As Northern Ireland begins to cash in on its recent history, NIALL STANAGE takes a West Belfast taxi tour around the area s landmarks. Pics: PETER MATTHEWS
LOST LIVES, the stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of The Troubles, is one of the most remarkable and essential books of our time. NIALL STANAGE interviews one of its authors, BRIAN FEENEY, and on the opposite page, recounts how his own life was touched by a violent chapter that many now hope is drawing to a close.
On the release of a double CD retrospective of his forty years as a performer-songwriter, Johnny McEvoy talks to Jackie Hayden about his early days as Ireland’s answer to Bob Dylan, meeting the great man himself, supporting and introducing The Rolling Stones, defending The Wolfe Tones, not apologising for the troubles in the North, U2 and the key albums that have inspired him.
As the new leader of the SDLP and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland, MARK DURKAN will have plenty to occupy his mind in 2002. Here he talks about the early death of his father, politics and paramilitaries in the North, the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, his opposition to Sellafield and membership of Greenpeace – and what Mo Mowlam might have piped into the Good Friday talks!
Words: JOE JACKSON
PETER TAYLOR is one of the most experienced journalists to have covered the Troubles. Midway through the screening of his most recent TV documentary, Loyalists, he spoke to NIALL STANAGE about the North s pivotal personalities, his hopes for a peaceful future, and why Provos was keenly watched by Loyalist paramilitaries.
Martin McGuinness was one of the key figures in the troubles in Northern Ireland . Many unionists believe that the one-time IRA man was at the heart of much that was wrong and divisive in Irish life. But ultimately the quiet Derryman has taken on the role of peacemaker – and he is now the Deputy First Minister in the new power-sharing administration at Stormont.
Journalist Susan McKay's new book, Bear In Mind These Dead, revisits the families of victims, for many of whom the emotional scars have been slow to heal.
The High Priest of Soul, AL GREEN is one of the greatest singers this century has known. Coinciding with his recent trail of magnificent shows in Dublin, the mercurial Rev granted this exclusive interview to KARL TSIGDINOS.
Pics: Bernard Walsh.
U2 and Ash played Belfast to support the Yes Vote in the Belfast Agreement. Hot Press columnist Stuart Bailie was the compére for the evening. And it rocked, big style.
IN HIS interview elsewhere in this issue Michael D. Higgins points out that there is little to be gained from indulging in discussions about a Dublin/the rest of Ireland divide. However it would be fatuous to deny that while Dublin slept coiled inside smug self assurance in terms of its pivotal role in relation to the arts, regional areas such as Galway gradually became more vibrant centres of cultural life, in many ways.
The biggest obstacle to Belfast becoming the European City Of Culture may be the reluctance of its own people to accept that it deserves the title. Colin Carberry reports
Lisa Dorrian was popular and fun loving. Then she fell foul of the North’s paramilitary underworld. A year since she vanished, her family is still trying to uncover the truth about her disappearance.
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone talks about toffs in politics, Tony versus Gordon and sheds light on his own intervention in the Troubles, at the height of the bloodshed.
WITH ITS RESOUNDING ECHOES OF THE TROUBLES, THE WAR BETWEEN THE BASQUE SEPARATIST GROUP ETA AND THE SPANISH STATE REMAINS BLOODY AND SEEMINGLY INTRACTABLE. WITH HIS FIRST BOOK, DIRTY WAR, CLEAN HANDS, IRISH JOURNALIST PADDY WOODWORTH PRESENTS A COMPELLING BUT OFTEN HARROWING ACCOUNT OF HOW VIOLENCE DEFEATS POLITICS AND TERROR BEGETS TERROR. AND, REFLECTING ALSO ON HIS OWN PAST POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT WITH SINN FÉIN, HE TELLS JOE JACKSON HOW HE HAS COME AROUND TO THE VIEW THAT TALKING IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN WAR. AUTHOR PORTRAITS: CATHAL DAWSON.
It’s a long time since they graced the stadium circuit, but Simple Minds are still thinking big. Jim Kerr takes time out from sunning himself in Sicily to tell Ed Power their plans.
Pre-Christmas unrest in the Balkans brought unpleasant memories of late '90s ethnic cleansing back to the soldier turned singer-songwriter James Blunt.
