At home with...John Spillane

Although John Spillane has only been in his current house in Glenbrook near Passage West since July, he lived only a few doors away for several years.
“The house we’re in now is a two-storey Victorian house that dates from about 1850,” he says. “It’s number one in a terrace, and we’d been working on it for about two years, sorting out damp and stuff. We used to rent number eight, but now I’m at number one with a mortgage, which I’ll probably have paid off when I’m in my sixties!”
The house fronts onto the River Lee, a factor that Spillane readily admits has impacted on his compositions.
“We’ve lived in this area for about nine years now,” he explains. “After we moved here, I noticed that rivers started appearing in my songs as metaphors. I love looking out from the house at the broad majestic expanse of the Lee and I do a fair bit of walking around the area too. I find that it inspires a lot of my music.”
The watery link is evident indoors as well. “The house has a lot of character, with shutters and an upstairs window shaped like a bow that gives it a ship-like effect,” he says, proudly.
For Spillane, the house offers a rural retreat from his increasingly busy musical life. It’s not a place for regular sessions or non-stop partying.
“I love working with my hands and working on the house," he says. "It gives me a real break from the mental work of writing and playing music. So I love digging – that kind of physical work with your hands that also has a connection with the earth. I find it very therapeutic and it recharges the batteries.”
The house contains an office where he plans his weekly programme on Raidio na Gaeltachta, although his plans for the new abode include converting the attic and having his office and a small studio there.
Not surprisingly, he has a substantial record collection of about 4,000 albums, mostly on vinyl as he was a bit late getting to CDs. He confidently claims there’s nothing here he’d prefer me not to find.
“I’ve always had a sort of uncool approach to music,” he says. “My record collection contains things like ‘Gentle Mother’ by Big Tom and stuff by Bridie Gallagher. I can’t pass a second-hand record stall without having a look and probably picking something up,” he says.
“I have a large cassette collection of stuff I recorded off records I used to borrow from Cork City Library, records like the Child Ballads collected by Francis Child from all over Scotland and England, records by Dolores Keane, the Bothy Band, world music, Bulgarian music, and the English folk guitarist Nic Jones – that sort of stuff.”
What? No rock records, John? “I wouldn’t regard myself as a big rock fan as such,” he admits,”but when I do want to listen to rock I’d rather have the full-on rock of The Clash, the Sex Pistols, Radiohead or AC/DC than any of the light, pop stuff.”
He’s not particularly a television fan, although he did enjoy the recent horror series Carnivale on TG4, and he keeps his radio listening for the car.
“I like listening to Today FM a lot, especially Donal Dineen, and R na G which helps me polish up my Irish language," he says. "I can’t hack 2FM at all. For my own musical listening, I like the idea of hearing something by Bjork followed by Big Tom, then maybe Seamus Ennis – rather than keeping music in separate boxes.”
Fans of John Spillane’s literary songs will not be surprised to find that his house contains a sizeable collection of books. What are his favourites?
“I have the complete works of Lewis Carroll and the complete works of Oscar Wilde,” he says. “All things being equal, I’d hope to hold on to books like that for the rest of my life. I love reading and I do a lot of reading at night.”
The house has a back shed which Spillane describes as a “disaster area”, with a lot of work to be done to sort it out. He’ll get around to it in his own good time, he says.
In the meantime, he’s clearly elated to have found such a conducive place to live and work.
“When we came here first we couldn’t sleep properly for ages," he explains. "The house faces directly south, so it gets a lot of sun from early morning. It’s so bright, especially when you have the light reflecting off the water as well.
Still, he wouldn’t swap it for anything: “I’ve no desires or plans to live anywhere else. Maybe when I make my fortune I might consider moving to a place like Britanny, especially since I speak a bit of French. But I feel that Glenbrook is a special place for me and I’m very lucky to have found it.”
John Spillane will shortly release ‘The Dunnes Stores Girl’ as a single on EMI. He is also recording a song for the Rossport 5 composed with poet Louis de Paor, and will have his ‘The Wounded Hero’ danced to by Fluxus during the All-Ireland Football Final at Croke Park.