Crooning On Corners In Cork

Crooning On Corners In Cork

By Paul McCann

After arriving in Cork I asked one of the locals about accommodation in town and he gave me the address of a nice  couple on the western road who ran a bed and breakfast . I took his advice and after lunch I made my way to the bed and breakfast and  booked a room for a week and unpacked my bag then walked into the town with the guitar ..Didn’t take me too long to find a nice spot to busk opposite McDonalds in front of a Swiss Jewellery store . Plenty of people out Christmas shopping and was encouraged by how I was made to feel very welcome there as a busker . In fact I would say I felt comfortable to be there .

The first thing that I loved was the Cork accent .It was smooth and friendly and to me it sounded almost as if the Cork people almost sang to you when they talked .

They made you feel that you were important to them 

So I started busking as the morning crowd passed by . I was eager to play and sing because I had learnt a few new songs to play and tried to vary the kind of tunes that would make my time there interesting for the people who were there .

Day time busking can be a little difficult due to the pacer of life and people trying to get their business done   .  Night time busking were always the best as most people are relaxed and in no hurry to get where they were going .

In my time busking I found quite often you’d see other musicians drift in to do some busking . There were two buskers in particular I kept bumping into . I had met them previously in the UK and now in Cork  . One of them looked like a gypsy , he always a red bandanna . I tried to speak to him but he couldn’t talk English.

We just laughed and nodded to each other . The other person I kept seeing was a girl called Jilly and she always played the same song every time I saw her which was a song called ” Ride On “  written by an Irish songwriter by the name of Jimmy McCarthy . I got to love that song and started to busk it myself .  Jilly was quiet and intensive when she was busking . She was totally focused on her busking .

Jilly never stayed in one spot for too long . 

Crooning on the corners around Cork was cool and I  would have rather been doing that than working in some 9 to 5 job sitting in front of a computer on a desk  or working in some factory or warehouse . The laneways and corners , sidewalks and malls were part of my everyday job and that’s where I spent my time busking , morning , noon and night . The pavements were always busy and most people were always welcoming . Even the seagulls and pigeons would drop in for a while to listen while I was singing . Alos many other musicians wandered around Cork everyday with all kinds of instruments in  their hands . The local pubs were always willing to give a busker a go . There was Mr Devlin who ran the Grand Hotel gave me a spot to play some songs in his alehouse in Oliver Plunkett Street . The Grand Hotel was another place that was open to give you a go . A lot of the publicans would rather promote a live entertainer than put a frame juke box in the corner .

Another good place for the busker to play was around Oliver Plunkett Street that was filled with traditional music within the wall of many establishments there .

At any given time of the day or night you would see a traveller , a potato picker , sheep farmer or roof thatcher there enjoying the Craic with lots of music happening between jigs and reels . There were always some small group in their playing on a fiddle , guitar or a bodhran . The music of what happens is what its affectionately known as and it comes unrehearsed and as live as you’ll ever get it  . Real folk and rock and roll as it happens . Some well known musicians often drift in unannounced and would sometimes perform after the parties over just for the heck of it .

Hats off to all those kind of musicians who stayed true to their calling .

There were also the older pubs around Cork where a piano sat alone by the door waiting for some one to tickle the keys to sing an old well known Irish ballad or two.

Music is a living thing in Cork and the busker is part of all that . Strange as it sounds you’re never a stranger if you play music and there’s always a welcome there for you So although I was in a strange place with strange people I wasn’t treated like a stranger , strangely enough .

I discovered a Gaelic love in Cork that is free and it lives in the hearts of the people who are there . You can almost hear an echo of the hard times and the rare old times , it rings out through the church chimes . You can see it on the faces of the people there who share that love . From Mayfield to the Lee and far beyond that love reaches out to the stranger . Its like the wind that comes and goes in through the City streets . Gaelic love is the fabric of life that makes life more liveable and the hardships acceptable  .  

One night as I stood busking by the bridge over the River I was looking out to sea .
The bright stars shone and I remembered Rita the girl I met in London . Maybe it was the moonbeams that fell upon he water that brought thoughts of romance to mind or  maybe it was the thought of what lay beyond where the river flowed but I thought about returning back over the sea to  London . I had never felt love before so I wasn’t sure if my heart was ready for that . I was happy busking in Cork there , down by the Lee . Things can chane in the blink of an eye or in any Irish minute ,

It was Christmas Eve in Blarney Street and a few days before I had been robbed by three drunks who stole my guitar and money . I was left on some sidewalk in the like a tenant who couldn’t pay his rent . I returned to my bed and breakfast accommodation but they were not able to offer mt a room without payment up front and all my money had been stolen so now I was a tenant of the cold empty streets .

So there awas I outside a building huddled up in a ball on the pavement .

A stranger open the door of these flats and said I could sleep on the staircase there on the condition that I never told  anyone who it was let me in to the building .

I was really grateful for the shelter .

The deal was I could not use the staircase between midday to midnight as the caretaker would be around then so I spent the mornings on the staircase writing lyrics and transposing chord progressions and each night I would wander round the streets of Cork looking for the three who stole my guitar ..until midnight when my friend would open the front door to the block of flats .

When Christmas was over and the New Year had come I decided it was a waste of time going busking there with no guitar , so when the banks reopened I was able to  speak with them about getting a replacement electronic keycard for my bank after the one I had was stolen .

So as hard it was I was leaving  Cork behind but not leaving some of the wonderful  memories of a place that welcomed me and made me feel at home .
It was January 1989 and I left Cork like the ripples on the river Lee I said farewell to the sea birds that came and rested there by the banks of the Lee .  There was a beauty there about this place and it was not east to leave it behind .  I will always feel attached to this place and one day I hope to return .

The End