by John Hoban
On then to Efes, Kuşadasi, and Mary’s house in Selçuk in Asia Minor. It’s all in the song. It’s about my life, the true story. All of it is meant to be exactly as it is, and was. The song celebrates that fact. ‘You are on my side through thick and thin…’
Chapter 2
HOME – MUSIC, SONG, DANCE
Music is the best medium for awakening the soul;
there is none better.
Music is the shortest, the most direct way to God,
but one must know what music is and how to use it.
(Sufi Inayat Khan)
‘Home’ is a big word. I heard a man in San Francisco say, “Home is when you’re there, no one can put you out.” I wonder? Óró ’sé do bheatha abhaile’ (welcome home). It was in Glide Memorial Church that I heard a man speak about ‘home’. The themes of home and homelessness have been a major part of my music and my life. For the first sixteen years of my life, Wesport Road, Castlebar, was my home. After my parents passed away in 1967 (my mother) and 1970 (my father), home was mostly temporary – lodgin’ houses, flats and squats all over the place. Sometimes I even slept out.
However, the idea of home for me has always been spiritual in essence. It feels like being part of something, a sense of belonging. Music feels like home to me, it has done since day one. I don’t know if describing music as my home is suitable or correct, but I do know that music gives me a sense of belonging and acceptance, no matter where I am at any given time.
Music, a sound or song, a bird singing, a saxophone playing, Cooley, Coltrane or Chopin? I don’t know. The feeling is there, the heart starts beating, the tear in the eye appears and the foot starts tapping. Sometimes it’s just wonderful singing a song for a few people, or playing a waltz on the melodeon. Home boys, home. A longing maybe, or else it’s just this, just now, home at last, the feeling deep down.
West of our home on the Westport Road lay The Reek, the sacred mountain/pyramid on which St. Patrick fasted for 40 days and 40 nights (and drove all the snakes out of Ireland). St. Mary’s psychiatric hospital, known to us as ‘The Mental’, lay to the east, a home to hundreds of inmates with whom I felt a very definite connection. ‘The Mental’ was a local term used for the hospital, not very complimentary, and certainly not politically correct by today’s standards, however, this is what it was known as when I was a boy. I sang in the church choir, and we sang in the awful rooms of St. Mary’s at various times of the year. I loved to visit ‘The Mental’ with my father delivering groceries to the canteen. The patients were always cadging tobacco from us kids so they could make their own cigarettes wrapped up in The Connaught Telegraph. My grandfather and my godfather also worked in St. Mary’s.
I served Mass and sang in the tiny chapel on the summit of Croagh Patrick. We felt raised ‘up on eagles’ wings’, holy as could be, angels. A tough auld climb but hey, it’s worth it for the view. 365 islands in Clew Bay, believe it or not.
Normal living, school, everywhere (except on a football field), felt difficult, and I got to know the four horsemen: Terror, Bewilderment, Frustration and Despair. They were always hovering around me and within me. Music, football, daydreaming and prayer were home or salvation to me. Comfort – presence and defense – music was my lifeline, the key of the door to the world I loved and trusted; the wooden, beautiful sounds from the ‘wireless’ radio.
One Christmas, as I spun the dial, I came across Phil and Don Everly singing ‘Let It Be Me’. I also hit on Elvis singing Junior Parker’s ‘The Mystery Train’ as I watched the lights of the Dublin-Westport train flash through Gilmartin’s hazlewood, Ballymacragh, and on out to Cabbage Town. The radio was a true friend, a wise old sage. Dermot fixed it when it broke. He was a genius. Over a long dark evening, it was great to flick and visit Hilversum, Prague, Athlone, Moscow, Hank Williams, Son House, Howlin’ Wolf and the classics. I loved all the music. No boundaries at all, at all.
The beauty of music is that it is both the source of creation
and the means of absorbing it. (Sufi Inayat Khan)
I feel the whole idea of imposing boundaries around music destroys the creative process. I can only speak for myself. I don’t believe there is such a thing as rock’n’roll, folk, jazz, classical, etc. I sometimes use these terms, but I don’t believe they really exist as a concept. A lot of older traditional musicians played and sang everything without questioning which flag it falls under. I was so happy to sing Jimmy Rodgers’ songs (‘The Singing Brakeman’) with two of the greatest fiddle players in the history of Irish music, Andy McGann and Máirtín Byrnes. They both loved to yodel, and, they both loved all types of music, ‘so long as it’s good music’, as they would say. I’m sure all true musicians are the same. It’s the feeling. It’s the flavour.
Our family outings long ago, the road trips in the wagon, were a howl. We were like the Von Trapp family, the Carter family, a happy family singing in harmony. There are eight of us today. Máire passed away as a baby in the 1940s. Now we have Anne, Brendan, Carmel, Sheila, Maria, Ber and Claire (and of course me). All lovely singers, dear hearts and gentle people. The family, my mother, father, sisters and brother, always sang. Each person had, still has, a song or two they can be identified with. To this day, each one of the family sings their heart out and music plays a major part in each one’s life. I seem to be the only one who plays fiddles and the banjo etc., I don’t understand why. However, I feel I got great help from my family in the early years in developing the love of all kinds of music, harmony, and individual expression in music and song. It all stood me well in later years.
