Jimmy Crowley and Eve Telford To Appear at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2022.

Eve Telford is a singer of traditional folk songs as well as her original compositions. She sings traditional Irish songs, and also Welsh, Scottish and English songs.

Eve Telford

In her singing of traditional songs, one can sense her deep-seated connection with the old folk singers who have passed on. 

She is currently recording an album of Child ballads learnt from the singing of Irish Travellers, with her partner, the singer and musician Jimmy Crowley. She has been booked for folk festivals in Ireland and Britain, such as Cork Folk Festival and Whitby Folk Week, both solo, and as a duo with Jimmy Crowley.

Her original songs are inspired by the wellsprings of world mythologies, indigenous rights, a proximity to the natural world, and a commitment to political protest.

Eve was born in Adelaide, Australia, and grew up in Japan, Tasmania, England and Wales, before finding her home in Co. Cork, Ireland. She believes that her early exposure to different cultures, as well as the absence of television and screen-culture in her childhood contributed vastly to the development of her folk psyche.

Jimmy Crowley has been a regular at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival since the very beginning of the event.

His collection of ballads and his singing style has appealed to generations of people everywhere but especially on Cork’s North side. Many of his songs represent working class traditions and gatherings.

Jimmy began singing in the late 60s and he formed Stokers Lodge. The group became regulars in the folk clubs around Cork city.

By the early 70s he had begun to write his own material and revived the art of the ballad maker.

His songs feature local Cork customs, sports and drinking. Draghunting, road bowling and hurling appear as well as local features such as Quinlans Pub in Blackpool, the Lee Road and The Boys of Fairhill. 

The Boys of Fairhill Album and Songs from a Beautiful City.

While serving his time to a cabinet-maker he learned a popular song in 1920s Cork called simply Boozing. In Johnny Jump Up he sings of a cider so strong from being stored in old whiskey casks that it represented a passport to heaven.  Jimmy sings of Katty Barry, Mother Jones, Mick Barry the bowler, Father Mathew and Jack Doyle.

The words of many of over 140 of these ballads are contained in his great work Songs From The Beautiful City, published by the Freestate Press in 2014. Jimmy has made an inestimable contribution to the preservation of traditional Cork ballads.

Jimmy loves playing at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and one should not miss his performance with Eve Telford on Friday 29th July at the Shandon Maldron Hotel.

Jimmy and Eve will sing at the Shandon Maldron Hotel from 1 to 2pm for a lunchtime concert on Friday 29th July.

All are welcome, but please come in good time to guarantee a seat.

Jimmy Crowley and Mick Moloney in 2015 at Cork City Library at the launch of Songs From a Beautiful City.

Note:

Mick Moloney was born in Castletroy, Co. Limerick. He joined up with Donal Lunny and Brian Bolger in 1966 to form the Emmet Folk Group, where he sang and played the banjo and mandolin. Later this group became The Emmet Spiceland (after Mick had left). In the late 60s he and Paul Brady joined the Johnsons, with Adrienne and Lucy Johnson whose father had a pub in the village of Slane, Co Meath. The Johnsons had a string of hits including arrangements of The Travelling People, The Tunnel Tigers, O’Carolan’s Concerto and The Wind in My Hands.  Mick went to America around 1973 and played traditional songs and collected roots music. In 1993 he was awarded a doctorate in folklore and music from the University of Pennsylvania. Mick played, sang, taught and amassed a vast collection of songs and tunes during his lifetime. He was professor of Music at New York University. Sadly he was found dead at home in Greenwich Village on 27th July 2022.   

Jimmy Crowley returns to the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival

Jimmy Crowley will again perform at the eighth Spirit of Mother Jones festival at the Maldron Hotel on Friday 2nd August at 1pm. In what has become a huge highlight of the festival Jimmy explained how much this gig means to him.

Jimmy Crowley (left) with fellow singer / songwriter and member of the Cork Mother Jones Committee Richard T. Cooke

Writing in the Evening Echo on August 11th 2018, Jimmy said of his 2018 Mother Jones gig,

 

“I somehow attain my almost perfect audience for this little gig; people there for the right reasons; they’re patient with me if I want to introduce some new material; not too demanding of the “old stuff” and I get, perhaps, the most gentle, genial gentleman in Cork to introduce me and MC the event – the irrepressible Richard Cooke. “

 

Jimmy Crowley has been performing and singing ballads in Cork for almost 50 years. He was born in Douglas in Cork, began writing songs in the early 70s and ran the folk club at Douglas GAA club for many years. His band Stokers Lodge was known throughout Ireland.

 

Jimmy likes to talk and sing songs of Cork characters such as hunters and drag hunting, of harriers and the Shandon foot beagles and sportsmen such as legendary road bowler Mick Barry from Waterfall, and the immortal hurler Christy Ring, of stupendous deeds of valour, local rivalries and personalities, great and little events, and the real everyday topics of conversation of the people.

