Derry

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Dean Martin plays Danny Boy on the organ

Tuesday, July 9, 2013 in Derry, Ireland | 4 comments

Dean Morton, St. Columb's Cathedral

The good reverend Dean Morton at St. Columb’s Cathedral, Derry. Photo by David Lansing.

“Before we have lunch, would ya like to meet Dean Martin?” asked another Martin, this one a guide in Derry named Martin McCrossan. “He might even play the organ for us.”

Well who wouldn’t want to meet Dean Martin? Especially if he was going to play the organ. Who even knew Dean Martin played the organ? Or that he was still alive?

So in a cold hard rain we traipsed up the hill to St. Columb’s Cathedral to meet Dean Martin. Who is a lovely man, really. And still very good looking. Though when did he become a priest?

Actually, that’s the problem, you see. There are no priests at St. Columb’s which is, actually, the mother church for the Church of Ireland and not a Catholic cathedral at all. And Dean Martin is actually the good Reverend William Morton (but in the Irish tongue it comes out sounding like Martin) who is referred to as “Dean” Morton since he’s the Dean of Derry and Rector of Templemore, whatever the hell all that means.

It’s not important. What’s important is that Dean Martin—or Morton—is a lovely man and he loves to play the cathedral’s organ, which is located just to the right and atop the vestibule which the good Dean entered by climbing a  rather rickety spiral metal staircase. I sat down in one of the front pews. A few minutes later, Dean Martin began a rather slow dirge that, after a few notes, I recognized as “Danny Boy.”

Of course. What else would Dean Martin play on the church organ in St. Columb’s Cathedral but “Danny Boy.” But then the Dean slowly livened the beat—the way the Stones do in their classic gospel-tinged “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” In fact, it seemed that Dean Martin was much inspired by that song as he switched cadences completely and suddenly “Danny Boy” went from a dirge to a rollicking rock ‘n’ roll number. It was the most amazing version of the song I’d ever heard. And the most unique. I only wish Dean Martin had had a gospel choir singing back-up. That would have been something, wouldn’t it? But you know what? You can’t always get what you want.

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The Death of Innocence: Annette McGavigan

Monday, July 8, 2013 in Derry, Ireland

The Death of Innocence mural in Derry, Ireland

The mural of Annette McGavigan in Derry, Ireland as it looks today. Notice the broken rifle and the colorful butterfly.

You walk along Rossville Street in the Bogside of Derry and, I don’t know how else to put it, but it just feels haunted. Even if you didn’t know that it was here, on January 30, 1972, that 13 civilians were killed by British Army paratroopers in the Bloody Sunday disturbances. On a windy day when the sky is gray and your face is turning red from the cold, you can almost hear the screams and smell the gunpowder and tear gas.

There are a dozen murals up along the walls in this neighborhood, all painted by the Bogside Artists—brothers Tom and William Kelly along with Kevin Hasson. The three started working together twenty years ago. From 1994 to 2008 they painted a dozen murals on Rossville Street which runs through the center of the Bogside.

The most evocative mural, to me, is the one of a young girl wearing an emerald green pleated skirt, green tie, and a white long-sleeve blouse. This is Annette McGavigan.

Annette was 14 and a student at St. Cecelia’s College when, on September 7, 1971, she went with friends to collect the rubber bullets that littered the ground after riots. She was shot in the head while walking along the street.

Annette became the 100th civilian victim of the Troubles (and the first child killed). The Bogside Artists painted the mural of Annette McGavigan, which they titled “The Death of Innocence,” in 1999. According to the artists, “We wanted the figure to stand out boldly from the background. We also wanted her innocence to radiate against the chaos of the world she was born into. So, we effectively made a shrine for her from the debris resulting from a bomb explosion. The gun which take up the entire length of the left-hand side of the wall was painted upside down. Like a monstrous serpent it has been defanged; it points nowhere but to the ground….The butterfly is left unfinished, purposely so, as it seemed more child-like to us like that.”

The statement about the rifle and the butterfly was made before 2006 when the artists updated the mural by breaking the gun in half and painting in the butterfly—both symbols to commemorate the fact that there was now peace in Northern Ireland.

Original Death of Innocence mural in Derry, Ireland

The way the mural originally looked and the Bogside Artists who painted it.

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The Troubles in Derry

Thursday, July 4, 2013 in Derry, Ireland

You are now entering Free Derry

Photo by David Lansing

It’s the Fourth of July and here we are in Derry. Which seems appropriate. It was here, they say, that “The Troubles” in Ireland really began. I’ll save that discussion for another day. It’s enough, I think, to just show some shots I took of the murals in the historic Bogside neighborhood of Derry, site of the Battle of the Bogside (1969) and Bloody Sunday (1972).

The “You Are Now Entering Free Derry” sign was painted on a gable wall by a local activist, John “Caker” Casey, in January 1969 to commemorate this part of Derry as being a self-declared autonomous nationalist area. And it was here where the first street fighting broke out during the Battle of the Bogside in 1969.

More on all this next week.

Bogside Derry mural

Photo by David Lansing.

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