Michael Patrick McDonald spills his heart, his guts and his blood onto the pages of this tragic, viciously funny and deeply moving Irish-American family portrait.
That's it. That's all I got.
Read it and weep. And laugh. And realize that, hey, maybe your fucked-up family ain't so bad after all. At least they're .. ya know ... alive.
On the heels of three sectarian murders in the span of 36 hours in Northern Ireland, peace rallies spread across the Six Counties today. The message — from Catholic to Protestant, loyalist to nationalist, politician to housewife — was unity.
The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA — the dissident republican groups claiming responsibility for the attacks that left two British soldiers and one policeman dead — are now faced with their greatest enemy: the Irish people themselves, who want nothing — for themselves and each other — but a world of good. To illustrate what that means, here are the Saw Doctors:
The Saw Doctors — from Tuam, County Galway — have been around since the late 80's. And cool, striving faux-hipsters do not dig them.
Which is one major reason why I love them.
They make joyous, heartfelt, occasionally goofy, always passionate pop-folk-celtic-rock. They are, in many ways, the Irish equivalent of John Cougar Mellencamp — solid, sturdy populist rock-and-rollers hugely influenced by their native land, who have seen great success, been touched by occasional greatness, have a rabid following (okay, that might be more Springsteen than Coug) and who now seem to have run out of songwriting mojo.
(All you faux-hipsters out there will howl and wail at the "greatness" tag I've hung on the Coug and the Saw Doctors — and shuffling and mumbling around in your DevendraBarnhart knit hats and your Yo La Tengo tee-shirts, I say this to you: Fuck off.)
The two driving forces and only constant members since the band's inception are Davy Carton and Leo Moran. There has been a steady procession of musicians and contributors along the way but the Saw Doctors heyday was the 90's. Pretty much the whole decade, yeah.
And I think the secret weapon, the secret ingredient to that success was bassist PearseDoherty.
I have no data, evidence or testimony to support this but with the inspired, antic and talented Doherty, the Saw Doctors produced four keeper albums, two #1 hits in Ireland and live shows that could make people literally climb the walls at the Ritz in New York, ecstatically channel Elaine Benes at the now-defunct Los Angeles Irish Festival while ash from nearby brush fires rained down and pogo in spite of a painfully herniated disc at the desperately-in-need-of-an-eppy Dublin Irish Festival.
Or so I'm told.
My two brothers, my wife and I were lucky enough to hang out with the Doherty version of the Saw Doctors a few times and they seemed like regular guys who had woken up one day to find out they were rock stars. Irresistibly charming and willing to buy a round as well.
Even better — the Saw Doctors have consistently skewered Catholicism and, in particular, the clergy in their songs. Anyone who punctures the hypocrisy of the "one true faith" and does it with guitars and beer is aces in my book.
For the uninitiated, here are the four Saw Doctors records that are must-haves:
If This Is Rock'n'Roll, I Want My Old Job Back — 1991 (includes the best-selling single in Irish history — I Useta Love Her)
All The Way From Tuam — 1992 (includes the other #1 Irish hit — Hay Wrap)
Same Oul Town — 1996
Songs From Sun Street — 1998
Since Doherty exited the band to raise his family, the Saw Doctors have not been the same on record. This decade has seen only two albums of new material — both underwhelming.
However, the Saw Doctors still have the capacity for joyful, celebratory rock and roll — after fifteen years, they returned to the top of the Irish charts in 2008 with a cover of the Sugarbabes' "About You Now."
The band recorded the song at the urging of the graduating class at Salerno College in Galway. The young women convinced the band to donate all the proceeds of the single to Cystic Fibrosis Ireland — in memory of their classmate who died from the illness late in 2007. So far more than $25,000 has been raised for the Salerno Schoolgirls' Fund.
Go buy the single. And go see the Saw Doctors when they come to town. They still can bring it.
If you were a fan of Northern Exposure, you will like this acclaimed Irish dramedy series, which ran from 1996 through 2001.
If you thought Northern Exposure was good but too aggressively quirky and that it strained its "cute" muscle a few too many times, then you will love Ballykissangel.
This popular BBC series centers on Father Peter Clifford, an earnest, intelligent priest assigned to the small town of Ballykissangel — which is populated by just the right assortment of eccentric residents.
What distances Ballykissangel from the likes of Northern Exposure, Ally McBeal and Picket Fences is that Ballykissangel manages to stay rooted in a reality that makes the comedy all that much funnier and the drama all the more poignant. You never stop believing the characters.
And that is do as much to the acting as the insightful and restrained writing. Father Peter is played to baffled, determined perfection by Stephen Tompkinson. One of Father Pete's main challenges is his growing attraction to Assumpta, the local pub owner. You will fully appreciate his predicament when you get a load of Dervla Kirwan, one of Ireland's trademark smolderingly intelligent actresses, who plays the lonely Assumpta. It is a classic set-up that the series handles just right.
