- Culture
- 23 Feb 17
A legend of Irish traditional and pop music, Finbar Furey has just released Paddy Dear, a wonderful album of original songs and covers that takes him into fresh, contemporary musical territory. We invited Furey and his fellow traveller John Connors – the actor and documentary maker responsible for the acclaimed John Connors: The Travellers and, most recently, Race Matters: John Connors in America – to come together, to see where the conversation would take us.
The 27-year-old actor and documentary-maker, John Connors, first met musical maestro, 70-year-old Finbar Furey, two years ago, when they co-starred in the movie, Wild Goose Lodge, for which Furey also wrote the soundtrack.
Connors the Love/Hat actor, and Furey the living legend, hit it off immediately. Both Travelling people, Connors and Furey soon discovered that they’re distantly related, and that their families have crossed paths before.
There is warmth and respect in the way the two men greet one another at The Spawell Hotel, in the southside Dublin suburb of Templeogue. Furey has come from his house in nearby Rathfarnham; Connors from his home at the Travellers’ campsite in Darndale, north Dublin.