“Listening to this is beautiful and sad at the same time… god Five Go Down to the Sea? were so funny and so talented and strange, with Donnelly being the funniest, most talented and strangest of all.

Sally Timms (The Mekons) - taken from the sleevenotes to Hiding From the Landlord

“Feeling doesn’t just reside in ourselves – it settles into our places, too. These streets transmit feeling, the river vibrates with it, and the rooftops emote. Every city is an aggregate of its feelings, and these are built up in layers over the years, the decades, the centuries. The poet Paul Durcan wrote once that Cork ‘is as intimate and homicidal as a little Marseilles’, and he recognised in the line the strange and contradictory forces that are present always on the city’s air. It is a place that is both madcap and full of a lovely, wild-eyed nuttiness but there are hours of the day and especially night when it has a sombre and stern aspect, also. There is a grittiness and there is a giddiness, both. I suspect that Cork has been full of deeply and beautifully crazy people since way back and beyond the medieval mists that were seen rising across the marshes beyond the city’s gates and walls. They have left their feeling behind and the place vibrates with it even now and it is present in every note and bar and chorus of this record.”

Kevin Barry - taken from the sleevenotes to Hiding From the Landlord

“The other day I was revisiting that Hiding From the Landlord album that came out – the Nun Attax, Five Go Down to the Sea? and Beethoven stuff completely stands up. It is completely in and of itself. There’s an entire universe there that was there from almost day one. I mean, Nun Attax could have been as big as Siouxsie and the Banshees - I believe. But because it didn’t work out they threw that in the bin and did Five Go Down to the Sea? from the ground up and that also emerged fully formed. I mean it’s just extraordinary. I stand in awe of it.”

Cathal Coughlan (in conversation with John Robb, April 2021)

“Donnelly was gregarious, extroverted, loud, challenging and even intimidating in public. He had the most wonderful voice: rich and expansive, which I could have listened to all day. When I think about him now, in his quietness, I remember a gentle, sensitive and lonely soul. I loved him.”

Úna Ní Chanainn (Five Go Down to the Sea?) - taken from the sleevenotes to Hiding From the Landlord

The Wire - Invisible Jukebox*

Sean O’Hagan tested by Cathal Coughlan: Cathal plays ‘Lorry Across the Lee’ by Five Go Down to the Sea? taken from Hiding From the Landlord (Allchival Records, 2020)

Sean O’Hagan: What era of [Finbarr] Donnelly and Ricky [Dineen] is this?

Cathal Coughlan: Five Go Down to the Sea? It’s from Hiding From the Landlord the compilation featuring [their three bands] Nun Attax, Five Go Down to the Sea? and Beethoven. Basically Donnelly’s pretty much speaking in tongues on this, like 15 Cork people having 45 altercations at once.

Sean O’Hagan: This music was very, very important in our shared biography. And probably neither of us would have started playing music properly if it wasn’t for these guys. The fact they could make such an extraordinary sound in 1979 and 1980 provided a context, a meeting point and confidence to step out and try doing things in the way they were doing them. Nun Attax were a kind of noisy little rock band, and Five Go Down to the Sea? were nothing like that.

Cathal Coughlan: It was a deeply strange thing. And Hilarious.

Sean O’Hagan: These were definitely working class boys, no hint at all of art school. Alongside the bizarre musical choices they made, the way they lived their lives was just as striking. Gilbert & George would say, ‘Out lives are our art’, and I wouldn’t doubt that, they did it very well. I would see something comparable in Five Go Down to the Sea?. They could not but live as a small commune, in each other’s pockets. If there were five chairs in a room, and one of them was large, then if they could all fit on that large chair, they would [laughs]. They would want to sit that close. Their shared experience was so complete. They didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of succeeding, and that’s a pity.

Cathal Coughlan: It’s one thing for Gilbert & George to live as they did - in Spitalfields when it was a rough place, so fair do’s - but it’s another thing entirely to be a living artwork in a small Irish port town when the economy was going through the floor.

