Iron Fist in Velvet Glove

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.”

The stellar work of post-punk historian Paul McDermott — Hot Press

A great documentary, the definitive account of the band — Sean Campbell (Irish Blood, English Heart: Second Generation Irish Musicians in England)

The brilliant Iron Fist in Velvet Glove radio documentary — Pádraig Collins (The Guardian)

Superb one-hour documentary — Richard Balls (A Furious Devotion: The Life of Shane MacGowan)

Paul was a real catalyst for the reunion — Brian O'Neill (Dimple Discs).

Iron Fist in Velvet Glove — interviewees

Cathal Coughlan — Micro Disney/Microdisney/The Fatima Mansions
Sean O’Hagan — Micro Disney/Microdisney/The High Llamas
Jon Fell — Microdisney/The High Llamas
Tom Fenner — Microdisney
Richard Boon — New Hormones/Rough Trade Distribution
Elvera Butler — Downtown Kampus/Reekus Records
Stan Erraught — The Stars of Heaven
Robert Forster — The Go-Betweens
Dave Galvin — Micro Disney
Ronnie Gurr — A&R Virgin Records

Mark Healy — Cypress, Mine!
Jamie Lane — producer of The Clock Comes Down the Stairs and 39 Minutes
Mick Lynch — Mean Features/Stump
Andrew Mueller — journalist/author
Jim O’Mahony — The Belsonic Sound
Ciarán Ó Tuama — Cypress, Mine!
Garreth Ryan — Kabuki Records/Rough Trade Distribution/Shellshock
Geoff Travis — Rough Trade Records
Giordaí Ua Laoghaire — Nun Attax/Micro Disney/Nine Wassies From Bainne

Iron Fist in Velvet Glove — the story of Microdisney forms the third part of a Cork Trilogy. Part one, Get That Monster Off the Stage, tells the story of Finbarr Donnelly and his bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down To the Sea? and Beethoven. Part two, Lights! Camel! Action! — the story of Stump, tells Stump’s story from their indie beginnings to combustion by the late 80s. All three stories have their roots in Cork’s post-punk music scene that coalesced around Elvera Butler’s Downtown Kampus at the Cork Arcadia in the late 70s.

“Together all three works form a deep and wide composite picture of a generation of Irish musicians finding a way to exist. They are also the story of Ireland in the 1980s in many ways – recession, unemployment, emigration, Thatcher’s Britain, squats, poverty, survival against the odds. I couldn’t recommend them highly enough for anyone with any interest in what we call independent music” — Conor O’Toole (The Underground of Happiness)

Oral History

Iron Fist in Velvet Glove 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)

An extract from the longread Oral History was published by The Irish Times in 2018…