Episode Notes

This is a special bonus episode of the podcast.

Back in 2017 Niall McCormack and Dr Ciarán Swan curated the Green Sleeves exhibition in the National Print Museum.

Green Sleeves - the Irish Printed Record Cover 1955-2017
05 May - 1 October 2017

“This exhibition examines the Irish-printed album cover. Included album covers were all designed or printed in Ireland. The work was completed for Irish groups, who worked at home or abroad, as well as albums from abroad referencing Ireland or Irishness. The collection dates from the late 1950s to the present day, and covers a wide range of musical and non-musical genres.”

Niall and Ciarán joined me for Episode 675 of my radio show Songs To Learn And Sing for a wide-ranging chat about printing in Dublin, the evolution of design, the Showbands, Country & Irish, the Dutch graphic designers who came to Ireland in the post-war era, Irish Punk, Indie releases in the 80s, Celtic design, designers Diana O'Donnell, Steve Averill and Jim Fitzpatrick, contemporary design and much more. We discussed the design of loads of albums that were featured in their exhibition – albums by Clannad, Thin Lizzy, Horslips, The Stars of Heaven, Microdisney, Gavin Friday, Donnacha Costello and loads of others and our conversation was interspersed by music from some of the aforementioned artists. For the purposes of this podcast I’ve removed the full songs that we played on the radio programme.

This interview was originally broadcast on Dublin City FM on 23 August 2017.

Below: A slideshow of photographs from the exhibition.

For Further Reading:

An online installation of the Green Sleeves exhibition is available on the National Print Museum’s website here.