Frankie Gavin of De Dannan: 'Reach out and bridge the gap - life is too short'
Frankie Gavin, front, with the other members of the current lineup of De Dannan.
It’s 45 years since De Dannan headlined the inaugural Cork Folk Festival, but the last appearance there by Frankie Gavin and his erstwhile bandmates caused just as much of a stir as their first.
One of the most public Irish traditional music fall-outs ever to be aired on Joe Duffy’s Liveline, the rift between Gavin and Alec Finn, founder members of the group formerly known as Dé Danann, was finally healed at a “really emotional” reunion concert at the 2017 folk festival.
Following the 2003 break-up of the trad supergroup, the pair’s wrangle over use of the band’s name came to a head in 2009 in a storm of solicitors’ letters, with a wider circle of musicians becoming embroiled in a spat live on the national airwaves.
The stand-off, which Gavin describes as “an awful pity and a waste of a great lifelong friendship”, ended after former De Dannan accordion player Aidan Coffey invited both parties to play on his album The Corner House Set, inspired by and named after the Cork pub.
“For the recording Alec had done his pieces when I wasn’t there and I did my pieces when he wasn’t there,” says Gavin.
However, the album’s 2017 Cork Folk Festival launch at The Oliver Plunkett saw Gavin and Finn on stage together for the first time in 14 years, along with Coffey and two Cork ex-De Dannan members, Colm Murphy and Charlie Piggott.
“Alec and I met in Galway and had a few tunes prior to that, but it was the first time that we did a gig,” recalls Gavin. “It was an emotional get-together at that gig. It was really emotional for me and perhaps for him as well. The place was packed. Everyone was delighted that we were back playing together and it sounded great, felt great, and I’m delighted that we did it.”
Finn went on to make a guest appearance when Gavin was presented with a TG4 Gradam Ceoil in 2018 and, 40 years after their first album on fiddle and bouzouki, the magical musical combination that helped define De Dannan’s sound, the pair made a second duet recording.
“It was very cathartic I suppose and it was great to make up our friendship,” says Gavin. “We just shook hands and there was nobody apologising to anyone. It was like ‘why did we leave it this long?’
“I’ve known Alec since I was about 15 or 16 so it was unfortunate. Alec and I were not on speaking terms, which was a pity, and that went on too long, but at least we made friends at the end of it all.
“My advice to anyone that’s having any kind of setback like that with a friend is to reach out and try and bridge the gap - life is too short.” Sadly, that proved only too true. Just weeks after the release of Traditional Irish Music on Fiddle and Bouzouki Vol II, Finn died suddenly, in November 2018.
Then, in early 2022, Gavin was diagnosed with stage-three oesophageal cancer, the news “a terrible shock to the system”.
“I was having difficulty swallowing and it got worse and worse,” he says. “I spent quite a while not being able to eat anything and eventually, when I was in hospital getting treatment, they said ‘if you don’t eat, you’re going to die’, as bluntly as that. Even water tasted horrible to me.”
Following chemo and radiotherapy, Gavin emerged cancer-free and with “a new lease of life, to put it mildly”.
“I had the best of treatment, tough and all as it was,” he says. “I got the all-clear and they keep telling me there’s no sign of it coming back.
“You give thanks, that’s for sure, for every day you wake up. I’m absolutely full of energy; food tastes great; and music sounds even sweeter. If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life and playing music to me is just a joy and a privilege.
“You learn a lot of lessons when and if you get unwell and when you come through it you’re so grateful and life is wonderful.”
It is with this sense of joie-de-vivre that Gavin, whose 1979 folk festival appearance was in a De Dannan line-up alongside Finn, Piggott, Johnny ‘Ringo’ McDonagh, Jackie Daly, and Christy O’Leary, speaks of the group’s latest incarnation ahead of Sunday’s Cork Opera House concert.
He describes as “very exciting, new, and fresh”, the rejuvenated group now comprising pianist Catherine McHugh, guitarist Ian Kinsella, Kaitlin Cullen-Verhauz on vocals and cello, and Cork melodeon and accordion player Diarmuid Ó Meachair.
TG4 2022 Young Musician of the Year, Ó Meachair’s youth belies his fascination with the early 20th century US recordings of the likes of PJ Conlon and Bill Sullivan.
Gavin, who shares similar early influences, has high praise for Ó Meachair, describing him as “the most phenomenal accordion/10-key melodeon player that I’ve ever heard since the days of the great PJ Conlon, who was from Milltown in Co Galway and moved to America way back in the early 1900s”.
When introduced to recordings of the Cúil Aodha musician by Laois multi-instrumentalist Tommy Fitzharris, Gavin immediately contacted Diarmuid.
“It’s that '20s music that I so love and it’s been a part of my life since childhood. The old 78 recordings were in the house and were the earliest influences for me,” he says.
“When I discovered the music of PJ Conlon, the Flanagan brothers, I got completely hooked into it altogether and that’s what inspired the album The Star Spangled Molly, which was greatly successful for us back in the day, with ‘My Irish Molly O’. Diarmuid certainly has the spirit and the ability and skill like PJ Conlon had, so it’s really exciting to be playing with him.
“It’s like we’re capturing the old '20s music once again like we did on The Star Spangled Molly album and that’s when I’m happiest - when I’m playing that kind of music.”
- Cork singer-songwriter Jack O’Rourke is special guest as Frankie Gavin and De Dannan play Cork Opera House on October 6 during Cork Folk Festival, which runs from October 2 to 6. See: corkfolkfestival.com
Cork Folk Festival starts with an exhibition of oil paintings by Aidan Coffey, officially opened at On the Pig’s Back, Douglas, at 6pm on October 2 by fellow painter Colm Murphy, who like Coffey joined De Dannan in 1988.
Musicians who played at one of Cork’s foremost 1970s folk and trad haunts reconvene on Saturday, October 5, at Triskel Christchurch for ‘The Phoenix Bar Revisited’, featuring Jackie Daly, Jimmy Crowley, Eoin Ó Riabhaigh, Colm Murphy, Conal Ó Grada, Mick Daly, Tana O’Brien, Fred Willis, Pat ‘Herring’ Ahern, and Ger Shine.
Six years after festival co-founder Timmy ‘the Brit’ McCarthy passed away, his son Tony plays in Saturday’s flute concert at An Spailpín Fánach alongside Aoife Granville, Eamonn Cotter, and Fintan Vallely.
Marking this year’s 45th festival, co-organiser William Hammond launches his authoritative book, Cork Folk Festival 1979-2024: Reeling Down the Years.
The festival’s Sliabh Luachra connections continue with Thursday’s lecture by Matt Cranitch at UCC Music Department on the fiddle music of Denis Murphy, with a Murphy memorial concert that night in An Spailpín.
Paul Brady plays Cork Opera House on Saturday; Triskel Christchurch hosts Iarla Ó Lionáird, Cormac McCarthy, Matthew Berrill, and Rosie McCarthy on Friday, and Mike McGoldrick, Nollaig Casey, and Niall McCabe on Saturday.