* Extract from The Wire’s Invisible Jukebox: Cathal Coughlan x Sean O’Hagan (Issue 447, May 2021)

Five Go Down to the Sea? are also warmly remembered. The Five readily admitted to plundering from their favourite artists but Kevin contends, “At the same time they were totally original purely by being themselves and really that’s all we can hope to achieve - originality by using our influences and doing our own thing.”

Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine in “To Here From God Knows Where” by Leo Finlay
Sounds (09 February, 1991)

“How very, very strange. From Cork, that’s Five Go Down to the Sea? Actually, Five Go Down the Sea “Question Mark” is their full name and that’s on Kabuki Records from an EP called Knot a Fish. I mean that’s “not” as in absence of fish, but “knot” as in tie a knot. Knot a Fish. Not an easy thing to do I would have thought and that’s called ‘Elephants for Fun and Profit’.”
John Peel

For this episode I’m joined by Liam Heffernan and Ricky Dineen from Big Boy Foolish, a post-punk duo from the northside of Cork City who have just released their debut album, Stall the Ball.

Ricky Dineen was guitarist in the bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down to the Sea? and Beethoven and Liam Heffernan played guitar with another Cork band Mean Features (alongside Mick Lynch who would go on to join Stump), and is of course well known for his acting roles on both stage and screen.

Both Nun Attax and Mean Features appeared on the legendary Kaught at the Kampus live EP that was recorded at the Downtown Kampus at the Arcadia Ballroom – the Arc – in August 1980. Episode 24 of the podcast was devoted to Kaught at the Kampus and a long conversation with Elvera Butler who released the original EP and the recent expanded album version of the record on her Reekus Records label.

I’ve long been a huge fan of Five Go Down to the sea? Their Knot a Fish 7” EP (Kabuki Records, 1983) and The Glee Club 12” (Abstract Sounds, 1984) are two of the most extraordinary records released in the 1980s. It was a huge honour for me to compile 2020’s Hiding From the Landlord with John Byrne and Olan O’Brien.

On Big Boy Foolish’s Stall the Ball, the final track is called ‘Penumbra’ and on it special guest Justin Kelly, from the brilliant Sons of Southern Ulster, conjures up images of Cork’s past. He starts his spoken word sermon with the lines:

“Fill the Arc with chosen ones, for this rain may never cease
Let the lens of Ó Tuama, capture souls that shall never be released”

The “Ó Tuama” in question is Ciarán Ó Tuama and a few months ago Ciarán turned Get That Monster Off the Stage, my old radio documentary about Finbarr Donnelly and his bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down to the Sea? and Beethoven, into a beautiful film.

Before Ciarán tread the boards as frontman with Cork’s Cypress, Mine! he spent his teenage years hanging out at the Arc, and as Justin references in ‘Penumbra’, Ciarán took photographs of all the bands that played there. Indeed, in this episode Liam describes Ciarán as “the visual scribe” of the Cork post-punk scene.

Ciarán has utilised photographs from his extensive archive to create a beautiful visual accompaniment to my old documentary. A load of these photographs have never been seen before. I recognised some of the posed band shots, but the candid images from the same contact sheets offer the subjects a real-life authenticity.

This episode serves three purposes.

1. To draw attention to Ciarán’s film.

2. A means for me to archive the original Get That Monster Off the Stage as part of this podcast - in this episode you’ll hear the documentary. If you’ve heard it previously then I’d encourage you to maybe check out Ciarán’s film version (it’s embedded below).

3. The documentary is bookended by a long new interview with Ricky and Liam. This new conversation with the lads takes in their reaction to watching Ciarán’s film, I share My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields’ thoughts on Five Go Down to the Sea? with Ricky, and we also explain where the name, Get That Monster Off the Stage originated from, the lads talk about about making music in their 60s, the origins of Big Boy Foolish, the writing, recording and release of Stall the Ball and much more.

For Further Listening/Reading/Viewing:

Hiding From the Landlord is available on Bandcamp.

Stall the Ball by Big Boy Foolish is available on Bandcamp.

A few words from Ricky…

Big Boy Foolish go to Engerland: Big Boy Foolish travel to play gigs in Birmingham and London. As mentioned in the episode, here’s the lovely mini-doc of BBF’s UK tour.

Big Boy Foolish perform at The White Horse, Ballincollig in 2021.