Aslan's Billy McGuinness grew up on Dublin's northside. Now, he's living in the sticks loving every minute of it – especially when friends call around for karaoke.
colin murphy is living proof that there is such a thing as a comedic afterlife. The Downpatrick funny man, who once "died every week for six months", tells barry glendenning all about heaven down here.
He's long been one of the North's most singular songwriting talents. Now ANDY WHITE is returning to Belfast to perform a show that sees him bringing together some of his earliest and most current compositions.
THERAPY? are back. ANDY CAIRNS talks to Peter Murphy about losing (and re-finding) the plot, hardcore, and the new album s resonances with the Northern peace process.
WELL, IT'S obvious, isn't it? The authorities helping the IRA out with their target practice, that is. Doubtless part funded by bodies with a vested interest in at least partially recreating an olde worlde war-time atmosphere. If the message to the IRA is Coo-ee! Over here!, what, then, I wonder is the message to the British public?
Michelin star man Dylan McGrath has brought something of a rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic to Irish cooking. In a slap-up feast of an interview, he talks about his West Belfast childhood, kitchen stabbings and why he’s no time for mumsy housewives' choice chefs.
Yes, you've read that headline somewhere before! But referendum on the Belfast Agreement gets into full swing in the North. Diary: NIALL STANAGE. Pix: peter matthews
Yes, you've read that headline somewhere before! But referendum on the Belfast Agreement gets into full swing in the North. Diary: NIALL STANAGE. Pix: peter matthews
Take one Super Furry Animal, one lap-top wizard and one disgraced motor industry executive and you get synth revivalists Neon Neon and the year's best concept album.
Rob B of the Stereo MC's is angry. At rock stars who take drugs and at governments who ban marijuana. At media people who support the status quo and at religious leaders who distort the message. His antidote? "You've got to feel the music," he says. "It's got to be an inspiration." Interview: Tara McCarthy.
Six albums to the good and only now has andy white discovered his teenage years. siobhan long catches up with a man catching up with his own adolescence.
Over the past twenty-five years, attitudes and experiences in the North’s two biggest cities, Belfast and Derry, have been markedly and vitally different. To understand why may help us to define both the opportunities for and the obstacles to peaceful change. Report: BILL GRAHAM
On the face of it, the show is like any other Brian Kennedy night. Young girls become giddy. Mothers are impassioned as they shove themselves to the front, wailing along with the words and leaving piles of flowers at the singer s feet. The singer, bless his heart, is trilling and wowing at the reception, resplendent in crushed velvet, letting his all-embracing charms soften up the crowd.
The Answer have played to almost a million people on the current AC/DC tour. Not bad for an indie hard rock band from Norn Iron. Singer Cormac Neeson gives us the skinny on Angus Young’s love of Rory Gallagher, meeting Alice Cooper, and why Hunger is required tour bus viewing.
RAYTHEON, the armament-technology firm which manufactured Patriot and Sidewinder missiles, is establishing a plant in Derry and the local politicians couldn t be happier. EAMONN McCANN reports.
Every loser wins on patrick kielty s new Channel 4 show, Last Chance Lottery , and for the 26-year-old comedian, presenter and former germ , things have never looked so good. Interview: barry glendenning.
As the dust settles in the wake of the Stormont Settlement, eamonn Mccann assesses the situation and wonders just how much of their ideology Republicans are in the process of jettisoning.
New album, new look, new attitude: having turned the big three-oh, DIVINE COMEDY's Neil Hannon says he's much more sure of his place in the world. "Basically, the one thing I have to offer humanity is a good time with interesting words," he tells Olaf Tyaransen. Divine camera intervention: MICK QUINN
It is an old Republican principle. But it could also be applied to the attitude the authorities have taken to Ireland’s longest serving political prisoners, Paddy McCann and Colm O’Shea. Jailed for the killing of two Gardai during a bank raid in Roscommon in 1980, as the peace process reached its final stages they were asked to sign up to the Good Friday Agreement. They subsequently put their names on the dotted line. That was ten years ago. So why have they not been released in the meantime, like dozens of other former Paramilitary activists? In an extraordinary, confessional interview, PADDY MCCANN makes his case against the State.
owen O Neill almost drowned a promising comedy career in drink. Now, with the bottle firmly corked, his harrowing experience of alcoholism is fuelling his most powerful one-man show to date. Interview: barry glendenning.
