At Home With... Declan O’Rourke

It all seemed to come together for Declan O’Rourke in 2004. The success of his debut album, Since Kyabram, and the huge radio hit, ‘Galileo’, saw the Dublin singer/songwriter/guitarist finally becoming established with the wider public.

Other highlights for O’Rourke in 2004 included opening for Planxty during their Vicar St run as well as being on the bill with Bob Dylan for three consecutive shows with Paddy Casey (with whom he has been playing guitar over the past few years). He also appeared on the second series of Other Voices, while his song, ‘One-Way Minds’, was included on the Diamond Mountain Sessions Presents…album. 2005 looks like being even busier for O’Rourke, as he hits the road for a major Irish tour in March taking in most parts of the country, including his first Olympia Headliner.
Home for O’Rourke for the past year has been a house in suburban Palmerstown in West Dublin, which he currently shares with his old mucker Paddy Casey. Presumably with all that musical talent under one roof there are plenty of late night sessions?
“Not really,” he says. “We tend to use Whelan’s for that sort of thing (laughs). Besides we’re probably too far out of town for any of our musician friends to be dropping by for impromptu sessions.”
Music clearly takes a prominent position in the O’Rourke/Casey household and with two separate CD collections to hand it must be difficult to keep track of things?
“Well my own collection is not all that massive compared to a lot of people I know,” he says. “I’ve about 300 CDs in total and I got rid of all the plastic cases recently and transferred them into one of those big folders, which makes them a lot easier to find. But I haven’t been listening to all that much stuff lately because I’ve been writing new songs.”
Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising is his most recent purchase and it currently enjoys heavy rotation on his CD player. “I only bought it a couple of weeks ago and I’m very impressed with it,” he says. “There’s one song on it, ‘You’re Missing’, apparently written about a friend of his who died in the Twin Towers which I love. Bob Dylan’s Love & Theft is another one I’ve been listening to almost constantly for the last few years. I saw him live three times last year and they were totally different shows.”
Paul Brady has been one of O’Rourke’s biggest supporters and he’s been listening to a preview copy of Brady’s new album lately as he explains: “It’s very different, much more organic and more mellow than a lot of his previous stuff,” he says. “I think his fans will be very impressed with it when it comes out.” Another big fan of O’Rourke’s is Scots chanteuse Eddi Reader and he picks out her most recent album The Songs of Robert Burns as another favourite. “I think she’s great,” he smiles. “She’s done a few of my songs live and hopefully she’ll record some of them as well.”
Many of O’Rourke’s songs have visually strong story-lines and an almost cinematic feel – not surprisingly he is a big fan of movies and TV.
“I’ve built up a fair old collection of DVDs over the last few months,” he says. “A few I got over Christmas include Fahrenheit 9/11, a Coen Brothers Box Set with The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, Blood Simple and The Hudsucker Proxy. What else is there? Planxty Live in Vicar Street and Bruce Springsteen Live in Barcelona. A few of volumes of the Laurel & Hardy shows and there’s a couple of Sopranos box sets, plus The Old Grey Whistle Test 30th anniversary edition.”
Books are yet another love of O’Rourke’s though he says fiction is not for him. “I never read fiction,” he says. “I’ve got books on two main subjects – one is The Famine. I’m currently writing some songs about it and I’m planning to do an album themed around it. When people heard I was interested in it they started giving me books and I’ve about ten altogether. I’m going through them one by one.”
The other subject that interests O’Rourke is the early exploration of Antarctica. “I think I saw a documentary on National Geographic about five years ago and that led me to a book about Shackleton. I’m fascinated by that whole era – men like Scott and Tom Crean really captured the public imagination at the time. It was the era of adventure. They don’t make heroic men like that any more.”

Photos by Cathal Dawson