Coughlan's Live Music Festival to bring host of artists to Cork  

Time is an odd one. Your writer has served these pages for over a decade now, and in that time, a lot of things have come and gone, from bands and artists, to venues and their respective crews. To hear Brian “Hassey” Hassett say that this year’s Coughlan’s Live Music Festival marks 13 years since he and Edel Curtin took the mantle of regular bookings in the back of the Douglas Street pub, however, provides a pause for thought.

Not that Hassett has the luxury — running through the last week of September out of both the intimate main room and the venue’s post-covid Nest stage, Coughlan’s Live Music Festival boasts a wide and varied line-up, from mainstream names like Duke Special and Freddie White, and local names like Mossy and The Guilteens, to agenda-setters like Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, Róis and Ana Palindrome — with more to be announced as this article goes to press.

“Thirteen years since we kicked off, which is scary, because where did that time go?”, Hassey muses. “Y’know, we’re not a big venue anyway, but there’s a few gigs sold-out, and the rest [as announced at time of writing] from 50% to 70%, we might say… It’s a great opportunity for us to welcome back some bigger acts in a room so small, people could sell out much bigger venues, basically. A very important part, as well, is trying to get new acts in, and this gives us a bit of an opportunity to do that.”

With the expansion of the venue’s horizons comes the scope for Coughlan’s to provide a home for talent of all genres of music, beyond its well-known remit for all things acoustic and folksy, as reflected in the festival’s lineup, as well as its wider booking policy. With that added scope, also, comes the opportunity to help grassroots or independent artists continue to build their reputations and local followings.

“I suppose, also trying to show, rather than just having [folk or Americana acts in regularly], trying to get the younger, ‘interesting’ bands in as well, especially from the Cork scene, because we’re always going to be associated with up-close-and-personal singer-songwriter shows because of the room. 

"But we’ve been probably doing as many ‘band’ shows between two spaces over the last year, as we’ve been doing stripped-back shows, and especially because that scene is quite big now as well, and it’s really interesting in Ireland, like, the bands that are coming out of it. So it’s really important to have that heavier rock’n’roll stuff going on and the more acoustic, intimate stuff.

“But then also, what’s really important is the kind of support acts we try to get in. Lorraine Nash has just done Glastonbury, so it’s a bit of a breakout year for her, and she’s going to be supporting Jolie Holland, in from the States. Paddy Hanna, he probably shouldn’t be a support, really… It’s important to get these artists on a show with a really good name as well, that you know is going to sell out quite quickly, and there’ll be a definite audience for them, and they could end up headlining next year.”

One of those support acts is Cork four-piece The Guilteens, a noirish, jazz, gothish indie outfit, fronted by Finn Sedas, formerly of Leeside staples Ladydoll, who share a billing with Northside shoegazers Mossy on Sunday, September 28. “I’m really excited about this, it’s actually only our second time playing in Coughlan’s, but I don’t think any of us have played out in The Nest, which is cool. We’re finally getting to play out in that venue, which is nice. It’s always nice to play a slightly bigger, vigorous part of the venue, y’know. I haven’t seen Mossy in a while. I saw them opening for the Cardinals maybe a year ago, or something in Cyprus Avenue. They were really cool, so I’m looking forward to [sharing a stage with] them.”

Among the festival’s headliners are Ana Palindrome, a trio of progressive and experimental musicians with shared roots in the Cork scene, sharing a billing on Friday, September 26, with Stella and the Dreaming. An active presence on festival and venue lineups the past few years, this year’s Coughlan’s Live Music Festival gives the band a chance to pick up and assess their surroundings after taking a relatively quiet schedule this festival season.

“I suppose since last summer, we’ve kind of been in a hibernation mode of some sort,” says the band’s Ruairí de Burca. “We’re working away on the production side of things, writing new music, recording and mixing stuff. We don’t have definite release dates for any of that stuff right now, but it’s all in the oven. Whereas last year we would have had a lot of focus on a lot of gigging and a lot of live stuff, this year, for a multitude of different reasons, we’ve been more inward in that process.”

“I think it’s really exciting to be a part of it,” adds Niamh Dalton, “and really nice to have such a standout Cork gig in the calendar. It’s exciting to bring our music back to people that are letting us know that they’re enjoying the tunes. Really cool to be playing alongside Róis and John Francis Flynn, we’re in really good company.”

The annual milestone is no doubt a prompt for Coughlan’s crew and regulars to consider the venue’s growth and establishment as a renowned and award-winning venue on the Irish music scene. For Hassey, the venue’s continued success is all down to community spirit and collective endeavour — to keep supporting a space for artists to grow from the grassroots, but also to call home.

“It’s very important to have smaller venue spaces where it doesn’t cost money for the band to put on shows. There’s no rental fee, we don’t take a cut of their tickets, y’know. And so there’s very little risk for the band, bar paying the sound engineer. I think it’s almost like an arts centre or community centre. 

“A lot of bands that would have played with us, y’know, 12 years now… Jesus, 13 years… y’know, you can often see them playing much, much bigger stages, so I think it’s more that it’s a place that’s necessary in the development of bands and artists, that they have to, y’know, master that stage and then move on to the next stage. For example, Niall McCabe has probably done 100 gigs here, and he recently did the Everyman. That, to me, is what the venue is for, and it’s beautiful.”

“Coughlan’s is a famous venue. Even before I moved to Cork, and living in Waterford, growing up, I would have heard of it as, deadly musicians passing through,” opines Dalton of the venue’s importance, “and I suppose, having more of a folk leaning back then — I was very much a little folkie [as a teenager], y’know — you’d be kind of looking at gigs coming up, or all these heads passing through that, I was like, ‘oh my God, this venue is, like, the venue, and so it’s pretty nice to be part of playing music there now, having kind of looked up to it from being a smallie. Yeah, it’s a long legacy. Like, in fairness, fair play to them for keepin’ ’er lit [laughs].”

Coughlan’s Live Music Festival runs through the last week of September at Coughlan’s of Douglas Street, Cork. For more info and remaining tickets, see https://www.coughlans.ie/.