I'm battling a cold so that's all you get. Except to say that Ballykissangel is excellent television and also features the underrated Tina Kellegher, who achieved immortality (well, at least in the McClatchy household) as Sharon Curley in The Snapper. And a young Colin Farrell. And great music.
All six seasons are available on Netflix.
Here's where Peter and Assumpta meet for the first time:
One of Ireland's greatest actresses, Anna Manahan, died last week. She was 84.
Manahan's career spanned more than fifty years and covered stage, film, Irish television and radio.
I remember her from the films Hear My Song (another in a seemingly unending string of under-appreciated Irish screen nuggets) and A Man of No Importance (featuring a typically brilliant turn by Albert Finney in the title role).
But Anna Manahan will always and forever be Mag Folan — the scheming, brutally manipulative mother in Martin McDonagh's hit play The Beauty Queen of Leenane. It was her career-defining role and it won her the Best Supporting Actress Tony Award in 1998. I cannot tell you how lucky I feel to have seen it.
Lisa and I caught the final performance of the production before it transferred to Broadway. The intimate confines of the Atlantic Theater Company's mainstage made the experience unforgettable. Manahan — along with Marie Mullen, Brian F. O'Byrne (yeah, him again!) and Tom Murphy — gave us one of the theater's great ensemble performances.
It was a Sunday matinee and the median age of the audience hovered somewhere between B.C. and AARP. Mere seconds before the curtain came up — an elderly couple behind us had the following thunderously loud exchange:
Her — (rifling through her playbill and finding an insert for the upcoming premiere of Sam Shepard's Eyes For Consuela) LOOK AT THIS! WHO THE HECK IS SAM SHEPARD!?
Him — OH, HE'S THAT ASTRONAUT ...
Her — AND HE WROTE A PLAY?
Him — SURE! HE'S VERY TALENTED. AN ASTRONAUT, A WRITER AND HE ACTS!
Her — WELL, I'LL BE.
Then the lights came up and Ann Manahan launched herself into Broadway history.
This entire entry was supposed to be a spotlight on the excellent anthology Murder Most Irish, which features tingly, funny and quietly freaky short stories from the likes of James Joyce, Sean O'Faolain, Ann C Fallon and a host of other celebrated Irish authors. And I still urge you to rustle up a copy.
But then I learned about Anna Manahan.
And just moments ago I read that — 24 hours after the Real IRA claimed responsibility for an attack that left two British soldiers dead — it happened again. Tonight in Craigavon, County Armagh a member of the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) was shot and killed by unknown assailants.
As troubled times return to Northern Ireland, it seems fitting to cast an eye toward one of the most notorious figures of the conflict who has dedicated the last thirty years to finding and keeping peace in the North.
Gusty Spence, now 75, was the godfather of the modern Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the Protestant paramilitary group that, in May 1966, declared war on the IRA.
Less than a month after that declaration, John Scullion, a 28-year-old Catholic, was shot in the Falls Road area of Belfast. He died two weeks later, becoming the first casualty of the modern-day Troubles.
Spence was charged in the murder but soon after his arrest, the charges were dropped. Emboldened, he and other UVF members attacked four Catholic off-duty bartenders.
One was killed.
This time, Spence was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. From prison, Spence oversaw the UVF's murderous campaign to obliterate the IRA and its supporters. The brutality, torture and indiscriminate killing by the Spence-led UVF rivaled — and often surpassed — that of the IRA.
A ballsy 1972 escape from the infamous Long Kesh prison led to this TV appearance that effectively scared the Jaysus out of every Catholic in the Six Counties:
Spence was re-captured four months later but he had cemented his folk hero/rock star status among Loyalists (Protestants who want to preserve the union with England ... in other words — dumb asses.)
However, as Spence sat in prison month after month — and people on both sides continued to die — and he actually had occasion to speak to his republican enemies ... a change began to take place.
Spence found his conscience.
The man who put the fear of God (or at least King William) into Irish nationalists far and wide for eleven years, turned his back on violence. On Armistice Day 1977, he officially resigned from the UVF.
Upon his release from Long Kesh in 1984, he plunged into the peace process. Ten years later — after countless hours of wrenching conversations and weathering the "traitor" label from UVF hard-liners — an emotional Spence stood before the world and read the UVF ceasefire, adding his personal ""abject and true remorse" to "the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years."
It was that image — Gusty Spence courageously offering regret and hope — as much as anything that propelled the peace process toward the historic 1998 Belfast Agreement.
It was courageous because Spence's life was now in danger from both sides. It was pivotal because, until then, the world had been deprived of a human face for the Ulster Protestants. The Protestants had — understandably so — felt like the red-headed stepchild of the Northern Irish struggle.
No movies. No U2. No White House receptions.
Just violence and blame.
Not that they didn't deserve the blame, mind you, because, let's face it — England belongs in Ireland about as much as I belong in the priesthood.