 

 

His first album “The Boys of Fairhill” released in 1997, contained such classics as The Pool Song, Johnny Jump Up, Salonika, the Armoured Car and of course The Boys of Fairhill. This was followed by a second album “Camphouse Ballads” and “Some Things Never Change”. Later still “Uncorked” was released in 1998, while “The Coast of Malabar” appeared in 2000.

 

These songs live on now in the soul, the streets and the singers of Cork regardless of cultural and musical globalisation. Just imagine where else in the world would you get an uplifting song about Connie Doyle’s legendary Fair Hill harrier dog known as The Armoured Car?

 

Jimmy has played all over Ireland, Europe and America and is a familiar face on the streets of Cork. He is known as the Bard of Cork as his unique style of singing and his love of his native City, especially the local Shandon area is central to his musical imagination.

 

In 2014, Jimmy Crowley produced *Songs From The Beautiful City… The Cork Urban Ballads”.  Now generally considered to be his greatest work, Jimmy proclaims this collection as “the true history of the people of Cork City through their only resource of expression: the humble ballad.” So after many hard years of research, much ferreting out of local traditional ballads, elusive song writers and reclusive characters, collecting of lost and half remembered words which portray a lively, progressive and earthy narrative of our priceless history, our folklore and bealoideas, Jimmy delivered his masterpiece!

 

The book contains such classics as Marilyn Munroe (words by the late Paddy O’Driscoll, the much loved Bard of Ballinure), Cheer, Boys, Cheer (words by the late Helen O’Donovan for many years bean an tí with the Cork Singers Club) and The Old Skellig Lists (words by Teresa Mac Carthaigh, who also wrote and sings the hugely inspiring Ballad of Mother Jones). Jimmy has ensured not just the survival but the vitality of umpteen Cork ballads for future generations of singers.

 

In the preface to this book, Mick Moloney, of the New York University Department of Music stated;

 

“It’s hard to compare him to anyone else; but if there was just one singer I would place alongside Jimmy in the matter of flair, delivery and style it would be another County Cork native; the magnificent irrepressible Maggie Barry. It’s no surprise that Jimmy and I are both admirers of this trailblazing woman operating very much in a man’s world who sadly did not get the affirmation she deserved in her lifetime”                      

 

Visit www.jimmycrowley.com for details.

 

*Songs from The Beautiful City: The Cork Urban Ballads…..collected, edited and annotated by Jimmy Crowley. The Freestate Press 2014.

 

 

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival – Timetable Friday 3rd August

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival and Summer School

programme 2018.

 

Friday 3rd August

 

11.00.    Dr Emily E. LB. Twarog

The Female Vote: Why gender matters in American politics!”

Cathedral Visitor Centre

1.00.     Music at the Maldron. Jimmy Crowley.

2.30.    Professor Louise Ryan

              “Votes for All Women? The tricky issue of class politics in the Irish suffrage movement” 

 

              Cathedral Visitor Centre.

 

7.30       Mary Manning.

Striking Back……..The story of the Dunnes Stores Workers strike”

Firkin Theatre

9.30      John Nyhan and Mick Treacy present the songs of Ewan McColl at the Maldron Bar

Jimmy Crowley returns to The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Library
Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Library

Jimmy Crowley was born in Douglas in Cork. He began writing songs in the early 1970s and he has encouraged, sang and promoted older working class ballads and long lost songs from all over Cork. He ran the folk club at Douglas GAA club for many years. His band Stokers Lodge was known throughout Ireland.

Jimmy likes to talk and sing songs of Cork characters such as hunters and drag hunting, of harriers and the Shandon foot beagles and sportsmen such as bowler Mick Barry, and hurler Christy Ring, of stupendous deeds of valour, local rivalries and personalities, great and little events, and the real topics of conversation of the people.

His first album “The Boys of Fairhill” released in 1997, contained such classics as The Pool Song, Johnny Jump Up, Salonika, the Armoured Car and of course The Boys of Fairhill. This was followed by a second album “Camphouse Ballads” and “Some Things Never Change”. Later still “Uncorked” was released in 1998, while “The Coast of Malabar” appeared in 2000.

Jimmy Crowley book / album
“Songs from the Beautiful City”

Jimmy Crowley recently issued what many consider to be his finest work, with his book and songs “Songs from the Beautiful City… The Cork Urban Ballads”. Described by Jimmy himself as proclaiming “the true history of the people of Cork City through their only resource of expression: the humble ballad.”

Containing such classics as Marilyn Munroe (words by Paddy O’Driscoll), Cheer, Boys, Cheer (words by Helen O’Donovan) and The Old Skellig Lists (words by Teresa Mac Carthaigh), it should ensure the continuation of the humble ballad in Cork for a long time to come.

Visit www.jimmycrowley.com for details.

Jimmy has honoured the Cork Spirit of Mother Jones Festival each year to huge acclaim and we are delighted that he will do so again in 2016. Not to be missed!

Jimmy appears at the Maldron Hotel, Cork on Friday July 29th from 1pm to 2pm.

Jimmy Crowley to appear at The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.

