About Me!

In 1988 I decided to go to college at night. The first year was tough trying to attend classes and get to work. With the help of a few friends, I made it through the first year but I knew I had to make a few changes if I wanted to get through the next three years. So I looked for a 9 to 5 job (again). I had tried the year before I started college but there was nothing going. This time I got lucky. I got the chance of a new job on days, operations analyst, nice title.

Anyway, you could say I took to it like a duck to water. Since then I've built up my career in this field, I've had a few promotions along the way and am now in charge of a small team. I no longer work directly for the bank, instead I work for a joint venture company between the bank and a large American software company.

That's where I am now but how did I get here?

Well I was born when I was very young and don't really remember a lot about it. I started school when I was four a few days before the guy who would remain my best friend until we left secondary school 14 years later. Michael always maintained that he started school before me as I was missing the day he started. I was sick. Someday I'm going to have to get a look at the attendance books to prove my case....

Putting that aside, even though I was born in Gorey, I went to primary school 5 miles outside the town in a little village called Ballycanew. My dad was the head master there and I guess he wanted to teach his own kids. It kind of meant that I didn't have a lot of friends in the town until I got a bit older but those friends I did have were the best.

After primary school I attended Gorey Christian Brothers Secondary School. We were a small class even by the school's standards but we had some good times. Sure I remember some bullying and some aggravation but it was nothing on the scale that I believe goes on nowadays. We were a decent bunch of guys in the main. There were a number of us who hung together for the majority of the five years we were together. We shared common interests in music and sports among other things. 

I know there were bad times too, but I prefer to remember the positives. Over the years we've all moved out of the 'small town' environment. In fact I think there are two guys left in the town that I was in the same class with. Most of them I have not met for years, others I see at Xmas or maybe during the summer if they come home to visit while the local Summer Fair is on.

The Gorey Summer Fair is by now an institution, It runs from the Friday before the August Bank-holiday to the Sunday after it. It was initiated to fill the gap left by the Gorey Arts Festival (AKA the Funge Arts Festival).

The Arts Festival ran for over ten years while I was in secondary school and beyond. It was a unique experience which left a profound impression on me, even to this day.

For a small town we managed to attract artists of extraordinary national and international stature to the town. This was in no small part due to the Festival Arts Director and founder, Paul Funge. As youngsters we worked in the festival as volunteers and later as committee members. Thanls to Paul and the festival I got to work with the likes of U2 (before they were world famous), Niall Tobin, Eamon Kelly, Makem & Clancy. Chris DeBurgh, Horslips, Christy Moore & Moving Hearts, and the late Siobhan McKenna, to name a few.

Over the years working with the festival, I gathered some great memories. Even when I started working I co-ordinated my holidays to work for the festival. For many years I counted the members of Horslips among my friends, spending time with them offstage not only in Gorey but at other venues where I went to see them such as Wexford town or Mullingar. Eamon Carr even agreed to let me interview him for a competition the NME ran a few years back. The winner got a job writing for them. Needless to say I didn't win. Ironically Eamon is now the journalist, not me. I do have most of my original Horslips vinyl collection signed by all the guys.

As for Chris DeBurgh, while I wouldn't consider myself a great fan, in the same year we headlined a capacity crowd at the Lisdoonvarna Festival, 30,000 plus. he played two solo gigs in the Theatre Hall in Gorey. I had the dubious distinction of dropping his grand piano while taking it off the stage. Sorry Chris! He still bought me a drink in the bar that night.

And speaking of the bar, there were two Scottish musicians who toured with Makem & Clancy, I'm sorry I can't remember their names, but they were responsible for some memorable hangovers.

Eamon Kelly is a funny man but he cracked the worst joke of his career at my expense. I arrived into the Arts Centre as they were preparing for his show and some spotlights needed adjusting. When I was introduced, he reckoned with my surname, Lucas, I must be the 'lights' man. Nevertheless, despite my aversion to heights, I did fix the lights. Niall Tobin is another man whose show I lit. It's too long a story to tell now but suffice to say he showed me that night why he is one of the all-time greats.

And speaking of all-time greats, what about the legendary first lady of Irish Theatre, Siobhan McKenna? In my life, only three celebrities deaths have upset me enough to draw tears, John Lennon, Dermot Morgan and Ms. McKenna.

