Ireland’s Own issue with Jimmy MacCarthy interview out now

Recently Jimmy MacCarthy did an interview with the magazine Ireland’s Own, which can now be purchased from your local newsagent.

Here is a snippet of the interview, which can be read in full in the latest issue:

_{From Ride On and No Frontiers to The Contender and The Bright Blue Rose, Jimmy MacCarthy’s songs have become woven into the fabric of Irish life. As he prepares to return to the stage, the legendary songwriter talks to Shea Tomkins about his Cork upbringing, the inspirations behind his timeless classics, and a lifetime devoted to songwriting.}

_{Sometimes in life you can feel that you know someone quite well without ever actually having met them, and acclaimed songwriter Jimmy MacCarthy is a prime example of that kind of person. The reason behind that feeling is that through a lifetime of producing haunting lyrics and enchanting melodies, his work has unobtrusively become part of the Irish psyche.
With instantly recognisable titles such as Ride On, No Frontiers, The Bright Blue Rose, Katie and The Contender to his credit, it would be a challenge to go on a night out across Ireland and not find someone performing one of his songs. That’s because everybody knows a Jimmy MacCarthy song.}

_{When he sits down to chat to Ireland’s Own, he is excited about performing in front of live audiences again. With five very special concerts planned to mark the re-release of his 1991 album The Song of the Singing Horseman, he is in sparkling form as he reflects on his upbringing, and shares insight into where the inspiration for some of his best known songs came from.}

_{“I was born in Macroom and grew up in Cork City, where I went to school in Pres and Christian Brothers,” says Jimmy. “My mam and dad were extraordinary people, and I’m the second oldest of twelve. My mother was very creatively artistic, and quite a talented amateur painter, potter etc.}

_{“My father had what I would say was a marked turn of phrase, which I think I inherited a little bit of. He would say such things as, ‘there is no such thing as chance Jim, but order unknown’. He would also say things like, ‘little things make perfection, and perfection is no little thing’, and those little phrases became ingrained in my life, I have to say. One-line philosophies, I suppose you could call them.}

_{“My mother got the aviation bug at a very young age. She was taken to an airshow in Ballincollig and for two shillings she was taken up into the air for seven minutes and dropped down again, and all her life she wanted to fly.}

_{“She took flying lessons and was about ten hours short of being the first female licensed pilot in Ireland when she became pregnant with my twin brothers. Therefore, my grandfather, James Manly, forbade her from flying and, as she said herself, her wings were clipped.}

_{“She loved art and her great achievement in her own mind was my brother, Seán, who was a sculptor who, if you ever come out of Cork Airport and you look straight in front of you, you’ll see an eight-and-a-half-foot bronze statue of Christy Ring, well that’s my brother Seán’s creation. And he’s a very fine painter also.}

_{“So the first verse of No Frontiers is just like Amelia dying, with reference to my mother, and the second verse is about my father, who was a terror on the drink. Now, when he got a programme he was exemplary for the rest of his life, and in fact they were both very loving parents; even though not tactile, they were very affectionate. It wasn’t easy, at any time in our history, shoeing and feeding twelve children!”}

_{Jimmy’s father had a small transport business that delivered publications such as the Farmers Journal, Business and Finance, Woman’s Way, Spotlight and then all of the daily newspapers and Sunday papers to east, north and west Cork mainly, but they did runs between Cork and Dublin for different things too. It was a busy 24-hour around the clock house to grow up in, with men coming and going and having fries and cups of tea all day and all night long. Young Jimmy thrived in this bustling environment, and even though he was nine when he got his first guitar, he had different ambitions as a teenager.}