Cait O'Riordan on honouring Roddy Doyle

It promises to be a very special evening – and quite possibly one of the cultural highlights of 2015. Barrytown Meets Music Town is described as “a music and literary event to celebrate Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy” and brings the northside Dubliner’s acclaimed novels, The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van (all featuring the unforgettable Rabbitte family) together onstage for a night of words and music. The line-up is certainly impressive and features some of the city’s finest musical and theatrical stars, including Imelda May, Colm Meaney, Glen Hansard, Aidan Gillen, Cait O’Riordan and Colm Mac Con Iomaire, with more guests still to be announced.

Curated by Doyle himself and Other Voices producer Aoife Woodlock, it’s all part of the Dublin: One Book One City initiative which began ten years ago.
“It’s really exciting,” says former Pogue Cait O’Riordan, one of the musical guests who will feature on the night. “Up until now it has been about classic books like Dracula, but this year it’s Roddy Doyle, a living contemporary writer. And it’s not just one book, it’s the Barrytown trilogy, which is even more exciting. And because Roddy also happens to be a big music fan, there’s a gig happening which is great. I’m really looking forward to it.”
It’s not the first time O’Riordan has worked in collaboration with Roddy Doyle, as she explains. “Well, last summer at the Electric Picnic in the Arts Council tent, Roddy did an hour-long show with the Trouble Pilgrims. He’d read from his own work, mainly his Two Pints books, and then the band would play a song. At the end, Roddy read out his tribute to Phil [Chevron] and I did ‘Kitty Rickets’ with the band. It was so great, a really nice hour of music and words.”
O’Riordan has been busy of late, both musically and academically. About to complete her PhD in psychology at UCD, she has just returned from appearing in New York and Boston as a St Patrick’s weekend special guest with several outfits, including Joe Hurley & The Gents and Blood or Whiskey. Despite her eclectic schedule, Cait still describes herself as a musician first and foremost. “I’ve thought about it a lot recently,” she says. “I’d meet all these people at seminars and they’d be academics or management consultants or whatever. They’d ask me what I do and I’d just say, ‘I play bass guitar in punk bands.’”
She says she received a call from Aoife Woodlock to say that Roddy Doyle had been chosen as this year’s One Book One City author and that they wanted her to “do her thing” again. “I can’t believe I’ve been asked to do it,” she gushes. “To be on the same bill as Glen and Damien Dempsey, who I worship, and all of those other people is such an honour. In some ways I don’t feel as worthy because I haven’t really paid my dues on the Dublin scene. We haven’t decided yet exactly what we’ll be doing on the night, but it’ll include a few Pogues and Radiators songs, and maybe even the song from the end of the The Snapper. It’s a Lick The Tins version of ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’. It’ll be such a great night.”

See Colm Moore's gallery of the event here!