Laburnum Lawn house is going for a song

“HOUSES dancing two by two, Like people at a wedding do,” wrote singer/song-writer and Meteor award-winning musician, John Spillane, about his home place – and Cork’s clusters and long, straight rows of semi-ds.

In his 1986 song, Laburnum Lawn, he name-checks some of the western suburban estates, continuing “we feed the flowers and kill the weeds, In our woods without trees, Housing dancing on and on, Willow Grove, Laburnum Lawn.”

Spillane’s lyrical lullaby to the lawn sprung from the spot where his childhood family home, Rathcyll stands, and just recently is up for sale. As he says himself, Spillane would write a song about anything, and has done, from Dunnes Stores Girls, to going to Ballincollig (or not), Princes Street, Farranree, the Lobby Bar, and the three killer orca whales that came up the River Lee. Brilliant, or what?