On Saturday, May 6th a fundraising concert was held for Grow in the Triskel Arts Centre in the heart of Cork City.
Eve Telford, partner of the famous folk singer Jimmy Crowley contacted Grow Southern region in early March 2020 saying that Jimmy and herself would do a fundraising concert for Grow. This concert was 3 years and 3 months in the making. Grow Southern Region had planned to stage this concert In April 2020 but unfortunately, Covid-19 reached Ireland just weeks before and all events were put on hold. Over the 3 years, Eve kept in contact with Grow and in February of this year, a date was set for the concert.
In the months leading up to the concert, Eve gathered musical friends to play with her and Jimmy, and on the night we were treated to six different acts.
Sonrai, who by day are colleagues working in the Central Statistics Office, performed 1st with a lovely mixture of traditional Irish music and song. They make very few public performances, so we are very lucky that they agreed to perform for us.
2nd to take the stage was Joyce Higgins and her band. Joyce is a Cork-based artist who writes all her own material. Joyce’s music was very atmospheric and within two songs she had the audience captivated. Striking also about Joyce’s music was the dept of meaning in her lyrics.
For the 3rd act, we had a complete change when storyteller Maria Gillean took to the stage. She had a huge stage presence capturing the audience with her fabulously green coloured dress and tunic, an outfit that would not have been out of place at King Charles's Coronation earlier that day. Maria’s storytelling took us back to an Ireland before radio, television, or electricity. Her ghost stories were haunting and you could hear a pin drop in the audience.
4th to take to the stage was Darby Crowley, brother of Jimmy Crowley. Darby Crowley writes all his own material and he is also an historian who has a huge interest in the ancient clans of Ireland. He performed a number of songs about the Murphy Clan, the O’Neill Clan, and his own clan the Crowleys. All songs referenced events 1500 years ago. Darby’s knowledge of ancient Irish history was of huge interest to the audience and drew warm applause.
5th to take to the stage were Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford.
Jimmy Crowley was born in Douglas, County Cork into a musical family. He formed Stoker's Lodge in 1970, the other members being Mick Murphy, Christy Twomey, and Johnny "Fang" Murphy. Eoin Ó Riabhaigh joined sometime later. The band was named after the gate lodge of the Stoker estate in Cork, near Crowley's boyhood home. The band members drifted apart in the early 80s but reformed in 2014 for one time to mark the passing of Christy Twomey the previous year.
After the demise of Stoker's Lodge, Jimmy formed The Electric Band in 1982 They released a reggae version of "The Boys of Fairhill" in that year which went straight into the pop charts
Jimmy has pursued a solo career since the 1990’s touring extensively in Ireland and abroad. In 2014 Jimmy published a large volume Songs From The Beautiful City: Cork Urban Ballads with musical notation and lyrics and with related anecdotes on the facing page.
In recent years Jimmy has performed with Eve Telford and they are currently on a nationwide tour of Ireland.
Eve is a traditional singer and a folk songwriter. She sings traditional Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and English songs, with a strong focus on Irish. Her songwriting takes inspiration from the great web of folklore, the natural world, and politics,
Wrapping up the show was the Daghanham Yanks - a very lively rock/ pop band. It wasn’t long before the audience was swaying in their seats the 7-member band played feel-good music nonstop for 45 mins. The quality of their music was appreciated by everybody and all left the concert buzzing.
Sincere gratitude to all the performers for doing this fundraising concert and a big thank you to Eve Telford who kept the idea going during the Covid years and organised the concert on the night.
