Knowing Noel was quite an Experience

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Noel Redding, the Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist who came to call West Cork his home, writes Noel Baker

OLIVE FINN thinks she may have an ally for her idea to pay tribute to her old friend Noel Redding. “I think there should be a statue of Noel up,” she says. “If Michael D was still Minister of Arts, I might get him on board for that.”

President Higgins was a visitor to Clonakilty just last weekend and it’s a safe bet that he’s heard of Noel Redding — a mercurial musician who played bass in one of the greatest bands of all time, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and who made Ardfield, near Clonakilty, his home in the early 1970s. In the words of his old friend Les Sampson, “Noel changed the way people think about Clonakilty forever”.