At Home With... Mark McCabe

Mark McCabe lives in a relatively new part of Delgany in North County Wicklow, in what he describes as “the last frontier between city and country”.

As he elaborates, “It’s really the point where the country meets suburbia, so I have the best of both worlds. The flat is airy, and with a glass wall in nearly every room, I have great views of the sea on one side and the Sugar Loaf Mountain on the other. I’m surrounded by beautiful countryside, and I’m only a few minutes away from Delgany village, Greystones or Newcastle. Even Enniskerry is just a short drive away on the other side of the N11.”
McCabe has been ensconced in this top-storey apartment for about eighteen months, and it’s replete with the trappings of his music career, which has seen him score big time not just as a radio broadcaster but also as a maker of booty-shaking dance records. The front hallway has several gold and platinum discs adorning the walls, and there are two Meteor Awards sitting on a table. It’s even obvious from the books he’s reading that his commitment to music isn’t just a nine-to-five affair.
“I’m currently working my way through a load of books, most of which I hope to finish! Some of them are about photography, which is a hobby of mine, but I’m fascinated by this book Recording The Beatles by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew which goes into all the technical stuff about how they made those famous recordings. I’m also reading Make Mine Music, the autobiography of Bruce Swedien who recorded and mixed Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, among lots of other achievements. It’s brilliant.”
You can’t help noticing McCabe’s Philips Aurea television with its eye-catching white panel around the outside that changes colour. If only the programmes were always as interesting! Although he doesn’t watch a whole deal of TV, he does enjoy DVDs. “I’ve just watched Juno, and I like looking at documentaries like Louis Theroux, for example.”
His interest in photography is reflected in the photos, many of them his own, on the walls. “I mostly like landscapes, so most of my own shots are outdoors, taken in places like Killarney or the Skellig Islands. But I also have this photo of Jimi Hendrix smoking this sizeable spliff. I didn’t take that!” In fact his most favoured possession of all is a Mamiya camera he gave to his father, who passed away unexpectedly late last year, to replace an old model he used.
While McCabe’s musical tastes range from Gregorian chant to the hottest dance and indie tracks, much of his time is taken up with his work with 2FM. “I’m overseeing our digital channels. There are five already and we should have a sixth one soon. 2XM is mainly concentrating on indie rock, acts like Doves, Blind Melon, Blur, Oasis, Delorentos, The Hoosiers, Royseven, Juno Falls and so on. It’s a really exciting development”.
Another project he’s fired up about is the building of a music facility in Greystones. “We have serious support from the County Wicklow Enterprise Board and hope to have a building that not only has rehearsal rooms and recording studios but also a music writing room. That’s one of the attractions of living here. I’m near to RTÉ and to this new Greystones premises, but I also have a studio just down the road in Glenealy, and I like to get down to Wexford quite a bit, and the N11 is just down the road.”
A non-drinker, he also points out that Greystones has enough eating houses to suit all tastes and pockets. “There’s the Hungry Monk which is quite upmarket, and there are great cafes such as The Happy Pear, where they serve tasty organic food. Myself and my fiancée like to eat food that’s as fresh and as organic as possible.”
Which is why you’ll pick up the tempting aroma of food most nights in the McCabe residence, especially Fridays when they usually opt for fish. “We can get beautiful fresh salmon and I enjoy cooking. So I’ll try anything really, Chinese, Indian, Thai, so long as we use the best ingredients available.”