A Fitting Tribute

What a long strange trip it’s been! We started to put the Philip Lynott Exhibition together immediately after the Music Show back in October. The first question was: where to do it? We had an idea of what we wanted, but there was a hell of a lot of scouting to be done.

Over a period of six weeks, the team looked at twenty different locations and talked to the people behind a load more over the phone. Gradually, the list was whittled down. There were strangely moving moments long the way. A developer came himself to show us around one brilliant premises right in the centre of the city. But the building had stopped. There were no toilets and other basic facilities still had to be installed. In another era, the place would have been finished and already let. But in Ireland in 2010, it remained scandalously stalled, a victim of the banks running out of money.
It wasn’t quite right anyway. There was little natural footfall on the street in question and being used as guinea pigs didn’t make sense to us. We continued to look elsewhere...
State institutions weren’t available at what was relatively short notice. And so the list narrowed again. When we went to meet the crew at Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, they were enthusiastic. We were impressed. Besides, it was a great location. There were others putting tantalising propositions forward – but in the end we knew what to do. Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre was adjacent to all of the haunts Philip Lynott frequented and loved in Dublin. This was his turf.
Better still, we had begun to conceptualise the exhibition in a way that would work in the space. We said yes...

The reaction to the idea for a Philip Lynott Exhibition had been hugely positive from the outset. The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport came on board early with seed money. The Dublin UNESCO City of Literature office also got involved. We had a start. In the current climate, sponsorship is a tough sell and we knew from the outset that we could only take a certain calibre of contributor on board. As long-standing partners of Hot Press, Jameson fit the bill as launch sponsors. Understanding the importance of drawing people into the city centre, Dublin BID were also hugely supportive. We met with Universal Music and they saw the fit. Dublin City Council indicated they’d help with banners in the streets. Everyone agreed from the outset that we’d have to charge in. We looked at comparable events and kept it to a minimum. That still left us with a huge mountain to climb.
The reaction from fans and friends of the band was also enormously positive. Almost everyone in the greater Lizzy community immediately signed up to the idea. If they had something we thought would be relevant, it was ours for the using. The more we trawled, the wider the spread became. It was a virtuous circle. One friend pointed us in the direction of another. We cajoled and encouraged. People climbed up into their attics and searched. We hammered the phones. Knowing stuff is there, somewhere in the vaults, is one thing. Finding what you have is another. The clock was ticking furiously.
The search for premises wasn’t finally resolved until Christmas week 2010. We shook hands with Greg in Stephen’s Green. We also firmed up what had been a loose arrangement with 2fm, who were our media partners. The Irish Star also kicked in on the print side. We decided the announcement would be made for January 4th 2011, the 25th anniversary of the death of Philip Lynott. A sad day, but the result was positive. There was coverage on 2fm and on a number of independent stations. The story appeared in the Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Star, the Sun and a few more titles.
Whew! We remembered Van the Man’s immortal words: “It’s too late to stop now.”

There was something bracing about knowing that the news was out there. This was no longer an idea: it was a reality and we had to deliver an exhibition that would make people feel proud. It would have to be big. It would have to be comprehensive. There are moments when you think: ‘why the hell did we take this on?” Knowing the sheer scale of what we still had to do, this was one of them. And then you press forward becauase it’s the only thing you can do!
The area we were taking in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre was understandably in disarray. It had to be cleared of debris and re-imagined completely. There was an issue about daylight. Exhibitions tend to work best in the dark but the nature of the building meant that creating a traditional ‘dark space’ would be a big problem. Then we had an insight: what if we can make this a journey from light into darkness to reflect in a subtle way what happened to Philip during the course of his lifetime? Let’s use the initial brightness and openness of the space and build from there.
The team was coming together, Hilary Hughes, Peter Emmett and Daly Antiques Services’ Fergal Grogan chief among them in the early stages. Róisín Dwyer immersed herself in the research. The editorial team was taking shape too. We had ten people employed on it in different groups. Then we had fifteen.
The core team got the concept together. We would begin on the Green side, with Philo’s childhood, the beat scene and the underground poetry movement in Dublin. We met Liam Quigley and he showed us his impressive portfolio of superb shots from the era. We hammered the phones searching for particular items: posters, photographs, tickets, documents of one kind or another. It was all go, often for sixteen hours
a day...

