Rory Gallagher amp raises funds for lifeboat

The lifeboat in an east Cork fishing village where Rory Gallagher found inspiration for one of his best-loved songs will benefit from the sale of an amplifier that travelled the globe with the blues guitar legend.

A far cry from some of the heavier rock numbers that normally come to mind when his name is mentioned, A Million Miles Away is also one of the lyrically strongest. And his brother Dónal, who is putting the 1970s Oberheimer warm-up amp up for auction, has revealed how and where the words most likely came from.

They include a chorus in which he sang: “I’m a million miles away, sailing like a driftwood, on a windy bay”, and a bridge where he describes how he can be found “looking out on the deep blue sea”.

Dónal’s memory is that the words came to Rory during a visit to Ballycotton, a place introduced to them by their grandmother soon after they moved from Derry to Cork as young boys.

“I remember a few occasions when Rory was quite fatigued from touring, particularly in the 70s, and even though he loved being back in Cork city, he’d go down to Ballycotton and have a nice quiet walk for himself,” he said.

“He’d gone missing this one time and I was thinking he’d fallen off the cliffs, but eventually I heard him calling in the distance. He apologised, saying he’d heard me calling but, he said ‘I heard you call but I was writing a song and if I’d interrupted that, it would have been gone’,” recalls his younger brother.

“From memory, it may have been A Million Miles Away. Quite recently, when we were doing things for the auction there was another song came to mind, Lost at Sea from the Against the Grain album,” he said.

Lost at Sea accompanies a video, with footage of the Ballycotton Lifeboat in action, recently placed on the official Rory Gallagher website to raise awareness of next Saturday’s auction at Whyte’s in Dublin.

The inclusion of Rory’s practice amp, along with a replica of his famous sunburst-design Fender Stratocaster guitar, is sure to attract interest from his legion of global fans.

Dónal remembers his brother being recommended the amp by the editor of a guitar magazine who interviewed him in the mid-70s, and how Rory went to the factory in Santa Monica, California to buy it, and has clear memories of it going everywhere with him.

“It would have been in Rory’s hotel rooms, in his house in London, it would have gone into studios, he probably even recorded with it,” said Dónal.

Whyte’s auctioneers have a €5,000 to €7,000 estimate on the guitar-and-amp lot, with the amplifier’s flight case stencilled with Rory’s name also included.

The decision to donate the proceeds is a huge boost for the Ballycotton lifeboat station, where its average 25 call-outs a year can cost around €2,500 each.

“Everyone in the community really appreciates this gesture from Donal and the Gallagher family,” said lifeboat operations manager John Tattan.