Cathal Coughlan is coming back to his hometown

CATHAL Coughlan has never been one for tiptoeing gently into the night, writes Ed Power

Thu, 23 Apr, 2015 - 01:00

Ed Power

At the helm of bands Microdisney and Fatima Mansions through the 1980s and early 1990s, he garnered a reputation as the angriest man in rock.

Apocryphal stories of Coughlan taking the Cork-to-Dublin train wearing a priest’s habit and flashing red mirror-shades are legion; every article about the singer is by law required to reference Fatima Mansions’ 1992 U2 support gig in Milan, at which he did rude things with a plastic Virgin Mary.

“People are always going to have a two-dimensional idea of you, if you are making things that are basically works of fiction,” says Coughlan, his Leeside accent still discernible after 30 years in the UK.

“It shapes the entire way you are perceived. There’s no point getting hot under the collar. I still have a lot of disaffection and fear in me. A lot of what I expressed through music, when I was younger, was a manifestation of that. I’m not as different from the way I’m perceived as you might think. That ‘monster’ isn’t without foundation.”

The persona was central to Fatima Mansions, provocateurs who blended industrial rock, confessional pop and Myles Na gCopaleem. The group petered out in the early 1990s, and Coughlan has since become an intermittent presence in music.

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There have been several solo albums, the last five years ago. And while his Microdisney work can be easily accessed, most of his Fatima Mansions catalogue is mired in record label red-tape.

“There is no point thinking about it,” he shrugs. “Financially, it doesn’t make any odds one way or the other. Cherry Red have reissued the Microdisney stuff and that is fine and above-board. They do a pretty good job. The Mansions stuff… even some of the solo catalogue … I don’t think about it.”

Reminded that all of two Fatima Mansions songs can be sampled on streaming service, Spotify, some of the old, fire-breathing Coughlan manifests. “I’m more comfortable with my stuff being up on Pirate Bay. At least Pirate Bay is straight-up: they’re out to rip you off and they do it. Spotify is a fiddle dreamed up by the major labels to cut the artist out.”

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It is assumed that Coughlan dislikes his home-town of Cork. He grew up in the 1980s, when it was fashionable to reject Irishness, an attitude with which his songs grappled.

And it is true that, as his musical ambitions grew, he felt he had little choice but to move abroad. However, it is too simplistic to say he recoiled from Ireland or Cork.

“I spent quite a lot of time there last year. [Coughlan’s relationship with the city] has developed as I’ve got older. The advancing stages of your life, and of your family’s life, changes your perspectives.

"I’ll always be a certain type of stranger there, really — there’s no getting around the fact I haven’t lived in Ireland for over 30 years…. That said, I have a special relationship with the country and that will never change.”

He returns to Cork this weekend for a ‘big band’ event at the Opera House, curated by Paul Dunlea, also featuring Mick Flannery, Camille O’Sullivan and Karen Underwood.

“I’ve reworked some songs from my solo career,” says Coughlan. “I don’t really have anything from the two bands that would have fitted. It seemed better to go with the stuff that came together stylistically, rather than stuff people might know. It may seem a vanity. Ultimately I think it will make for a better night.”