In the run-up to the long-awaited reunion gigs by the legendary eighties folk-rock-jazz band Moving Hearts, Jackie Hayden talks to saxophonist Keith Donald and percussionist Noel Eccles.
From Belfast, NIALL STANAGE reports on the still-growing controversy surrounding Brian Nelson, British Intelligence and the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane.
. . . she was reet petite! That's not true, actually. Instead, the maverick motorbike-riding DUP councillor and former Lord Mayor of Belfast talks about loyalist paramilitary violence, the assassination of prison officers, the indifference of London, his hostility to Mary Robinson, his scorn for the Official Unionist Party - and his own willingness to take up arms in the cause of keeping the six counties out of a united Ireland. Interview: JOE JACKSON. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON
Belfast, then Glasgow and NEXT STOP – the cover of the Radio Times?
Stuart Clark joins fast-rising Snow Patrol on Scottish manoeuvres. PICS: IAN McMURRAY
Ex-IRA man Gerry Kelly talks to Jason O'Toole about his run-ins with the British Army, his near death experiences, the part he played in inflicting civilian casualties and his time on hunger strike.
Actress, singer, chat show host, Vogue model and girlfriend to Mick Jagger and Marc Bolan – Marsha Hunt was all of these things and more, and survived to tell the tale. And then she became an acclaimed best-selling author. Interview: Olaf Tyaransen.
Pix: Mick Quinn
With the focus of world attention increasingly on Unionism and its capacity to respond positively to the IRA ceasefire, IAN PAISLEY JNR. – the son of Dr Ian Paisley – talks about culture and the Protestant identity, about his father’s emotive brand of politics, about secret deals and about ‘that petty little Fuehrer’ Albert Reynolds. Interview: Joe Jackson. Pix: COLM HENRY
Stuart Clark – himself a black belt in origami – discovers how The Ramones and kickboxing chinese detectives have helped Ash to overcome their sordid heavy metal past and become Top of the Chops.
He may be better known as manager of The Corrs – but John Hughes has been a musician for well over 30 years. Besides, with a US top 50 album to his credit in the 1980s, his new record – the remarkable Wild Ocean – is just the latest instalment in an extraordinary journey that has taken him close to the edge and back. interview: Niall Stokes
Like many of his brethren in the world of comedy, David Baddiel has turned his hand to fiction in recent years. Although his previous efforts met with a lukewarm critical response, his new novel, The Secret Purposes – a skilfully rendered tale which draws heavily on Baddiel's grandparents' experience in wartime England – looks set to reverse that trend. Interview by Peter Murphy. Photography by Liam Sweeney
Having a right royal laugh at monarchies is all very well in what we loosley describe as the free west, but Olaf Tyransen is alarmed to find it's no laughing matter in Thailand
DAVID HOLMES new album is likely to
elevate him to the world s DJ-ing A-list.
STUART CLARK visited him in Belfast to hear tales of voodoo, punk, Primal Scream and, er, Gilbert O Sullivan.
Pictures: MYLES CLAFFEY
Having steamrolled its way across America, and through most of Europe, it seemed as if U2 s PopMart extravaganza might come to grief in the most unlikely of places their homeland of Ireland. Now however, one Supreme Court case on, U2 are scheduled to play not just two Dublin dates but a newly-added Belfast homecoming as well. Interview: MIKE EDGAR
Hot Press' answer to Russell Grant, Jackie Hayden, slips into his chunky-knit jumper, gazes at his crystal ball and comes up with more predictions that probably won't come true. Like last year.
As Duke Special set off for a jaunt around Europe with the Divine Comedy, our correspondent hitched a ride on the tour bus. In between the sound-checks and the motor-way pitstops, he received a unique insight into the life of the touring musician.
Olaf Tyaransen sings the reunion city blues as an unhappy DEBBIE HARRY forces him to take the scenic route through the rise, fall and rise of BLONDIE. But, hey, it all ends happily ever after...
We asked the fans to vote for U2's Greatest Hits and they did - in their thousands. The result is a selection of 20 tracks which, without doubt, would combine to produce a record to rank among the weightiest and most powerful anthologies in the history of rock. The full track listing is not without its controversial selections and omissions, however. Bill Graham and Niall Stokes take us through the fans' vision of the fab four's dream album.
Annie Nightingale on BBC Radio One is Dance Music s fixture for insomniac clubbers. But for the BBC s first-ever female DJ this is just the latest incarnation of a career that began, sort-of, by insulting John Lennon. ANDY DARLINGTON reads the book, sits in on the show, and even finds time for an interview.
