Cork recording studio to relaunch following hiatus 

A STATE-OF-THE-ART recording studio located in the Cork Gaeltacht village of Baile Mhúirne is set to relaunch after a hiatus in the background and has a number of exciting projects lined up to enable it regain its former glory.

During the 1980s, many of Ireland’s best musicians and singers, as well as global stars, made their way to a recording studio on the banks of the Sullane river in the Cork Gaeltacht village of Baile Mhúirne.

Christy Moore, Mary Black, Rory Gallagher, David Gilmour and Donovan were among the big names welcomed in the bungalow structure next door to the Mills Inn the village which Tadhg Kelleher, himself an accomplished musician, had set up.

Sitting at his mixing desk in the bungalow almost 40 years later, Tadhg recalled those early days.

“The reality is the studio was never completely finished the way I intended it,” he said.

“I started the company in 1982 and went through all the usual and I opened the first studio in autumn 1986, that would be Studio 2 (as it is now) and I got people like Mary Black, Jimmy Crowley and Ronnie Drew and they all recorded here, it did very well.”

In the early years, Tadhg attracted investment to the venture through the Business Expansion Scheme. This allowed investors to put a sum of money into a venture and as long as they left it in for five years, they could then withdraw the full sum, without any tax liability.

“Everyone was a winner,” Tadhg explained.

While that did help make progress on the studio, it eventually led to legal difficulties which have taken decades to unravel.

During that time, he has been continuously working and the business has carried on, though it had to move into the house for a while and he always had access to the studio.

He kept a low profile for years, carrying out projects such as a recording of the classic Irish language novel, Séadna, a story about an impecunious shoemaker who sells his soul is soul to the devil for a purse which is always full.

This was recorded by the late Liam Ó Muirthille, the Cork-born poet, and Maighréad Uí Lionáird, an acclaimed Irish speaker from nearby Gort na Scairte and the mother of renowned singer Iarla Ó Lionáird.

In fact, Tadhg has so much equipment he could set up two new studios but, for the moment, he’s focusing on his two existing studios, Studio 2 and the main facility, Studio 1 which is big enough to accommodate a large band or small orchestra.

New projects

It’s dizzying to listen to Tadhg speak about the number of different projects in which he’s involved. He often has to take his equipment on the road to carry out recordings, for instance, at Derrynane House or at the Cork Choral Festival where he does the sound engineering for concerts and other performances.

“The thing we’re doing now is diversifying, we will be doing archiving, audiobooks, I’ll be doing various other restorations.

“There’s a big project I’m working on called ‘The Sources’ which involves UCC and the Glucksman Gallery in Cork and it concerns the collection of the late Professor of Music there, Aloys Fleischmann.

“He made it his life’s work to collect every known piece of Irish music from the middle of the 15th century up to the present and he did it.

“It’s 6,500 tunes and it’s contained in two big books — I’ve recorded 1,000 of the tunes with 100 musicians and they’re sitting there on hard-drives because Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin died and Mel Mercier left Cork, nothing happened with the recordings.

“So I’m going to revive those and the next thing then is to record the remaining 5,500 tunes!”

Another project he has on the go involves 6,500 tapes of original recordings of some of Ireland’s most famous musicians and bands, including the Dubliners and the Pogues, recordings which were made at Dublin’s iconic Windmill Lane studios.

Tadhg acquired these original recordings from Windmill Lane’s owner and the plan is, in co-operation with others who own the rights, including the son of Dubliner John Sheehan, Fiachra, for material by the band, as well as many other household names.

By way of explanation, Tadhg told the story of ‘The Marino Waltz’, a tune made famous when it featured in a well remembered ad from the 1980s for Bórd na Móna.

“John [Sheehan] originally recorded ‘The Marino Waltz’ in Lombard Studios in Dublin and then it was picked up for the ad for Bórd na Móna and then they took the Lumber recording to Windmill where they added an orchestra and that was what became the ad,” said Tadhg.

“That’s ‘The Marino Waltz’ final mix there, a production master,” said Tadhg. “I’m looking for the multi-track as well so we can extract the orchestra.”

He was also involved with Xaria Rose, who works in Sulán Studios, on a project in which she supplied the voice and personality for an Apple Vision Pro app with a US hospital which provides a virtual therapist for patients who require counselling.

And there’s an opera about a Clare singer and songwriter who gave us songs such as ‘The Stone Outside Dan Murphy’s Door’ and ‘Give Me the Garden Where the Praties Grow’ and a host of other well known songs which he has the recording of its one and only performance.

Sulán Studios, after what seems like a long time in the wilderness, is making a slow but sure comeback.