Corkonians Abroad: I left Cork 20 years ago for life in US

THIS week, I caught up with one of the great Irish storytellers in Carrigaline’s Máirtín de Cógáin, who now resides in San Diego with his wife Mitra and their two sons Milo and Finn.

Máirtín has toured extensively with The Fuchsia Band, played a role in Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes The Barley, recorded six albums, and was even joined by Shane MacGowan while singing in Australia.

Where do you call home?

I left Carrigaline about 20 years ago and spent four years in Kansas City, Kansas, six winters in Minnesota, and the last 10 years here in California.

I met my wife Mitra in 2001 when she came to study for a year UCC. When she went back home I went around the world backpacking for a year. After circumnavigating the globe, I knew where I wanted to live.

What made you move there?

While out backpacking I started to get more involved in music along with gigs singing.

Fr Ted, who was a teacher at Farranferris, had me adjudicate a best of the bands competition in Ecuador. While in Auckland, New Zealand, I got picked up for a big dance show to play bodhrán. Then, while visiting Clive Allen, of Owneabue Heights, in New Zealand, I got my first gig as a singer in a bar called Molly Malone’s down in Wellington. It was gas. I didn’t really have the repertoire. I had to play to a Friday night whiskey-drinking crowd with no microphone, just me and my bodhrán. 

Can you imagine it? I only had about 10 ballads to last three hours. But that was the start.

Then I got gigs in Australia and met Eoin Verling of Newcestown there. That was the catalyst to start The Fuchsia Band.

When Mitra moved to Kansas City, she passed around a dodgy demo we made with Kieren Hurley at UCC Campus Radio 98.3FM, and from there we got our big break.

We toured quite a lot for many summers with the Fuchsia Band and I ended up spending more and more time in America through music visas. When we got married and moved to Minnesota, I started spending all my time over here.

For a good couple of years after that, I was touring with Jimmy Crowley, The Fuchsia Band, and started the Máirtín de Cógáin Project so I was on the road most of the year.

We moved to San Diego in September, 2014. My wife had finished her residency at Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota, and we had had enough of the snow.

What is life like in your new home?

Life is completely different now. I suppose it’s the age I’m at, more so than the place, maybe. We have two boys now, Milo, who is ten, and Finn is six (Fionnbarra, but the Yanks can’t say it). Life is pretty hectic. I’m more of a weekend warrior now with the gigs. On the road less but the gigs are still coming in. My main job is making sure the boys get to where they need to be and doing what they need to get done. The two boys are great and full of fun. Both mad for sports and both play piano.

We live in a suburban community called Scripps Ranch which is surrounded by eucalyptus trees. It’s a paradise really and I am well aware of how lucky I am. If the bank manger gave me the ten grand loan I asked for before going backpacking, I could be still paying it off working at a factory in the rain. Fair play to him, he knew better.

We’re 20 minutes from the beach, the weather is usually fine here. We can grow all types of fruits and veg out the back. There’s coyotes, bobcats, rattlesnakes, black widows, all types of wildness just at the other side of the fence in the 23,000 acres of undeveloped military land where the Marines train today, but when Tom Cruise came to town it’s where the Top Guns used to fly over.

There’s lots of Irish in this town. Two Gaelic football teams, a hurling club, a camogie club and a ladies football club. We have a Comhaltas branch which they named after my father, Barry Cogan.

Tell us about your career

Although I have travelled quite extensively for many years. I’m slowing down and focusing more on things I like to do. Things are busy with family life so I am starting to build gigs here in San Diego. I do some voiceover work and am currently the voice of Lucky for the cereal here, Lucky Charms.

When I can, I bring a bus-load of American friends around Ireland for a week. I’m coming to Cork in May and hopefully will get the Fuchsia Band back together for a show.

Over the last few years, I’ve been doing a lot of work with Toursim Ireland. A great man from Bandon, Seamus Heaney of Visit Cork, got me the start with them. I love those gigs. It’s very exciting to encourage people to come and visit Ireland, and better yet, Cork, to soak up the culture and meet the people.

Tell us about you Musical journey

The house I grew up in was always full of music. My mother’s mother’s people from Sunday’s Well were all very musical and massive singers.

My dad was in a dance band long ago with the Helmsmen. Cat Stephen’s opened for him in the Arcadia. He is also a brilliant storyteller and coming from a line of great storytellers.

When I was young, there would be a party at the house often enough and my family would put on a céilí down at the Helm Hotel every Wednesday of the summer.

Then, when we started the Céilí Mór at the Carrigaline GAA, it became the premier set dancing venue in the nation. At these events, to break up the dancing someone might sing a song or tell story.

Well, I remember at the age of seven keeping a crowd still as I presented my party piece. To me it was magic, it was always a comfortable place to be in the limelight. My parents gave me every opportunity to learn and work at music, singing and storytelling.

What has been your most memorable

moment in your new location so far?

We hadn’t been in San Diego a year and my sister Nora came out to visit with her husband John and their girls, Róisín, Aoife and Orla. She only just arrived and I got a call to play with the Chieftains in Chicago. They needed a bodhrán player urgently and Gabriel Donohue from Galway put me forward for it. Milo was just two at the time and only for Nora being there to watch him I couldn’t have gone.

It was a fantastic event. Paddy Maloney was as cool as a breeze and made me feel very comfortable joining them. We played a TV spot only am hour after meeting up. No rehearsal, straight in. A massive gig that night and home again. Every time they came to San Diego after they had me up.

Another great night was when the Irish Outreach Center here got me to sing the American National Anthem at Petco Park before a Padres baseball game; 70,000 people and me singing a capalla. No pressure, like. They loved the Cork accent on the Bombs Burrshting in air.

If you were back in Cork for one day, what would be the ideal day for you?

An ideal day for me in Cork would be as a 16-year old going down to Poll Gorm near Crosshaven without any fear for taking my t-shirt off. Walking around with a 99 in the hot summer sun. But those days are gone.

If I had the day to myself, I’d belt around meeting everyone I could. I’d start with a hot breakfast with Jimmy Crowley and Donie Carroll, if he was in town, at the Sliver Key, then into the city to meet Dezy, the Badger and Ed Malone for a cake at Crawford Art Gallery Café. Then, after a stroll down Pana, Coffee with John Spillane at the Farm Gate. Late lunch with Vincent and Cillian at the Long Valley. Out the countryside then. Go for a sail out of Kinsale. Back to Fishy Fishy for dinner. Walk the Ghost tour with David Peare. A session with Mick, Brian and Eoin of the Fuchsia Band and to finish the night with a meal of Lennox’s chips, and a cheese and onion pie on Bandon road.