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| Albert Bridge / The Ulster Hall, Belfast/Geograph/CC BY-SA 2.0) |
The Troubles
started in 1969. I don’t intend to go into the details of events here, other
than to say it was violent, with a lot of deaths on all sides. Northern Ireland
was considered extremely dangerous – not a place where people went willingly, including
the popular bands and solo artists of the day. None of them would play in
Belfast. That said, it didn’t stop one man from thinking that despite the
deadly strife going on around them, the younger generation still needed musical
entertainment to take their minds off it. That man was Rory Gallagher.
Born in 1948 in
Ballyshannon, a town in the Republic of Ireland, on the border with Northern
Ireland, Rory was already something of as the first Irish person to crack a
hole in the international music scene with his incredible abilities as a
guitarist and songwriter. From his early teenage days with the showband The
Fontana/Impact, followed by his trio Taste and subsequently as a solo artist,
Rory tore his way across Europe and America in a seemingly endless tour of
legendary, energetic concerts that left the audiences both exhausted, mind blown
and desperate for more. By the early 1970s, he was one of the hottest musicians
around.
He also felt an
affinity to Belfast. Personally, he already had strong ties to Derry, where his
father came from, and where Rory had spent part of his childhood before his
family moved down to Cork, the hometown of his mother. It was during his time
in Derry that Rory developed his love of blues, catching radio broadcasts on the
American Forces Network. During the early phase of Taste, Rory had moved to
Belfast for a time due to the local blues scene and he quickly became something
of a local music treasure. He had a
strong soft spot for the city – a city that went from having of the liveliest
music scenes on Irish soil to having no live music at all in less than five
years.
Roy
Hollingworth, a veteran music journalist, and friend of Rory joined the Rory
Gallagher Band in Belfast over the New Year period of 1971/2, detailing the
trip in an article published in Melody Maker on January 8, 1972. The article is
a no holds barred account that highlights the situation of a city filled with
youngsters starved of live music due to conflict and the impact Rory’s show at
the Ulster Hall on January 1, 1972,
Belfast’s
renowned promoter, Jim Aiken said Hollingworth, “Nobody will come now, it’s
impossible. There’s only Gallagher here who’ll do it.”
Rory himself
says in the same article, “I
don't see any reason for not playing Belfast. Kids still live here. They can
get tired of records.”
Rory
had a point there. During this visit to Belfast, Take One, an underground paper published this:
“Rory Gallagher has once again returned to Belfast, at least he came,
and for that we must thank him. Belfast has now become a graveyard for music.
Concerts and big groups are a thing of the past…We want action now, for too
long the groups in England haven’t given music where it can give the most help.
Lennon tells us to give peace a chance, but has he visited us? All we want
John, baby, is the truth. Perhaps he is furthering the peace movements
somewhere in Hyde Park. Perhaps the groups don’t want to make any sacrifices,
maybe they are afraid, maybe they cannot stir themselves to help the people who
need it most, who have no power to speak of.”
Putting it
mildly, Belfast was indeed a place in need of the healing power of music.
The main show of
this particular time for Rory was the Ulster Hall, on a street nicknamed ‘Bomb
Alley’. However, the night before, chiming in the New Year, Rory also played
the student union and Queen’s University, as a series of bombs went off in the
streets around. He kept on playing and the audience continued to party.
The show the
next day at the Ulster Hall was nothing short of incredible. Rory and his
bandmates, bassist Gerry McAvoy and drummer Wilgar Campbell played a searing
set that had the audience in raptures. Hollingworth wrote, “Nobody wanted it to
end. There are tears in the eyes of some kids, not just girls flipped on Rory,
but guys as well. There's the best audience in the World in Belfast. The whole
point of entertaining PEOPLE reaches a very valid level.”
That New Year visit to Belfast in 1971/2 was just one of many dates Rory played at the height of the Troubles. He would play many, many more over the ensuing years, to the great delight of his fans, braving the dangers. Needless to say, he has now hit legendary status as a result and there is to be a statue of him sited outside the Ulster Hall.
Rory’s shows at the Ulster Hall were very different from the norm there, where the Rev Ian Paisley would hold regular sermons. In fact, the dressing room was preserved for him alone and locked to anyone else taking part in anything at the Ulster Hall. In contrast, Rory’s audiences during his Ulster Hall shows came from both sides of the divide that made up the conflict, “Rory was accepted by all sides. I wouldn’t say he was untouchable but there was an element of that. Particularly at Ulster Hall.” Dónal Gallagher, Rory’s brother and manager once said.
However, that doesn’t mean to say Rory wasn’t at
risk playing Belfast in those days. If anything, the danger may have just been
around the corner. Dónal had been informed that Rory was potentially a kidnap target, kidnappings being extremely common during the Troubles.
This was at the forefront of Dónal’s mind one night very early in January 1975
after Rory had wrapped up his usual festive season run of shows when the Gallagher
home in Cork received a late-night phone call after Rory had gone to bed. It
was unusual to get calls at that time of night unless it was something serious,
so when a voice asked at the other end of the line if this was the phone number
for Rory Gallagher, Dónal was cautious. It, however, turned out to be
Ian Stewart calling to see if Rory would be interested to join the Rolling
Stones for a few days in the studio after guitarist Mick Taylor walked out.
Books:
Rory Gallagher: A Biography, Jean-Noël Coghe, Mercier Press, 2002
Rory Gallagher: His Life and Times, Marcus Connaughtan, The Collins Press 2012
Cork Rock: From Rory Gallagher to the Sultans of Ping, Mark McAvoy, Mercier Lifestyle, 2009
I, Sideman: The Story of Me, in the 60s and 70s, Jackie MacAuley, Independent, 2017
Articles and interviews:
Does Belfast Remember Rory Gallagher? https://shadowplays.com/blog/?p=255
Documentaries:
The Irish Rock Story: A Tale of Two Cities (2015)
Rory Gallagher – Irish Tour 1974
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