Covid Chronicles: John Walsh - It has been a tale of three lockdowns

Ciara McDonnell chats to John Walsh who recorded and released his first album during lockdown.

Mon, 15 Feb, 2021 - 05:55

Ciara McDonnell

I am a guitarist and composer specialising in flamenco music. I had just finished a theatre show in Smock Alley on the same day that the first case of Covid in Ireland was announced. A certain naivety permeated most conversations around the situation back then. People were worried but nobody anticipated that almost a year later we would be in a worse situation than when we started.

The following week I had a gig with trad-music luminaries Robbie Harris and Peter Browne in Dublin as part of the monthly Kaleidoscope night. Kaleidoscope always has many musicians in the audience so after the gig I was chatting with familiar faces, joking about Corona beer suffering a downturn in sales in the USA and talking about doing more gigs with our brand new trio. Little did I know that this would be the last time I would have a public performance in the whole of 2020.