Sean O’Hagan
“Paul McDermott is the cultural historian who had the foresight to document a period in Cork’s musical journey which seemed to be the present, but of course crept on us as history. Us being the Fives, the Stumps and the Disneys, we, a collection of men now in our 60s who would never have captured a sense of what it was to be making new music in 80s Cork. Paul was young enough to oversee from a distance, and old enough to realise that this work had to be done. We have lost a few, but Paul was there to capture some living moments. I doubt if the Microdisney reunion would have happened if it was not for Paul's preparatory documentaries. We are a happy proud bunch now, partly because Paul has enlightened us to what we had.”

Episode Notes

Episode twenty of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on The Clock Comes Down the Stairs by Microdisney.

The work of Cathal Coughlan has loomed large over this podcast – he joined me for two episodes. Episode 3 focused on the great Fatima Mansions album Viva Dead Ponies and Episode 11 revisited his second solo album the majestic Black River Falls. A few months ago Microdisney’s Virgin albums, Crooked Mile and 39 Minutes were finally released on streaming services and we had talked about doing an episode focusing those on records, but it wasn’t to be.

Cathal sadly passed away on 18 May after a long illness. The news was shocking.

In 2017 I produced a documentary about Microdisney – which I am returning to for this episode – it was the third part of a Cork trilogy, after documentaries about Five Go Down to the Sea? and Stump. In late 2017 Microdisney announced that they would reform to play concerts in the National Concert Hall in Dublin and London’s Barbican Centre.

I attended the Barbican concert and was honoured to be on the guestlist. Sitting next to me was Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis. We had a great chat before the gig about Microdisney. I remember him saying that he wouldn’t come to see any old reformed Rough Trade band but that he had to make an exception for Cathal and Microsdisney. There I was waiting to finally see one of my all time favourite bands and sitting next to me is the guy who influenced so much of my record collection. I was pinching myself. Afterwards Cathal smiled and said, “You made it!” What a night. Later I was informed that my documentary had been one of the catalysts for the reformation. I couldn’t believe it; I was just so proud.

We thought that was it but in 2019 we got Vicar St and then Cathal and Sean returned to where it all began for a final triumphant concert in Cork. That night he bowed and left the stage overcome by emotion. Is it simplistic now to think that maybe he knew what we didn’t?

The morning after the gig I had to meet Sean to talk about a Michael O’Shea documentary I was producing. As I walked into the Hotel restaurant, Cathal came over and asked, “Well, what did you think of the gig?” What did I think of the gig? “It was alright,” I said and the two of us laughed.  

Last year Cathal released Song of Co-Aklan and this year as Telefís (with Jacknife Lee) he released a h-Aon, two of the greatest albums of a long and distinguished career. In Episode 11 of this podcast Cathal told me that a second Telefís album was just finished a few weeks earlier.

In a correspondence with Jacknife Lee, he confirmed to me that, “Yes a Dó is finished. We finished it a few weeks ago. It is an extension of a hAon.  We thought about it as the next phase.  Black and white to colour. A second channel – RTE 2, to the first national broadcasting channel – RTE 1.”

What would the remit for Telefeís a Dó be? “As the concept moved to colour we also moved forward from the culture of a Lemas Ireland to a Haughey Ireland but prismed through our relationship with it,” Jacknife continues. “Not how we reacted at the time but retrospectively how we now feel we reacted. If a hAon was our childhood, a Dó could be our teenage years. Our entry to music-making in the era of the showband, our feelings towards entertainment versus art, money and culture. The sound is broader too.”

Jacknife went on to tell me about how Dave Clifford from Vox magazine put his first band Casablanca Moon on a few bills with the two piece Microdisney. He says, “Dave also gave me demos of theirs and I became a huge fan. Those and the Kabuki singles we played on a daily basis and it shaped my writing for a while.  Cathal and I weren’t that close but hung out, I was 14 and he was probably 20 or so.  They let me stay at their rehearsal space in Cork.”

“There are some songs on the new album that feel like a lifetime of distillation and patience rather than an afternoon of wrangling a verse into shape. He was always working on it,” he says. “Some people may have taken their eyes off him for a while but he’d not stopped. I said this when Cathal was alive that I was blessed to be alive at the same time as him, to have all that music soundtrack my life was a gift. I was intimidated when we started to work together a few years ago as we come at music very differently. We became close, he was hilarious, compassionate, warm, and effusive. He was easy to love. So I felt lucky to be with him. I tried to impress him so he made me a better person and a better artist. I didn’t stop being a fan as we worked on Telefís.

I want to thank Jacknife for those kind words about his relationship with Cathal.
Cathal Coughlan RIP.

For Further Listening/Reading:

The Clock Comes Down the Stairs can be heard below:

I’ve written extensively about Cathal and Microdisney over the years and I’ve archived all of those articles below:

Iron Fist in Velvet Glove - the story of Microdisney
(The documentary is accompanied by a comprehensive longread Oral History featuring extra interviews, background information, photographs, ephemera and cultural and historical context.)
Part 1 — Cork — 20,200 words (77 minute read)
Part 2 — The Rough Trade Years — 15,400 words (60 minute read)
Part 3 — The Virgin Years — 14,000 words (54 minute read)

Microdisney frontman Cathal Coughlan’s well-lived life of art, excess and energy
“Cynical, very funny and wildly energetic, Cathal Coughlan made music that alternately sounded like art and trouble”
by Paul McDermott
Sunday Independent - 05 June 2022

Cork’s Greatest Records: Black River Falls, by Cathal Coughlan
“In terms of tone and recording methods, the 2000 solo album was a major milestone in the career of the former Microdisney singer”
by Paul McDermott
Irish Examiner - 09 March 2022

Sound job: the oral history of The Clock Comes Down the Stairs by Microdisney
“As band reforms to perform their acclaimed album, those involved explain how it was produced”
by Paul McDermott
The Irish Times - 19 May, 2018