That was my brother Silvest!
What’s he got?
A row of forty medals on his chest.
(Traditional)
Some of the older family members went to piano lessons which somehow petered out. As we travelled over the Sheaffry hills, we sang and listened to the radio playing ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’! Then the rosary and the trimmings, mumbling the five sorrowful mysteries looking out at Clew Bay or acres of purple and yellow flowers. All life was Schubert’s Lilac Time, Delia Murphy’s ‘If I Were a Blackbird’, Victor Borge’s (the Danish comedy man/pianist) light opera.
Maria brought home The Byrds’ ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ and ‘Eight Miles High’. I think she had to return the record the next day to Kilkelly’s music shop because the songs were about psychedelia and LSD and bad things. Sounded fierce interesting to this kid. Far out man, tune in, turn on and lead out. I was on my way out for sure.
The back garden of a Sunday night afforded me the possibility of hearing the sounds wafting over from the famous Royal Ballroom. Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, The Stones, rock’n’roll. I was no fan of second-class copies of U.S. country music. I loved The Freshmen’s ‘A Whole Lotta Love’. I suppose it was an awakening or a real spiritual/musical experience. Standing out on an August night, stars everywhere, my elder sisters gone dancing to the Royal, me hearing the sounds of the bands, the electric guitar, wondering, longing.
I used to kick football in the Royal Ballroom with a few friends, Noel J and a few lads from the Avenue. Football and music. It was called indoor football. As a young lad kicking a football around the Green or The MalI, I used to wonder why the other lads gave up so easily; why they took a break for a smoke, or why they fecked off home before the final whistle. I used to think to myself: Do they not realise this football game is life or death? Do they not realise that this is more important than anything, even the World Cup final? I was maybe ten years of age at the time, and a right good footballer. Dangerous, but good, all or nothing, one hundred per cent was my battle cry.
Sunday night was showtime.
In the T.F. they all took the floor.
Dark suits and the whiff of cheap perfume
drifted past our front door.
I stood in the garden, at the back of our house,
I heard rock’n’roll in the key of C.
Chuck Berry for hours,
I gazed at the stars.
>
It was my first escape from me.
Jesus we were innocent.
Full of wonder and awe
at the plough and the stars,
the snow on The Reek, and
the moon behind the hill.
(‘Innocent’, John Hoban)
Stephen Garvey was a famous musician and band leader from Castle Lane, Castlebar. He used to visit our home until 1958, when he left and went to live in Texas. His music-playing felt like a wonderful gift as we sat on the dining room floor of our home, looking up at this musician in his white tuxedo playing the hits of the day, just for us. He died in Houston, Texas in the mid-1960s. They brought him home in the ’90s, and I was glad to be there when his body was re-interred in Castlebar. God be good to him.
My favourite (and main) LP was Pete Seeger’s Live in Carnegie Hall, (1963); songs sung by Pete and the audience – first time an audience was ‘miked up’.
My father was a great storyteller, regularly freaking me out with ghost stories of Siogaí, little women appearing out of nowhere, headless dogs, pigs and spirits in and around Dubh Loch. He pointed out Famine burial sites, bleached bones of those poor people who died of hunger in the 1800s. I hear them cry still and I sing and play for them. They are hungry still, so they need songs and music.
You have heard our sighs, sometimes at night,
we are your Famine dead.
(‘Gross Ille’, John Hoban, Vincent McGrath)
My father was a great man to visit houses and places for the chat and the tae. One place I loved was Jim and Annie’s in Leitir Broc. It was the first place I experienced live music on the accordion and fiddle. After a generous feed of calley (new potatoes, scallions and the yella salty butter and parsley), the floor was cleared for a dance. It was so wonderful. One of the songs I associate with that era is:
That grand cailín in her gown of green,
she’s the rose of Aranmore. (Traditional)
Bridie Gallagher was a big star in those days. At home the record collection was growing (as I was) and becoming more interesting.
I heard about Civil Rights, Dr. King, Montgomery, Alabama and Rosa Parks, ‘If you miss me at the back of the bus, you can find me nowhere. Come on over to the city jail, I’ll be roomin’ right there’. This record and these songs changed me, changed everything. I knew I’d be a singer, or something like that. ‘My age it means nothing, my name it means less’, ‘Come all you young rebels and list while I sing’, Bob Dylan and Dominic Behan. I heard somewhere that Bob Dylan got the tune for ‘With God on Our Side’ from listening to Dominic Behan’s rendition of ‘The Patriot Game’ in a London club.
My brother Brendan sang ‘Kevin Barry’ really well. He still is, of course, a fine singer. A few years later I also heard Leonard Cohen sing ‘Kevin Barry’ in the National Boxing Stadium in a leather jacket, with a bass player and a small crowd at him. He said he learned the song from his grandmother who used to read W.B. Yeats to him as a child in Montreal. So now you have it.
