“Now that the relevant album (and siblings) are available on streaming platforms, those interested may enjoy this recent conversation I had with @learnandsing - along with the growing archive of very fine one-of-a-kind episodes from #ToHereKnowsWhen”
Cathal Coughlan

Episode Notes

This episode focuses on Viva Dead Ponies by The Fatima Mansions. The second album by the band was released in late 1990 on Kitchenware Records. Cathal Coughlan discusses the writing and recording of what many consider to be the band’s greatest album. The conversation takes in: the end of Microdisney and putting The Fatima Mansions together; Cathal’s state of mind during the period around the release of Viva Dead Ponies; the UK press reaction to the album; gigs the band played in Ireland and the US; signing with Radioactive Records in the US; circumnavigating the American “meet & greet” events; kissing the runway at Knock Airport before handing out condoms at the Marian Shrine; and contemplating the songs on Viva Dead Ponies from a distance of 30 years.

After Microdisney broke up, Cathal Coughlan regrouped quickly and by late 1988 was fronting a new band called The Fatima Mansions. Against Nature, the band’s debut album was released in 1989 and by the following year the line-up had settled with Andrías Ó Grúama – or Grimmo – on guitar (who had previously played in Zerra 1), Hugh Bunker on bass, Nick Allum on drums and Nick Bagnall on keyboards.

When I interviewed Cathal for my documentary Iron Fist in Velvet Glove - the story of Microdisney we spoke about this period. Cathal admitted that:

“I don’t know what I thought I was doing for those first couple of years as The Mansions especially. Kicking over the traces of what had gone before was a bit of an axiomatic [laughing] tent-pole. I suppose what I would have said at the time was that I wanted things to either be more noisy or way more stripped down than Microdisney, and I think we got somewhere towards that.”

The Fatima Mansions opened the new decade with ‘Blues for Ceausescu’ a 6 and half minute statement of intent that was awarded ‘Single of the Week’ by the NME. It sounds as ferocious, angry and confrontational today as it did back then – yes, this was definitely more noisy. ‘Blues for Ceausescu’ was followed in late 1990 by Viva Dead Ponies.

Awarding the album 9/10, John Mulvey in the NME wrote that that “Viva Dead Ponies stands as 1990’s most varied, inexhaustible and downright malicious white-knuckle ride. Viva Dead Ponies makes the entire – and not inconsiderable – recorded work of Microdisney look like a warm up exercise.

In November, Select magazine’s Leo Finley declared it the ‘Album of the Month’, writing that Viva Dead Ponies is, “the finest Irish album in years and the finest album of THIS year”.

The attention garnered by The Fatima Mansions in the UK, led to a US record deal with Radioactive records and a re-release of Viva Dead Ponies in early 1991. The American press were no less emphatic in their praise of the band. Rolling Stone wrote that, “if U2 represent God’s country in Ireland, then Fatima Mansions surely must dwell in that country’s hell, perhaps rock’s last angry man in aggressively passive times. Coughlan doesn’t come to prise but to spew bile.”

The self-declared “Mother of All Bands” announced that it was their intention to “Keep Music Evil” and followed Viva Dead Ponies with the vicious Hive EP. Another NME ‘Single of the Week’, in his review Julian Cope wrote that, “this scares me like Black Sabbath used to scare me.”

More albums followed: Bertie’s Brochures, Valhalla Avenue and Lost in the Former West. The band even ended up at No. 7 in UK Singles Charts when in 1992 their cover version of Bryan Adams’ ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ appeared as the AA-Side with the Manic Street Preachers’ cover of ‘Suicide Is Painless’, the theme from MASH. This Episode of To here Knows When – Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on Viva Dead Ponies, an album regarded by many, including Cathal himself, as The Fatima Mansions’ greatest achievement.

Further Details

In this episode I mention to Cathal a story that he previously told me referring to somebody named “Ricky”. The Ricky in question is Ricky Dineen, guitarist with the bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down to the Sea?, Beethoven and Big Boy Foolish.

In our conversation about Cathal and Grimmo’s visit to the Knock shrine in 1990 I make reference to a court case in Ireland in 1989 when the Irish Family Planning Association sold condoms from the Virgin Megastore. Contraception in Ireland was illegal without prescription under the The Health (Family Planning) Act of 1979. The act was eventually amended in 1992 allowing sales of condoms to individuals over the age of 17. A news report on the court case can be viewed at the RTÉ Archives.

For Further Reading:

To Here Knows When column in The Goo on Viva Dead Ponies…

Cathal goes into detail about the early days of The Fatima Mansions in the Oral History Iron Fist in Velvet Glove — the story of Microdisney (Part 3 — The Virgin Years).