In pictures: Emotional opening for Safe Harbour festival with tribute to Cork musician Talos
Ye Vagabonds on stage at Cork Opera House during Thursday night's 'Remembering Talos' gala opening of the fifth biennial Sounds from a Safe Harbour festival in memory of Eoin French. Picture: Chani Anderson
The biennial arts and music festival Sounds from a Safe Harbour (SFSH) returns to Cork city for its fifth edition this weekend and kicked off on Thursday evening with a sold-out show, Remembering Talos, at Cork Opera House.
The event sought to honour Cork artist Eoin French, who, under the moniker Talos, released three albums between 2017 and 2022, as well as the posthumous , made with the Grammy Award-nominated Icelandic musician Ólafur Arnalds.
Raised in Kilcully, French passed away at Marymount Hospice in August 2024 at the age of just 36.
French was also a member of the SFSH team. Festival director Mary Hickson told the at the start of the year that such a show was “gonna be the very first thing we do.
"We just couldn't possibly do anything else until we have that done right. So the very first event will be for Eoin. Then we can step into the rest of it, but we certainly won't be programming anything until we celebrate him.”
Over 75 emotional minutes, a rotating cast of singers, including the Staves, La Force, Christof Van Der Ven, S Carey, and Rosie Carney (accompanied by Jon Hopkins), paid tribute to the power of Talos' songs.
The show began just after 6pm as voicenotes of French are played. His Cork accent and enthusiastic demeanour are there for all to hear as he proclaims: "This sounds fucking incredible."
Former Saint Sister member Gemma Doherty is first up with the ambitious . She and myriad others, as they make their way to the front of the stage, place a flower in remembrance.
French's long-term collaborator Nick Rayner, who was managing director of the show, played ; folk pair Ye Vagabonds attempt Talos' most skyscraping of songs, ; Lisa Hannigan performs her collaboration from Talos' third album , and later ; before Loah offers a primal tryptich of furious songs: , and .
It has been 13 months since French died — most likely, this was the first time many had heard these songs among a crowd in years. If emotions had been kept in check up to now, they all come pouring out as video clips of French as a child perched on a piano seat are played.
Amid audible sobs, his brother Brían performs a spoken word piece.
"Since we were kids, he was all that I followed," he says over gentle keys from Meltybrains' Brian Dillon. "He gets reborn every time we listen; he becomes alive with every lyric."
It's an amazing three-minute monologue.
The night ends with the nearly 30 musicians arm-in-arm for , which was created by Talos, Ólafur Arnalds, Ye Vagabonds, and Niamh Regan at SFSH 2023.
It was the only way this show could end. And the only way Sounds from a Safe Harbour 2025 could begin.
The Opening Ritual, a pagan rave curated by folklorist Billy Mag Fhloinn, took place at Elizabeth Fort afterwards.
The festival continues across the weekend with film (curated by Cillian Murphy) and visual strands alongside a feast of music.
