Iconic guitar played by Rory Gallaher to be sold 

The iconic Fender Stratocaster electric guitar played by Cork rock legend Rory Gallagher is likely to sell for more than €1m. His brother and former manager, Donal, has confirmed that it was to be sold to fund more ‘Rory projects’ and to support ‘good causes’.

The 1961 guitar was bought from Crowley’s Music Shop, then on Merchant’s Quay, for £100 in 1963 or 1964 by the then teenager, his brother Donal recalled while speaking on RTÉ Radio 1 on Tuesday.

“It was an impossible amount of money and Rory, who was 15 going on 16 at the time, had joined a show band and he cheated on his age, saying he was 17 going on 18, but when they auditioned him, they brought him into the lineup, but he required a better electric guitar than the one he had,” said Donal.

“Rory had spotted this and being a huge Buddy Holly fan, it was the guitar Rory wanted.

“My mother had signed a hire-purchase agreement for the £12 guitar [the original guitar they intended to buy] so Rory went to see if he could negotiate with Michael Crowley to see if he could extend the payments to encompass the sum of £100 [for the Fender Stratocaster] and the showband was called Fontana, later Impact, had a run of dates, so Rory was able to show on a date sheet and the possibility that he had the funds to pay for it.

“Michael agreed and the guitar was taken home and hidden under my bed,” Donal said.

When his mother found out, after a chance meeting with Michael Crowley, who had enquired how Rory was doing with the guitar, she couldn’t cope with the amount of money involved, Donal recalled.

“Rory promised her faithfully that with that guitar he could improve his playing immensely and, not only that, the band had a rhythm guitarist and they mightn’t need a rhythm guitarist, because he could do both jobs and get double pay.

“There were all sorts of yarns spun to convince my mother, who did go down then to officially sign the forms.”

When the guitar was stolen once, it was like Rory had lost a limb, until it was returned by gardaí.

The guitar has been held in a bank vault for many years, though it has gone out on exhibition and has been played by the likes of Johnny Marr of The Smiths.

One of the reasons the instrument is being sold now is the wood and ivory make it difficult to take on exhibition from one country to another.

The proceeds of the sale — estimated at more than £1m— will be put into ‘Rory projects’ and ‘good causes’, the brother of the late rock legend said.