Cornelscourt Parish Hall

Cornelscourt Parish Hall
The Location of Foxrock Folk Club

THE FOXROCK FOLK CLUB

As Luke Kelly remarked when he played the club in December 1972, a folk club in the suburb of Foxrock was a somewhat unlikely combination. Probably even more unlikely was the fact it was organised and run by teenagers and managed to attract to Foxrock some of the biggest names on the Irish music scene (see Folk Club History & "Local and Visiting Artists").

The aim of the Foxrock Folk Club Project is to (1) research the history of the club (2) develop a club archive and (3) create a space in which people who played at the club or attended some of the sessions can share their memories of what was an unique musical and cultural experience.

Contact: jeremy.kearney40@gmail.com


Monday 28 March 2016

RTE RADIO 'ARENA' PROGRAMME WITH JIM LOCKHART

The folk club and the CD featured on RTE Radio 1 Arts programme 'Arena' on Thursday 24 March and it was a real pleasure to be interviewed by Jim Lockhart of Horslips fame. The band actually played Foxrock on 6 Feb 1972 so Jim had a direct link with the club. The other special thing about the interview was that Eileen Heron, the producer, had gone to considerable trouble to arrange a link, via telephone, with Kevin McCann in Hawaii, as she was fascinated to hear from the 15-year old school boy who had made the original tapes.
It was great to hear Kevin describe in detail of the making of the recordings, including the regular chore involved in carrying the heavy reel-to-reel recorder to and from each session. Of course without such a practical labour of love the CD would not exist.
Jim played a nice selection of three tracks from the CD - Luke Kelly singing 'The Unquiet Grave', 'L'Oiseau' by Supply, Demand and Curve and We 4's version of 'Summertime' featuring the superb vocal by Suzanne Murphy (who unsurprisingly went on the become the principal soprano of the Welsh National Opera).
As an example of how the club encouraged the teenage participants to move from the local to the global (in both musical and lifestyle terms) Kevin also talked about his current home in Hawaii and his involvement in the two biggest optical telescopes in the world at Keck Observatory. Apparently the observatory has been responsible for discovering the majority of new planets found in the last 20 years. However, he couldn't confirm the rumour that due to the loudness of the Horslips gig at the club, the observatory had picked up traces of the noise created then still circulating in space!

The programme can be heard on reply at:
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/programmes/2016/0324/777256-arena-thursday-24-march-2016/?clipid=2140896#2140896

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