Goin' To His Hometown

Cork City/William Murphy/Flickr/CC BY SA 2.0 DEED

Rabbie Burns put it, “The best laid schemes o’mice an’ men/aft gang agley”, which pretty much sums up what happened when I finally decided that I was going to have a solo trip to Ireland in 2019. Shortly after, the Covid pandemic broke out, and no one was going anywhere, not even ‘agley’. The entire world came to a stop and there wasn’t much else to do but stay home and not get infected. There’s quite a lot of time to be had when stuck home. I passed mine listening to a lot of music, reading and writing. It gave me time to start a Rory Gallagher blog, cement a fondness for Thin Lizzy and hoover Irish history. Might as well get fully immersed in the rock icons and history of your desired holiday destination if there’s not much else to stop you going around the bend!

Once things started to open back up, the planned trip became more of a possibility, though I decided to hold off a while longer to see how things panned out and save up a bit. It eventually happened in September 2023, by which time, the need to get out of Glasgow was strong and I was in serious need of a change of scene for my mental health as the effects of the lockdowns had been quite severe on my anxiety and agoraphobia. Cork was a no-brainer. I had passed through briefly as a teenager and liked the vibe. I didn’t know then that Cork was Rory’s hometown. Now I wanted to see the city again with Rory in mind.

My first port of call the morning after I arrived was to visit Rory’s grave. MacCurtain Street, where the hotel was located is perhaps best described as a distant cousin of New York City. NYC may never sleep, and I can personally attest that I don’t think MacCurtain Street does either, as it was noisy all night, which meant waking up a lot in the night. Mind you, I suppose this is the same street that once vibrated to the sound of a teenaged Rory practicing on his Strat when he lived above his grandmother’s pub, once located further up the road, was in the 1960s. Rather fittingly, I did hear a rather tight blues band playing loudly from somewhere on my final night in Cork.

Rory's Grave (© M J Steel Collins)

But on that first morning, I inevitably wound up waking up at daft o’clock, and had the sleep deprived epiphany to visit Rory’s grave as early as possible. So I watched the sun come up, and then set about finding a taxi that would take me out to Ballincollig, where St Oliver’s cemetery is located. I was surprised to find that there was a driver immediately accepting my pickup request on the FREENOW app. Though I don’t think he’d looked at the notes where I detailed where I wanted to go, as he was perhaps more surprised to hear where I wanted to go, not to mention also a tad stunned that Rory was one of the main reasons I had come to Cork from Glasgow. But the driver, Declan, was more than happy to do the round trip to Ballincollig. He also had friends and family laid to rest at St Olivers, so he decided it was an opportunity to pay them a visit too.

Ballincollig is outside Cork City, for those not au fait with the geography, so it was about a 20-minute drive. St Oliver’s is a pleasant cemetery, well-kept and very peaceful. Declan said he would help me find Rory’s grave, and we met a groundskeeper when we walked in through the gates who pointed us in the right direction. Declan still wasn’t sure as we walked in, but Rory has a very distinctive headstone, which I spotted right away. Declan headed off to the graves of his kith and kin, leaving me to it.

Visiting Rory’s grave was literally bucket list material for me, so actually walking towards it had something of an unreal quality. It had already started to rain. And of course, at some point on the way in, the strap of my pack-a-rucksack had come loose (the joys of Ryanair baggage rules, fold away rucksacks were something of a requirement to save hauling a massive cabin bag with a zillion compartments around). For some reason, to me, photos other fans take of Rory’s grave make it seem rather large. Maybe it was the angle. As it was, I found a pleasantly kept grave in a nice corner of the cemetery. Next to Rory is the grave of his mother, which is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Let’s just say in Glasgow, cemeteries and final resting places are something of an afterthought. They are crumbling and messy, with the noise of the city echoing in your ears. By comparison, St Oliver’s is a world away.

After the stress of travelling 10 hours the day before and the noise of the previous night – scratch that, the stress of the previous few years and the impact of my anxiety disorder worsening during Covid – it was very peaceful and calming to be at Rory’s final resting place. And at that time in the morning, apart from Declan at the other end of the cemetery, there was no one else to disturb the reverie. I’m not sure how other people do it, but in my family, it seems to be a thing to talk to the loved one while visiting their grave, so I had a bit of a chat with Rory. I left him a card and a small guitar (Stratocaster shaped obviously) key ring, weatherproofed in one of those plastic liquid bags airport security requires. The rucksack strap being loose was a problem, I said to Rory I hoped he didn’t mind while I knelt down next to him to fix the bloody thing!

