Episode 5 I Lár an Aonaigh

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# All the ways you wander

# All the ways you roam

# All across great oceans

# All across the foam... #

PRESENTERS LAUGH

HE SINGS I LAR AN AONAIGH

THEY LAUGH

HE SINGS IN IRISH

HE SINGS A DIFFERENT SONG

AUDIENCE CHEERS

PRESENTERS CHUCKLE

Good afternoon, everybody and welcome to the wonderful show

that is going to be Afternoon Delight!

CHEERING

Please welcome to the stage, Sara Ni Chuireain!

..and I walked up to him and I was like, "Jimmy!

"I'm here for the taxi!". Jimmy didn't speak any English.

And so Jimmy was like, "Mm, si, grazie."

LAUGHTER

It's based on storytelling to a large extent, you know,

and anecdotes and that's your raw material.

You know, it's... You start with having something to say or, like,

a message to convey or something to talk about and then the jokes

are all about how you illustrate that. How you can

"punch it up" as Americans would say, like, to make it funnier,

but it always starts with the story, you know, and that can be dramatic

or whatever but people usually want more from their comedy as well,

it's not just about laughing. There's a lot more substance to it.

Jimmy had three teeth and a cowboy hat on and we organised

a taxi for the next day. Brilliant, happy days. I was like...

And we got it for a reduced price because that's what it means

to be this attractive.

And I was like, "Jimmy, buddy, like, come on,

"don't leave me hanging here. This is my time."

And he turned the corner, right,

and there was four horses in front of us, and Jimmy went, "Taxi!"

LAUGHTER

And I went, "No, Jimmy, that's a horse. That's several horses."

Lads, thank you very much, yous have all been brilliant, thank you.

Now, Rioghnach, the sound of this group, Honeyfeet, is something else.

I've heard them described as, let me get this right...

"Folk-hop and barrelhouse blues pop." Tell me about the group.

A bit of wonky pop, yeah.

That's a good way of describing it.

We're a bunch of musicians from Manchester that've been

playing together for about ten years.

Met each other on various jazz and blues and jam scenes

and circuits around Manchester.

And when you moved from Armagh to Manchester,

-did music help you to get settled?

-Indeed. It keeps you going.

There's Irish music every night of the week,

there's a session every night in Manchester but also there's so

many other types of genres and circuits about that

it's so easy to fall in with like-minded people and play

together and learn folk music from all over the world together.

So that's what gets you through the winters, I think.

That really inspires you because you, particularly in the last

12 months, you've had a phenomenal time because you're now the...

One of the lead singers with the Afro Celt Sound System,

you're in another group called The Breath.

Honeyfeet has been on the go constantly in the background

-and you're also doing your own thing, Rioghnach.

-Yeah.

-It's been an amazing journey.

-Yeah, well, you know, yeah,

you keep session working over the years

and you adapt out to...left, right and centre with other bands

but this is my family band, I think.

This is what's kept me strong all these years and got

me through it, I think.

But despite being over there so long, the accent's still there.

Oh, I'd be killed if I lost my accent, I think.

PRESENTER LAUGHS

I wouldn't be allowed home.

And the music at the heart of it, the music that you learnt in Armagh,

-still inspires you?

-Yeah, well, I grew in the Armagh Piper's Club

so, you know, you lock in with people every time you're home and

my brother, Laughlin, plays banjo and my sister plays concertina

so we play together whenever we're home.

And special significance there with the song you're going to

perform a little later on as well. Yes, indeed.

Sort of, um, a modern-day immigration song, I think.

-Lovely.

-Yeah.

# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat?

# Every time she walks down the street... #

# ..I wanna hold her Wanna hold her tight

# Get teenage kicks right through the night... #

# Now I've got a cousin called Kevin

# He's sure to go to heaven... #

# ..My perfect cousin... #

It was in a scout hall.

Feargal Sharkey, our singer,

he was a sort of scout leader at the time so he managed to get us

a show basically in front of these little scouts...

ranging from seven- to 12-year-olds or whatever.

About 40 of them and we played six songs or something like that

-so that was our very first concert.

-Really rock 'n' roll.

-It went down really well.

-It made me nervous, doing it.

-I wasn't nervous!

-Still am nervous.

Then there was that infamous moment when John Peel played

Teenage Kicks twice in a row on BBC Radio 1.

Where were you when that happened? Do you remember it?

We were all huddled around the radio at nine, you know,

waiting for him to play the record.

But we knew he was going to play it sometime on that day.

But the fact that he played it, right,

and then he said something, whatever it was, like,

"Oh, that was so good I'm going to play it again,"

and I was like, "Wow!"

And then the phones started ringing and everybody, all our friends,

-"Did you listen to John Peel? It was amazing!"

-Yeah, it was very good.

Just amazing, it was like a dream come true.

Was there a stage, then, that you actually thought,

"We've made it here"?

We'd always had an ambition to be on Top Of The Pops

so even though we weren't very careerist,

we always loved Top Of The Pops from watching it in the '70s.

But when it's on TV, when you watch yourself, it's the greatest thing.

# I wanna hold you Wanna hold you tight

# Get teenage kicks right through the night

# All right... #

# Little Mummy's boy

# He wasn't very old

# Though he was very small

# He did what he was told

# Jimmy Jimmy

# Jimmy Jimmy

# Oh, Jimmy Jimmy

# Poor little Jimmy wouldn't let go... #

MUSIC: All I Know by Honeyfeet

# She knew that he was not right

# She could tell by the look in his eyes

# And I watched through an open door

# And I turned the flickering gas lamp

# Till I could breathe a normal way

# There are places that I can't go

# There are faces that I won't see again

# And there is family I won't know

# There are people that can't be alone

# So turn those faces and walk those lines

# And choose the path that your fathers wrote for you

# I'll bury my children

# Beneath your sunrise

# And I'll howl and I'll beg

# Till the dawn comes

# There are places that I can't go

# There are faces that I won't see again, no

# And there is family I won't know

# There are people that can't be alone

# Alone

# Alone

# Alone I'll go out on your cobbled stairs. #

APPLAUSE