The demolition and build was as intense as you can imagine. As the rest of Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre shut down each evening in early January, Fergal and the team started the load-in to the top floor. We had a plan of where we wanted to end up but there was still so much to play for that we couldn’t know for sure how things would be best shaped. Instinct came into play. We had a strong sense of the aesthetics we were after. We designed a whole new layout, with enough flexibility that if we needed to make changes it might cost an arm – but not a leg as well. We sub-divided the total area into a series of discreet spaces, with a walk through line for the narrative. We built the walls from scratch. Doors were moved. Clever plans were hatched for hiding dead areas. Rooms were configured with big screens or showcases in mind.
The entire area had to be painted – once, twice, three times. There were critical decisions to be made about carpeting – we decided to damn the expense, go the whole hog and cover the entire floor area. It would make a huge difference to the visitor experience and we weren’t going to scrimp on anything essential in that regard.
We got the shape sorted: a grand entrance area; the early days in a room overlooking the Green; the Family Tree and year by year account of Philip’s career in a single brightly lit space; the Record Room for all the singles and albums and as many variations as we could lay our hands on, as well as the Gold and Silver Discs; special features on A Year In The Life of a Band; artwork from the magnificent duo of Jim Fitzpatrick and Tim Booth; the Hot Press covers; a series of brilliant paintings; magazine covers and spreads; posters from all over the world; and, inevitably as we now saw it, the visitor would be taken around to the dark space for the end of he journey.
Where necessary we built new rooves. We hung drapes. It really was starting to feel like a journey. We walked through the space at 11pm one night, trying to figure for sure were we on the right track.
It seemed to work.

Had we enough to be doing? We were snowed under! The first designs were needed from the art team. They looked good but that was just the start of a whirlwind of productivity. Before we opened the doors, they’d have produced over a thousand pieces of artwork for hundreds of different usages. It was full-on for three months and more.
Peter was driving the length and breath of the country, collecting memorabilia and listening to all the great stories behind each piece. All the while, Camera Dave (aka David O’Sullivan) and Roisin had been pursuing a series of video interviews with people from in and around the Lizzy camp. We did Scott Gorham, Eric Bell, Brian Robertson, Brian Downey – all good. The net widened. Damien Dempsey, Mick Pyro, Imelda May, Bono all sat down and talked...
Niall O’Driscoll and Andrew Jenkinson from v-Stream got involved to handle the multi-media work – they came up with a brilliant Irish first too, using Microsoft’s Kinect to create a unique way to browse through Philip’s notebooks and handwritten lyrics. The PR and marketing plan was being hatched by the Hot Press marketing team – four strong for the duration! And suddenly we were into the second phase of the build where we had to create the mechanisms for displaying the artifacts and the memorabilia. We built beautiful cabinets. We designed original display units and customised them, to work with the wonderful raw materials we were collecting...
Colm Henry came up trumps with his superb photos from the 1980s. Ted Carroll hit the mother lode with facts and documents on the early days in the UK. Individuals came forward with a poster here, a piece of artwork there. Frank Murray uncovered some gems. The breadth of the exhibits grew. We knew we had an exhibition’s worth of material. Now we had to put a meaningful shape on it!

The final run-in was an emotional roller coaster. Selecting the images that would work. Doing the life-size blow-ups and bigger. Artwork coming out our ears! Smiley Bolger arrived with the Thin Lizzy sign and Pat Maguire pitched in to get it working. The lighting crew was vital. Badly lit, the exhibition would risk falling flat. Well-lit, it would be dynamite. As the final build progressed, it was clear that the Gorilla Design gang knew their stuff. The lights made it look special. Hallelujah...
New cases were being custom built on the spot to display the clothes. The big screen was mounted in what we’d dubbed the Stella Cinema. The multi media installations were tested and tried. They worked a dream: excellent!
Huge banners we’d designed and created were hung in the Shopping Centre by a separate crew again. The entrance area was turned into a shrine with huge images of Philip. Staff swung from the rafters getting the final pieces of the jigsaw in place. Brett brought his drill and bit. Separate teams were busy hanging paintings, pictures, posters and photographs. A variety of different intricate jigsaws were being assembled and hung. The power-drills were buzzing. The place was humming. The excitement was mounting.
The final night wore on. Explanatory captions and notes were arriving in bundles of thirty and going up. The bicycle that Philip rode on his first job as a delivery boy arrived and was chained to the rafters. New walls were erected. The merch area was kitted out by a different team. Computers and tills were installed. The floor was hoovered and hoovered and hoovered again.
The dawn was breaking. We were due to open at 10am. At 5am, the final nails were being hammered into the walls. The hoovers were still running. We took a final walk through. We were ready to rock. A sigh of relief. Brilliant.
Now there was a launch party to work on. It was starting in just over 12 hours’ time. It was a good feeling all the same. A very good feeling. We’d enjoy the Jameson when it started flowing later on. Now what about some sleep?