Bonus Episode
The Restoration of
Michael O’Shea’s Mo Chara
Michael O’Shea’s Mo Chara. Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Episode Notes
This is a bonus episode of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited. It’s a short feature focusing on the restoration of Michael O’Shea’s instrument he called Mo Chara (my friend).
Michael’s family have recently loaned artist and musician Stano — one of the contributors to my documentary No Journeys End — one of two surviving iterations of Michael’s Mo Chara that they’ve had since Michael’s untimely death back in December 1991. The instrument had lain idle for almost 30 years when Stano asked percussionist Thomas Haugh (The Plague Monkeys, Seti the First) to help restore it. Michael played the Mo Chara on Stano’s debut album and now almost 40 years later Stano and Thomas are recording with the Mo Chara again.
It’s a spiritual story about how musical instruments have a life of their own. Stano and Thomas take up the story.
Michael O’Shea’s Mo Chara. Photograph by Paul McDermott.
For Further Reading:
This bonus episode is accompanied by a 3,000 word article with includes further contributions from Stano and Thomas Haugh about their restoration of Michael’s Mo Chara.
There is a wealth of extra information about the life of Michael O’Shea, the creation of his Mo Chara, his music and his album on the No Journeys End page on this website, including a link to an 18,000 word comprehensive longread Oral History featuring extra interviews, background information, photographs, ephemera and cultural and historical context.