When the IRA ceasefire began in the early minutes of September 1st last, nationalists in Belfast and Derry rejoiced in the streets. In the South Armagh village of Crossmaglen, however, there was barely a murmur. Over the past 25 years, the sniper’s bullet and the mortar bomb have claimed the lives of more soldiers and RUC personnel in this small area than anywhere else in Northern Ireland. Anne Connolly visits what has become the most militarised zone in western Europe and takes the post-ceasefire pulse of a stubbornly resilient little town. Pics: Jason Clarke.
Few Irish albums have been as eagerly awaited as THERAPY?’s Troublegum and while the jury has yet to deliver its final verdict, early indications suggest that the band from Larne may be about to fulfil their own prophecy and become multifuckingnationally huge. But does taking on the world mean having to compromise the hardcore principles they’ve fought so hard to protect?
ANDY CAIRNS and MICHAEL McKEEGAN tell Hot Press trouble-shooter GERRY McGOVERN that displaying your gums doesn’t mean having to sacrifice your teeth. Pix.: MICHAEL QUINN.
It's off to the most Northerly gig in the country with the island angels of Altan as Bill Graham spends a weekend in Donegal with our most dynamic traditional outfit and posits the theory that by looking to the past for inspiration Altan may hold a significant key to the future.
To coincide with the release of the Today FM DJ’s double-CD compilation tracking the history of alternative rock in Ireland, Tom Dunne talks to Jackie Hayden about the state of Irish music, singer-songwriters versus guitar bands and the role of Irish radio.
It’s off to the most Northerly gig in the country with the island angels of ALTAN as BILL GRAHAM spends a weekend in Donegal with our most dynamic traditional outfit and posits the theory that by looking to the past for inspiration Altan may hold a significant key to the future.
Having written his own obituary on his latest album, RANDY NEWMAN rises from the grave to discuss love, age, irony, honesty, the importance of melody and the tightrope act of being an idealist in pessimist's clothing. JOE JACKSON helps roll away the stone.
Formula One's plucky outsider Eddie Jordan talks about motor sport's party-hard reputation, jamming with Bryan Adams and winning to the British national anthem.
Michael O'Higgins interviews Bertie Ahern, one of Fianna Fail's young tigers and a man many are tipping as a future leader of the party and possible Taoiseach
The first rule of interviewing LOU REED is that you don t: he interviews you. Peter Murphy survives the turning of the tables and is rewarded with thoughts on Joyce, Wilde, Dylan, Ginsberg and on becoming an elder stateman for the alternative thing .
EDDIE IRVINE is Ireland s leading sporting playboy. The Grand Prix driver is a multi-millionaire whose taste for the extravagant runs to owning a private jet, a yacht and around ten cars. Here, the ladies man of Formula One talks to NIALL STANAGE about sex, drink, drugs, rock n roll oh, and driving.
Or should that be The Clash? Well no, actually, cos there's no Clash, Damned or Pistols in 1999. But there s still joe strummer, who was there when Shane got his ear bitten off and, 22 years later is back for his own second bite with THE MESCALEROS. I ve seen everything that it s possible to see go down and I ve survived it, he tells STUART CLARK who finds himself shanghaied on a ferry to Stranraer.
Main pix: MICHAEL QUINN.
With the new publication in book form of a collection of his newspaper columns, the Sinn Féin president addresses matters both personal and political. Here he offers further thoughts on Omagh, death threats and the peace process as well as on music, his late mother, his own family and his vision of a private life beyond politics.
In the wake of the IRA’s complete cessation of violence, the Unionist community must engage in a process of re-defintion – because while they have been clinging to the last vestiges of the British Empire, the world around them has been transformed. By Bill Graham.
1993 may not have been a classic year for rock ’n’ roll but away from the bright lights and the glitter of chartland, there is still great music being made. GERRY McGOVERN talks to five bands who went to the heart of the matter over the past 12 months and made great and memorably soulful albums: TINDERSTICKS, LUNGFISH, MARXMAN, GIRLS AGAINST BOYS and SCRAWL.