It is very hard to describe what it felt like being there. Lots of fans visit, so it is probably a feeling they all know, even if it’s hard to put into words. There is definitely a positive energy. Perhaps it’s something to do with paying respects at the grave of a person you greatly admire. When you think of the graves of other notable musicians, like Jim Morrison or Elvis, they are rather grand affairs. Rory may have an unusual headstone, a recreation of the award he received when voted the World’s Best Guitarist by Melody Maker readers in 1972, but his grave doesn’t have that otherised quality that emanates out of Graceland or Père Lachaise. You can just take a while to be with him and your thoughts for a moment.

On the way back into Cork, Declan was very talkative, sharing memories of Rory and a friend who was a big fan who could play his music brilliantly on guitar. The travel and the interrupted sleep were starting to catch up with me when I got back to the hotel, so I conked out for a few hours. Only to be woken by the roadworks going on outside. The noise eventually got to the point my need to be somewhere quieter out did my need to rest in the room, so I was back on FREENOW, hunting down another taxi for another Rory site.

Cork City Library, sign to Rory nerd heaven! (© MJ Steel Collins)

The Rory Gallagher Music Library, dedicated and named after him in 2004, is located at the back of Cork City Library in Grand Parade. It’s basically a Rory fan’s dream. There is quite a large display dedicated to him inside the library, with a long description of his career. Part of the display is a replica of the Strat. Though in this particular case, there are actually two replicas. A second one, signed by Rory’s brother and band mates can be located in a case in the main section of the library itself, just outside the music library. I spent quite a bit of time goggling. The second replica had an extra special moment with Ted McKenna’s signature. As well, as being Rory’s drummer between 1978 and 1981, Ted is something of a legend in Scotland – John Bonham does not even get a look in. As well as his extensive post-Rory career with Michael Schenker and Band of Friends (to name a few), Ted was also drummer with The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, another big favourite of mind, and highly revered to this day. Though Glasgow can basically hang its head in shame over how Alex is remembered in the city when you consider how Cork honours Rory. The music library itself can also teach Glasgow a lesson. The library services in my home city discontinued CDS years ago and now has no provision for music whatsoever as the digital music service has also been canned. In Cork, it is a large space packed with books and CDS on various genres, a noticeboard offering, appropriately, blues guitar lessons – basically everything that made me want to get on the phone to the main Glasgow library on the spot and tell them to get their head out. The librarian in Cork let me take photos of the room so I could make my point back home!

What Awaits You At The Rory Gallagher Music Library

(All photos © M J Steel Collins)

After that, it was back to the hotel as the next day was a trip to Cobh with the very person who started me on my Gallagher adventure with the fateful words, “Have you listened to Rory Gallagher – I think you might like him.” ‘Might like him’ turned out to be an understatement, given my previous all-time favourite, The Beatles, have almost been consigned to the has been bin these days! I met Ann at Cork Kent Station and what followed was a day in which I got Rory with a personal touch, saw the pier where the last passengers to board the Titanic left, learned about Annie Moore and discovered the joys of hot whiskey.

Cobh Harbour/Marathon/Geograph/License CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED

Cobh is a key part to the Rory story. His cousins lived there, and he spent quite a considerable amount of time with them. A plaque was unveiled marking this in what was once his uncle’s ice cream shop earlier in 2023, so of course, off we went, and a photo duly taken. A stop off in a pub just before lunch also revealed a bar with walls literally coated in Rory, to an extend that even the most dedicated fan would be hard challenged to cover that amount of wall space with photos of him. Coming from a place where Alex Harvey has a tiny statue and bench dedicated to his memory that is now stored somewhere as The Winter Garden at People’s Palace is closed due to safety reasons, and Rory is met with a quizzical look by your average person asking who your favourite musician is, seeing this much Rory was basically some form of heaven. Of course, made extra special by seeing it all with my best friend who got me into him in the first place.

Who can beat this wallspace? (© M J Steel Collins

One of the best pub decors as far as I'm concerned! (© MJ Steel Collins)

The final day in Cork was rounded off with a quick trip to Gallagher’s bar at the other end of MacCurtain Street, where an exhibition of photos taken of Rory by Govert De Roos, is on display for the duration of 2023. The photos are something special to see up close. The bar itself is also named after Rory. I appeared wearing a Rory t-shirt and immediately got talking to a lady who had actually seen him play in the very early days in The Cavern, a small club where Dònal also was a DJ as a teenager. She had very happy memories, and her husband had also gone to school with Rory. As I sat enjoying that rare thing in Cork City, Guinness, others at the surrounding tables discussed Rory, and one confused New Yorker got a quick lesson in music history. A Rory t-shirt can have consequences when worn in Cork it seems!