When Cavan punks grow up: New film looks behind the scenes on an emotional band reunion
Once We Were Punks is a documentary on Irish band The Panic Merchants.
They were the schoolfriends who formed a band with big dreams of making it. For a time, The Panic Merchants hoped for a breakthrough in the music business before life brought them their separate ways.
Their musical goals seemed over — but remarkably, didn’t end there. When the pals were reunited at a funeral almost three decades later, those youthful memories were reignited and they decided to get the band back together.
The story of how The Panic Merchants reformed as The Sons of Southern Ulster as they picked up their instruments years later is told in a new documentary, from Frank Shouldice. The filmmaker became intrigued as he first learned of them through their music. As Tom Dunne played one of their songs on his radio show on Newstalk, music fan Shouldice wondered why he hadn’t heard their distinctive sound before.
“The sound and the arrangement, the guitar in particular, grabbed me,” recalls Shouldice. “I was curious about the lyrics and spoken word delivery — I waited for Tom Dunne to namecheck the band.”
The fact that Shouldice hadn’t heard of them piqued his curiosity. “The band sounded to me like the sort of music I would have been listening to in the 1970s and '80s. I didn't know if it was new or if it was from before. I started following up on that, and that was the beginning of everything.”
On being reunited, the four friends set a goal of recording three albums and playing their first major live show in almost 30 years. Other than a couple of short and informal performances, a planned performance at iconic Dublin music venue Whelans would be their first full gig since singer and vocalist Justin Kelly, guitarist and musical arranger David Meagher, drummer Noel Larkin and bassist Paddy Glackin played at Larkin’s wedding in 1992.
There was another challenge — they now lived in three different continents.
Shouldice first met the men who grew up in Bailieborough, Co Cavan, as they were gaining traction from the release of their second album. The filmmaker had coincidentally worked there on another documentary about it never being too late to pursue a life goal. told the story of 80-something Cavan bachelor Bobby Coote as he takes on a lifetime ambition to take to the skies.
“Here they were in their 50s, and things started happening,” says Shouldice. “When I met them, the gig was already beginning to hover in the distance as something that they had to get ready for, because they were in Ireland, America and Australia, and they have this gig coming down the tracks.”
As the feature documentary builds into an emotional and powerful tale, audiences get to see the shorthand the friends have with each other despite the years and the miles they have spent apart. It’s ultimately a story about friendship, says Shouldice.
“Friendship is at the core, but then they do something that they love, that's through music, and that is the glue that binds them together. But they're first and foremost friends, and I think if they weren't friends, they wouldn't have reformed.”
It’s quite telling, Shouldice feels, that in all the years after the original band went their separate ways, none of the men ever played in any other groups. “I think it was really an integral part that if they were going to play again, it would be with each other. It wasn't that they wanted to be in a band — they wanted to be in their band.”
When the film had one of two sold-out premieres at last year’s Galway Film Fleadh, they were reunited again as they sat among the audience to watch themselves onscreen for the first time. “I wanted them to see it together but the way it panned out, we couldn't get them all together prior to the screening,” says Shouldice.
“That was the first time they saw it and it was, I think, quite an emotional experience for them, but then they came back for the second screening, so I was relieved about that,” he says, adding that audiences have responded well to the film prior to its release.
“The response from audiences is really genuine and for the band members and their families, this is probably the most gratifying part. There's a really strong emotional connection with it.”
- is released in selected cinemas from May 15
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