You could hardly describe it as just another day at the office when we sent Joe Jackson to talk to the Deputy Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, peter robinson. In a rancorous interview, they still manage to cover the party’s attitude to Catholics, homosexuals, Albert Reynolds, The Pope, the IRA, loyalist paramilitaries – oh and the small matter of an impending civil war. Pix: Colm Henry.
Dail Eireann has never been short of socialist mavericks but rarely has a member of government spoken out so emphatically in favour of divorce, abortion and the shackling of the Catholic church as Democratic Left’s EAMON GILMORE. JOE JACKSON meets the agnostic Junior Minister who smoked and inhaled and reckons he'd probably make a better whoremaster than a priest. Pix: Colm Henry.
As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, MO MOWLAM M.P. has one of the toughest, most thankless jobs in British and Irish politics. The task facing her is an unenviable one: to bring together the two extremes of both traditions, however briefly, for the purposes of all-party talks. In this exclusive interview, she talks about the difficult journey to date, and the immense challenges which lie ahead of her. Our man who went to Mo:
JOE JACKSON.
Pix: COLM HENRY.
PHIL COULTER is far from the muzak-producing bore of caricature. Here, he talks to JOE JACKSON about family tragedy, northern politics, drink binges, having songs covered by Elvis and his experiences working with stars like Van Morrison, Siniad O Connor and Luke Kelly. Portraits: MYLES CLAFFEY
It’s a different world than it used to be! In this special extended birthday column, The Hog takes a necessarily selective – and typically colourful – look at the 30 most important influences on the process of change that has brought this country all the way from there to… well, where else but here?
A special report on the arts in Northern Ireland which is alive and rocking with the whole gamut of cultural activity. Here James Elliott and Margaret F. Grundy give the lowdown on the province’s artistic and creative hub.
DEREK BELL on art, spirituality and porn! MARTIN FAY on Sean O'Riada, Carnegie Hall and drink! And PADDY MOLONEY on superstar friends, Bono's problematic vocals and his critics, inside and outside the group. Yes, it's the second and final part of JOE JACKSON'S extraordinary interview with THE CHIEFTAINS.
Niall Stokes draws on his best-selling book Into The Heart: The Stories Behind The Songs Of U2 to offer a unique insight into the way in which some of the greatest songs in the history of popular music came into being.
The year began with contrasting and contradictory alignments. On the one hand, the United States were about to invest a new president, a young, rock’n’roll-loving sax-playing boyo from the south called Bill Clinton, offering the possibility of America as the last great hope again.
Garth Brooks, Michael Flatley, John Hume and Paul Brady were among the mourners today at the funeral of Jim Aiken, the pioneering Belfast concert promoter who died on Tuesday aged 74.
His black hair may be turning grey but his voice is still as deep as the mine shafts he sings about and still as pure as the sweat from his working man's chest. Because Gil Scott Heron is growing old with honour.
For a man who generally guards his privacy with considerable zeal, this six CD box set is a generous entree into the private realm and thoughts of a man who has chronicled Ireland’s place in the modern world with all the passion, courage and clarity of a homegrown Woody Guthrie.
The time has come for radical action. It's been building inexorably - as things always seem to build - towards this inevitable climax for a long time now. Well, there can, I fear, be no further room for delay no matter how painful the process itself may ultimately be. Because I have finally, and after careful consideration, decided to denounce everything.
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival offers a take on modern Belfast that rings true, as well as an eclectic musical line-up and some controversial readings from modern UK writers says Colin Carberry
Tributes have been pouring in, to one of the most important figures in the Irish music industry over the past fifty years, the concert promoter Jim Aiken, who died yesterday (free content)
There had been a working assumption that, in the thirty-plus years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, we had just about seen it all. But last week proved otherwise
There was great consternation at government buildings on the day a few weeks back when Albert Reynolds, as he saw it, welcomed Gerry Adams into the constitutional fold as the de Valera of the 1990s.
The world is full of well-meaning people making things worse.
After the murder of the three Quinn children, well-meaners jammed the lines to phone-in programmes with suggestions, for example, that a covered walk-way should be constructed along the length of the Garvaghy Road
They say that he was among the most powerful – and the most ruthless – Republican activists of them all. Here the legendary Bobby Storey, reputed to have been Director of Intelligence for the IRA, talks for the first time about his role in the struggle, and about some of the critical events that led to the IRA ceasefire and the Peace Process.
He comes from a long line of priests – including his own father. But now, as Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. John Neill is one of the most influential people in the Anglican church.
