtín on Ireland’s Balcony TV from March 2007:
However Máirtín is in Kansas City right now, and
tonight, March 31, 2006) the Missouri Valley Folklife Society presents:
Máirtín in a solo concert
Oak Street Coffee House
Oak and 63rd St
8:00pm
Tickets available only at the door: $10
Eddie Delahunt has even postponed his regular Friday gig until 10pm so you, and he, can attend.
Máirtín won’t always be ours; next week he’s back in Cork when The Fuchsia Band play support to the legendary Saw Doctors. Sometimes you get chances.
More on The Fuchsia Band
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