I ain’t scared of your jail
’cause I want my freedom.
(Traditional)
In Mountjoy jail, one Monday morning,
high upon a gallow’s tree,
Kevin Barry gave his young life
for the cause of liberty.
(Traditonal)
INNOCENT
(John Hoban)
I’ve been around the world and a few other places,
I’m forty-odd years of age.
I’m a nomad, an artist, a pilgrim, a fiddler,
a genuine refugee.
I’ve crawled cross the desert of southern Lebanon,
I swam in the Aegean sea.
But Castlebar in the County Mayo,
is home for a singer like me.
Growing up in Castlebar,
was hard going for me.
I dreamt of Valparaiso, Tibet, Yki-ki!
I dreamt of playing for the reds,
or in Croke park with the Mayo team,
but maybe next time around, le cúnamh Dé,
I’ll be back as a hazel tree.
Anyways, in all fairness,
I had to get away.
I had to sing those redemption songs,
in chains in Botany Bay.
I had to sleep rough in Camden Town,
to sing out in the White Hart.
To near die of thirst, to live high and low,
to get back to the County Mayo.
(CHORUS)
Jesus, we were innocent.
Full of wonder and awe
at the plough and the stars,
the snow on The Reek,
and the moon behind the hill.
My godfather worked in ‘The Mental’,
my grandfather was a keeper there too.
I always wanted to see number 9,
to smoke tea leaves in The Mayo News.
I loved the men and the women,
who lived there and visited our home.
They were gentle and kind and true to me,
as I wandered through the fields on my own.
Saturday night we were under siege,
for the ‘Kraylem Navy’ hit town.
They were full of poitín and diabhlaíocht
stuff us gasúrs should not know.
Linenhall Street was lined with bikes,
with ‘the messages’ still tied on the back.
The ham and tomato for ‘the priest’s tea’,
cards of chocolate for the gasúrs at home.
Sunday night was showtime.
In the Royal, they all took the floor.
The smell of dark suits and cheap perfume,
drifted past our front door.
I stood in the garden,
at the back of our house,
heard rock’n’roll in the key of C,
Chuck Berry for hours,
I gazed at the stars,
it was my first escape for me.
The very first crime committed,
we were all of nine or ten.
We ducked into the Protestant church,
our very first mortal sin.
We knew then we’d all
fry forever in hell,
we were now on the run for sure,
outlaws, desperados, wanted men,
just gasúrs having a bit of fun.
Smoking was a great pastime.
We’d no truck with na cailíní at all.
If the truth were known,
they terrifed us.
Them and their silly goings on.
Games of football on The Mall,
went on for days on end.
I recalled first hearing Dylan singing,
that song ‘Blowing in the Wind’.
‘No more auction block for me,
many thousands gone’.
We smoked Woodbine and Sweet Afton,
Park Drive and the butt of a Player.
We bought them, shaking off Delia,
mitching from school,
on the tear.
We smoked them in the graveyard,
got sick and threw up in the lake.
Between the jigs, reels and the Silvermints,
I was living like a lowdown snake.
Gilmartin’s wood was paradise,
we camped there,
I was Robin Hood.
The fuscia, hazel nut and blackberries,
we gathered in a shiny tin can.
We brought them home to the women,
who made tarts and blackberry jam.
We made bows and arrows
from sally rods,
to fight off the ‘bogeyman’.
My very first day in school I recall,
was a total disaster for me.
All I could see, in a room full of kids,
was a hobbyhorse sneerin’ at me.
We were told ‘stand there for the present.’
I broke down and was carted off home.
When they fina
lly found out,
what was bothering me,
they never gave me the present, d’ya see.
We listened to Radio Luxembourg,
under the covers at night.
Céilí House and The Waltons played
the songs our fathers couldn’t stand.
Fr. Shannon taught us well,
the art of harmony.
Mother Lawrence taught us to count,
A haon, dó, trí.
Notes on the song:
A long drawn out account of the innocence of growing up. It is all there, music, football, The Davitt’s, Pearse’s, McHale’s and Emmett’s, the ‘Shop’, Castle Lane, Loch Lannagh, ‘The Mental’, the Church and so on… a haon, dó, trí…
GROSS ILLE
(John Hoban with Vincent Mc Grath)
I was born in Ireland in the year 1820,
in a village near the border
of Galway and Mayo.
I was married with three children,
the potato crop failed us.
Saw my brothers and sisters,
die painfully slow.
The pangs of this hunger
took hold of my people.
Saw them die by the roadside,
the young and the old.
We had heard of a place,
you now call Canada,
where we could live,
with dignity and hope,
we were told.
Said goodbye to my parents,
I’d never again see them,
with my wife and three children,
we left Liverpool by sea.
We thought we had left
the horror behind us,
on a ship called The Syria,
we met death and disease.
In my arms, my wife died,
between Ireland and Canada.
Her last breath was a prayer,
