Culture That Made Me: Cork lord mayor Dan Boyle on the Arcadia and Disco Pigs

Cork Lord Mayor, Cllr Dan Boyle
Dan Boyle was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1962 to emigrant Irish parents. Aged eight years old, he moved to Cork, his mother’s native city, growing up in Turner’s Cross.
In 1991, he was first elected to Cork City Council. In 2002, he won a seat in Dáil Éireann; and five years later he was appointed to Seanad Éireann.
He released a music album entitled Third Adolescence in 2011. He has published three books on political history. Last month, he was elected Lord Mayor of Cork.
Hall’s Pictorial Weekly was a political satire programme on RTÉ TV in the 1970s. It intrigued me as a teenager. It was exaggerated, but it captured a picture of Ireland. There was a certain truth in figures portrayed like in the Ballymagash Town Council. It spoke about an Ireland where politicians were both put on a pedestal and ridiculed. What they represented was respected, but their abilities often weren't, maybe justifiably. There was a Cork segment in it – Cha and Miah, played by Frank Duggan and Michael Twomey, discussed issues of the day with a very Cork perspective and accents. The County Hall statue is colloquially known as “Cha and Miah” because of them.
The best gig I remember, and it was just before it closed, was a double header in Cork’s Downtown Kampus at “The Arc” (The New Arcadia Ballroom), with The Specials and The Beat. The Arc closed down in 1981. They were both ska bands, offbeat bands.

The Beat had songs like ‘Mirror in the Bathroom’ and ‘Stand Down, Margaret’, about Margaret Thatcher. The Specials’ songs were like, say, Gangsters and Ghost Town. The sheer energy of them was fantastic.
My band, Blueprint, played one of the last gigs at The Arc a few weeks after that gig. We were the second support act to a rock group from Fermanagh called Mama's Boys. The woman who ran The Arc was Elvera Butler. She ran it from UCC. We used to hound her every week with our demo tapes. She eventually relented and said, “OK, there's a couple of support slots coming up in the next couple of weeks. One is with Mama's Boys and one is with U2.” And she gave us Mama’s Boys.
I, Claudius was a classic BBC series in the mid 1970s. Based on a series of books by Robert Graves, it was a fair summation of the history of Roman emperors. It also highlighted the personality quirks of the people in those stories. It was quite seedy. The title role was acted by Derek Jacobi, a brilliant performance. It also had John Hurt playing Caligula, a powerful performance as well.
I enjoyed Borgen, a political-based drama based on the prime minister in Denmark. It’s most realistic and reflective of modern politics. Denmark isn’t directly comparable with Ireland, although Denmark is a similar sized country to Ireland in population, but its culture is different. I liked that it has a strong female character as prime minister. They also gave their Green Party a prominent part in the story which I looked on favourably! It was a good depiction of the challenges of having a family and personal life in politics.
I love early Marx Brothers films like, say, Animal Crackers, from around 1930. They're not long films. They’re basically Groucho Marx wise-cracking his way through the film, usually at the expense of this society madam – played by Margaret Dumont – and the other brothers have their characters. Chico is the Italian immigrant. Harpo just plays the harp. There's another brother, Zeppo. I wrote a song about him because you wonder what’s his role in those films. He's the straight man. He doesn't do anything.
I’ve seen some good opening nights at the Cork Film Festival. I remember going to see an Irish film on its opening night at the Cork Opera House. I went on my own because the significant person in my life couldn't go because her own background was informed by it. The film was The Magdalene Sisters. It was a powerful film. Eileen Walsh was in it. It was directed by a Scottish actor Peter Mullan. It wasn’t a huge box office hit, but when the writing, performances, directing and technical aspects all fit together, as it did with The Magdalene Sisters, it shows how powerful a film can be.
Mise Éire, which goes back a long time ago, is a documentary that reports Irish history with a magnificent Seán Ó Riada score. It ticks a lot of boxes. It has photomontage and newsreels. It’s a potted history of Ireland through significant figures.
It wasn't done through a totally nationalist lens. It points out the contradiction of Irish people who fought in the First World War, for instance. It’s a useful document of Ireland – where we've come from and it strikes at the heart of what we're meant to be.
I had the honour of being on the board of the now sadly gone Corcadorca theatre company for 20 years. It’s also responsible for my most memorable theatre experience.

A bit like the GPO in 1916, I actually was in the Triskel Arts Centre for the first performance of Disco Pigs with Cillian Murphy and Eileen Walsh. It was an amazing experience. We didn’t know we were watching a future Oscar winner but it was a visceral performance by both actors.
The first record I bought was 'God Save the Queen' by the Sex Pistols. I was so shy about making the purchase, which I got in Eason’s on Patrick St. in Cork, that I mumbled out the request, and the woman behind the counter said, “Evergreen by Barbra Streisand?”

The first LP I bought was Never Mind the Bollocks. I had the opposite experience with that because I bought it in Pat Egan’s Rainbow Records Store, which was also on Patrick's St. There was a smart-ass guy behind the counter. When I discreetly made my order, he shouted out my request for the rest of the shop to hear.
I’m a fan of George Orwell. His book I most enjoyed – although “enjoy” is probably the wrong word as it’s a quite gruelling book – is Down and Out in Paris and London. It sounds perverse, but it has excellent and very poignant descriptions of real poverty, which are very stark and moving. Orwell had a slightly privileged middle class background but he did live those experiences in London and Paris, moving with certain people, in certain work situations, the reality of their lives and how he experiences it himself.
A very funny book is Spike Milligan’s Puckoon. Milligan was a comic genius, but he also lapsed into some of the sins we wouldn't tolerate these days. For instance, he was born in India. His father was Irish. His father seems to have been quite a racist so a lot of his comedy conveys that. Puckoon is set in Ireland and it's a lampooning of a stage Irishness. That's what I found funny about it.