But Gusty Spence was the one who brought humanity to the "Prods". And it is impossible to imagine the current peace happening without his contribution.
And the old codger hasn't let up.
In 2007 he read a UVF statement saying they were putting their weapons "beyond use" — which is fancy wordplay for burying them ... but not too deep, just in case Gerry Adams falls off the pacifist wagon.
Spence immediately regretted the statement and last summer publicly blasted his former comrades for hedging their bets and challenged them to essentially get a hair on their asses and destroy the weapons unconditionally.
With yesterday's tragic shootings in Antrim by the Real IRA threatening to rip open freshly healed wounds, here's hoping that Gusty Spence's gutsy example is enough to snuff out any spasms of retribution by the UVF.
Because of Spence, many had been ready to pull the trigger.
Now, because of Spence, the trigger will fail.
Peace has been tasted and nothing can turn back the clock.
Pulp Fiction goes Irish in this mystifyingly neglected dark comic gem.
Set in Dublin, Intermission follows nearly a dozen characters whose lives intersect in funny, violent and, ultimately, touching fashion. Just when you think writer Mark O'Rowe and director John Crowley couldn't possibly fit another twist, reversal or character into the story, they do. Time and again. And always with bracing wit and relentless creativity.
Populated by what seems like half of Ireland's SAG members, this movie is one hell of a lot of fun. And it has a heart that does not promote tooth decay.
It is a hoot, a treat and a gas to watch the cavalcade of stars, near-stars and hey-I-know-that-guy-what-the-hell-is-his-name-agains having an absolute ball with dialogue that crackles with authenticity and situations that turn on a euro.
Colin Farrell playing an Irishman (which is always good news, playing an American ... not so much) and he is spectacularly funny.
The protean Brian F. O'Byrne, who created — among other brilliant stage performances— the role of Father Flynn in the play Doubt. Philip Seymour Hoffman got the movie and an Oscar nod. O'Byrne got a "special thanks" and, I'm guessing, an attaboy.
Look, no one loves P.S. Hoffman more than I do but can't we once get to see the goddamn actor who originated the role do the movie?
(I hear a distant "Amen" from Kathleen Chalfant, who must have a special voodoo doll of Emma Thompson somewhere. See Wit and Angels in America.)
Kelly MacDonald (Scottish, but who cares) in all her post-Trainspotting and pre—No Country For Old Men charm and beauty. I was smitten.
(The wife digs James McEvoy, also Scottish, so I think the free spin rule is a wash next time we hit Glasgow.)
The slyly hilarious Shirley Henderson — Moaning Myrtle to all you parents and Potter nerds.
And finally — the man, the myth, the people's thespian — the actor who has been in every movie and on every television show shot over the past 25 years and has yet to hit a false note — Colm Meaney.
Intermission is a great, raucous Irish time. And now, it'll never live up to the hype. Sorry.
Between now and March 17th, people of all stripes, ages and degrees of inebriation will tap their inner Paddy. They will break out Danny Boy, blinking buttons, big green Seussian hats and dye the rivers green. They will Lucky Charms us till our ears bleed, dance spastic jigs, and puke in the street, the bathroom and, yes, back into their beer.
And we empower them to get their Irish up, on and over in whatever fashion they choose.
However, for the 2nd annual "Off The Beaten Path - Twelve Days of Irish", (click here for last year's offerings) we will go native, immigrant and transatlantic to bring you some cultural and historical diamonds in the peat.
So today — let's rock it Chicago-style:
The Tossers, from the South Side of Chi-town, have been at it for over fifteen years but I have only hipped to them within the last year or so. And that was through pure dumb luck — somehow, I rarely seem to experience pure intelligent luck.
The Tossers followed the path carved out by The Pogues and currently trod most successfully by Flogging Molly and the Dropkick Murphys. The music landscape is fairly littered with bands hopping the Irish/Celtic train and much of that fare fades quickly from memory. Indeed at first glance (and second and third glance as well) the Tossers seem like they might be trying to will Shane MacGowan to apparate before them and christen them with the brown.
But here's the thing — the Tossers have the songs — and the killer players — and the frontman — to hold their own and more. Which they have for a decade and a half. And, ya know, what the hell — at least they're not ripping off Styx. And they truly re-invent the traditional Irish tunes they choose, making them exhilarating, haunting and current.
The Tossers have six albums out. Their latest is On A Fine Spring Evening and it is worth your time, money and effort. Drink and listen. If you're not singing, dancing or shitfaced by the time Brendan Behan appears — your name is probably Cromwell.
Oh yeah ... Lead singer Tony Duggins has a solo record out titled Undone.
His pitch — "Buy the record. I need beer money."
Evidently, the Tossers' live shows are the stuff of legend. As yet, though, the pricks haven't quite made it to Columbus. Hey, quick, somebody get me the Dublin Irish Festival on the phone — I think I know how to shock it back to life.
