Episode 6 I Lár an Aonaigh

APPLAUSE

I think the gay community in Derry is quite close, anyway,

and very welcoming on days like this and I feel like...

Cos it's kind of been emotional,

I guess, my family comes out,

my entire family comes out

to celebrate it.

My mum's actually in the samba band

today with her boyfriend so...

I think it's a family thing, anyway.

How does that make you feel,

that your family's supporting you today?

I mean, I've always felt very accepting of my family,

but I think on a specific day like this, it's always...

I feel very lucky that I have the family I do

and that they're so supportive.

I had horrible experiences with high school, not primary school,

but from first year right up until the fifth year, I was bullied.

It was kind of on and off, but pretty much the whole way through

and I didn't want to be there and I was having a hard time at home

so I didn't want to be there, either,

and it kind of just seemed like there was nowhere to go.

Do you think it's essential that schools offer more workshops

and support events to young people?

100%, because my whole five years of being in that school,

there was not one thing about it.

I mean, they did, you know, safe sex talks and stuff like that,

but that was all regarding straight couples.

There was never anything about awareness of LGBT people.

There was nothing - no workshops, nothing.

My school didn't have a lot to offer and I knew...

I know that a lot of other schools are like that, too.

Sex is what you were born with and gender is how you express yourself.

"This is my identity and it doesn't matter

"who I'm in a relationship with..."

We know that there are other LGBT awareness workshops

running in other schools in Northern Ireland, Declan,

but what's different about the ShoutOut model?

ShoutOut has had a lot of success in the south up till now

and I think it's because it doesn't do campaigning,

it's not politically engaged.

It is just going in to address

the issues at hand of bullying

and I think that the classroom setting and having some conversation

and dialogue around it makes it different as well.

I knew I wasn't straight and I knew I wasn't gay.

You know yourself better than anybody else

and once you're comfortable, then that's up to you.

-You're so welcome.

-Thanks for having us, it's great to be here.

The big question, Mal - has it All Worked Out?

Yes, I guess it has, yeah.

We've had a hectic two years since we released All Works Out

and of course Getting Through,

the album went gold in Dublin, yeah,

we've got to tour all around the world

and now we're back with a new album, Ghosts.

We just finished up in Texas, we recorded that over there.

We spent five weeks out there recording the album

and, yeah, just releasing it now and can't wait to get it out.

-Our fourth album, believe it or not.

-That's amazing, isn't it?

But without doubt,

It All Works Out and Getting Through were the big breakthroughs for you.

-Definitely.

-So, how did you approach the follow-up?

First, it's always organic, like. We just...

We kind of just follow our gut instinct

and with Getting Through, it's an album we're very proud of.

I guess it's more raucous and on this album,

there's more textures and I think the songs are more crafted

and it's an album I'm really, really excited about.

And the first single, of course, is doing great on radio,

-Elephant In The Room.

-Absolutely.

And tell me about that song

because you have a real knack of writing anthemic songs

that are real ear worms as well,

that the audience will all ultimately sing back to you.

Yeah, well, with Elephant In The Room,

it's a song that's deeply personal to the band,

but in saying that,

when we were writing it and putting it on the album,

we thought it would be a good anthem for mental health

and for depression and anxiety

and self-harm and suicide because I guess,

for a long time, it's been the elephant in the room,

people kind of tiptoeing around it and I guess with this song,

we wanted to continue that conversation -

get people to reach out, open up and talk to each other

so that's what Elephant In The Room is about.

Well, well done. It's certainly working.

Frank was really a complete one-off.

He was a little bit idiosyncratic from his early days.

He was in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

He was a military doctor and he was awarded the Military Cross

in the field, which is pretty unusual,

for his outstanding gallantry,

his total disregard for bullets and bombs going off around him

and he told me that what he was doing

was making sure that men were not dying in pain.

The experiences must have been extremely harrowing.

They were portable only in the sense

that you were an entrant in a world's strongest person contest.

The first ones weighed 70kg.

What Frank did was to miniaturise it.

He developed the concept of the automatic external defibrillator,

which, if you like, was foolproof and could be used by anyone.

-RECORDED VOICE:

-Press the shock button now.

# Do you destroy everything you desire?

# Ba-da-da

# Coming in here like a ball of fire

# Ba-da-da

# Burning all the oxygen out the room

# Ba-da-da

# Heating up faster than a chemist's spoon

# Ba-da-da

# That feeling again

# Is taking hold of you

# You're feeling so down

# You're feeling so blue

# We don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# We don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# I'm feeling lost, I feel dejected

# Ba-da-da

# So isolated, disconnected

# Ba-da-da

# Self-denigrating, I'm obsessive

# Ba-da-da

# Just another clinical depressive

# Ba-da-da

# That feeling again

# Is taking hold of you

# You're feeling so down

# You're feeling so blue

# We don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# We don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# Can you hear me now?

# Can you hear me now?

# Can you hear me now?

# Can you hear me now?

# Can you hear me now?

# That feeling again

# Is taking hold of you

# You're feeling so down

# You're feeling so blue

# But we don't talk about that

# Aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah

# The elephant in the room

# Aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah

# We don't talk about that

# Aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah

# The elephant in the room

# Aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah-aaah

# We don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# We don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# No, we don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# No, we don't talk about that

# The elephant in the room

# The elephant in the room. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.