Jimmy Crowly at the Maldron Hotel during the 2014 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival
Jimmy Crowley at the Maldron Hotel during the 2014 Spirit of Mother Jones Festival

Jimmy Crowley was born in Douglas in Cork and took up singing in the late 1960s. He formed Stokers Lodge called after a landmark in Douglas where local huntsmen met for a day’s sport. The group comprised Jimmy himself, Mick Murphy, Johnny Murphy and the late Chris Twomey.

Jimmy Crowley with Mick Moloney
Jimmy Crowley with Mick Moloney (The Johnsons)

He began writing songs in 1971 and he also encouraged, sang and promoted older working class ballads and long lost songs from all over Cork as well as running the legendary folk club at Douglas GAA club for many years. Jimmy likes to talk and sing songs of hunters and drag hunting, of harriers and the Shandon foot beagles and sportsmen such as bowler Mick Barry, and hurler Christy Ring, of stupendous deeds of valour, local rivalries and personalities, great and little events, and the real topics of conversation of the people. In this way he reveals just a little insight into the inner sanctum of that frustratingly (to a non Cork person) complex and contradictory Cork vision of humour and life and the locals somewhat detached engagement with the everyday world outside of Cork itself. His first album “The Boys of Fairhill” released in 1997, contained such classics as The Pool Song, Johnny Jump Up, Salonika, and of course The Boys of Fairhill. These songs live on now in the soul of Cork regardless of cultural globalisation. Where else in the world would you get a famous song about Connie Doyle’s legendary harrier known as The Armoured Car?

Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Library
Jimmy Crowley at Cork City Library

This was followed by a second album “Camphouse Ballads” and “Some Things Never Change”. Later still “Uncorked” was released in 1998, while “The Coast of Malabar” appeared in 2000. Jimmy is a versatile performer as his recent American albums show, he is also an ethnographer and loves the Irish language and fun. Jimmy’s song about the sailing ship, the Asgard, “My Love is a Tall Ship” is well known among the sailing fraternity, as is his classic “The Queen of the White Star Line”. Jimmy has played all over Ireland, Europe and America and is a familiar face on the streets of Cork. He is known as the Bard of Cork as his unique style of singing and his love of his native City especially the Shandon area is central to his musical imagination.

Jimmy with Richard T.Cooke
Jimmy Crowley with fellow troubadour and Cork Mother Jones Committee member Richard T. Cooke

Jimmy Crowley recently launched what many consider to be his finest work, when his book and songs “Songs From The Beautiful City… The Cork Urban Ballads” was unveiled. After many hard years of research, much ferreting out of local traditional ballads, song writers and characters, collecting of lost words which portray a lively and earthy narrative of our history and bealoideas, Jimmy has delivered his masterpiece!

The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2015 proudly presents the Bard of Cork, Jimmy Crowley: “Songs from the Beautiful City: The Cork Urban Ballads”   Jimmy appears at the Maldron Hotel on Friday July 31st from 1pm to 2pm.   Admission is free.    

Jimmy Crowley to play at Mother Jones festival

Jimmy Crowley

 

We are delighted to announce that Cork’s favourite troubadour, Jimmy Crowley, will give an afternoon performance at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival on Wednesday, July 31st.

Jimmy was born in Douglas in Cork and took up singing in the late 60s and he formed a group known as Stokers Lodge called after a landmark in Douglas where local huntsmen met for a day’s sport. He started writing songs in 1971.

As well as writing his own songs he also encouraged and promoted older working class ballads and long lost songs from all over Cork. He ran the legendary folk club at Douglas GAA club for many years. Jimmy likes to be among the real people of Cork City and to sing songs of hunters, sportsmen, deeds of valour, great and little events, the topics of conversation of the ordinary people.

His first album “The Boys of Fairhill” released in 1997, contained such classics as the Pool Song, Johnny Jump Up, Salonika, The Armoured Car and of course The Boys of Fairhill. This was followed by a second album “Camphouse Ballads” and “Some Things Never Change”. Later still “Uncorked” appeared in 1998, while “The Coast of Malabar” appeared in 2000.

Jimmy’s song about the sailing ship, the Asgard II, “My Love is a Tall Ship” is well known among the sailing fraternity. Jimmy has played all over Ireland, Europe and America and is a familiar face in Cork. Jimmy is known as the Bard of Cork and with good reason as his unique style of singing and his love of his native City, and especially the Shandon area is central to his musical vision.

Jimmy is also well known for his wonderful charity work over the years. This was seen in 2010 when the cream of Cork talent -Roy Buckley, Cha & Miah, Billa, Bill (minor)O’ Connell, Seán Óg O hAilpín, Seán Ó Sé and John Spillane led by Jimmy Crowley came together and recorded a song titled: Barracka – Buttera Song especially composed by Richard T. Cooke (Mother Jones Festival Committee) to raise funds to purchase musical instruments in Cork schools – for a very worthy cause.

The Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2013 will present a unique workshop by Cork’s famous son, Jimmy Crowley: “Songs of the Beautiful City: Jimmy Crowley’s Ethnographical Journey”

Jimmy appears at the Maldron Hotel on Wednesday July 31st from 4.30 to 5.30pm.

Admission is free. Not to be missed!