She came to Gorey to do a 'one-night only' performance of a one-woman show she had done on Broadway some time earlier. It was the only time it had been performed off Broadway and certainly in this country. It showed the power Paul Funge had to get such a scoop. A friend of mine, Kevin, and myself were asked to make ourselves available to assist Ms. McKenna during her few days rehearsing. Basically we were gophers. During those few days, I cannot remember her ever using my name or Kevin's. After her somewhat controversial performance, which included a prominent local business man walking out with his family while some of Joyce's works were being recited, Ms. McKenna was treated to a standing ovation. She thanked a lot of people, including Paul for the invitation but she concluded with a special thanks to myself and Kevin, by name, for putting up with her all week. Later that night she made sure our glasses were never empty and showed what a genuine person she was when the pressure was off. That was over twenty years ago and is still a treasured memory.

U2 played the festival before they broke the big-time. If I recall correctly, their first or second single may have been out then on CBS Ireland but the Island deal had either just been signed or was about to be. Then again that could a load of......

Still sitting in McGuiness's Bar (Con McGuinness not Paul and no relation) with them after the gig, they were decent blokes. Years later, I crossed paths with Bono and The Edge again. By now they were world famous. A friend of mine hung out with people who worked in and around Windmill Lane studios and we often drank in the Dockers Bars near there. I met members of Clannad, Hothouse Flowers and U2 there.

The pub catered mainly for the locals and was very similar in layout to my local in Gorey, French's. In fact if you took away the gold albums by Clannad and U2 from the wall behind the bar it could have been a bar in any small town. The locals paid no heed to the 'stars' that sat among them and in turn they got no hassle. It was there I met Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe as well.

There's a funny story about those two guys. Elvis had a gig in the Stadium one night that I had tickets to and Nick was his support act. I brought a friend who was going to the gig with me into the Dockers for a drink before the gig. We sat at the bar and had a drink or two. My friend felt that we should be heading to the gig. I, on the other hand, knew we had plenty of time. Because, not only was the main act sitting at the bar behind her but so was the support. When I saw signs that they were preparing to leave, I made our move to do likewise. Passing by the great man, I saluted him with his given name, Declan, and he saluted back with mine. It was a bit silly but the look on her face was worth it.

Anyway, I've diversed from the Arts Festival. It was there I started something that was to be part of my life for several years. radio DJ, more precisely pirate radio DJ. It was felt that a radio station promoting the festival during the week it was on might be a good idea. As the proprietor of a large record collection I was picked as one of the major presenters. The station was more successful than anyone had imagined even to the point of making local advertising and getting some revenue.

Another more permanent local pirate station heard one of my broadcasts and asked me to work with them. So after the festival I started a weekend, Saturdays and Sundays, show that ran for several years. Of course when I moved back to the city it became harder to continue and I soon had to give it up.

Pirate stations soon disappeared as the IRTC started to hand out licences. Of course there's plenty of controversy about those days now. But at the time it was interesting to note that the guys who had run the successful commercial pirates didn't get a look in.

Nowadays radio is terrible. You can't tell Dublin's local stations apart unless they play their jingles. RTE is not a lot better. About the best thing out there is Today FM and that's for a funny breakfast show, Ian Dempsey with his 'cast of thousands' and a controversial drive-time show, The Last Word with, love 'im or hate 'im, you just can't ignore 'im, Mr Eamonn Dunphy. Oh yeah! And Navan Man.

However the signs are on and pirates are on the rise again. My favourite is a station called Phantom FM who play a lot of the 'indie' type of music I like. The problem with radio nowadays is its relience on chart stuff despite the fact the singles charts only make up 16% of record sales unlike the heyday of the 60s and 70s. Best of luck to them. You can listen to them 100.6 or at their website http://www.phantomfm.com/.

All of this extended from my activities in the Arts Festival. I would love to build a website dedicated to the festival so if anyone has any memorabilia from those days I'd be delighted to 'borrow' them and put them on the web for all to enjoy. You know the sort of stuff, posters, programs, tickets, photographs, etc.

I've covered my college days on another part of this site so I won't bore you with the details here. Suffice to say I had a pretty good time there. After college my next step was to buy  my own house. It was something I had talked about for years but hadn't ever really put any effort into it. My savings consisted of a small portfolio of bank shares I'd managed to accumulate and that was about it.

However, with a bit of encouragement from my landlord, I began to check out a few places. I was never sure whether his assistance was out of concern for me or he just wanted to get rid of me. I'd prefer to think it was the former especially as we remained good friends afterwards.

Anyway in 1993 I bought my first, and so far, only house. It's no mansion by any means but it suits me fine. I'm 5 minutes from work, less from my local pub and 20 minutes from town (except at rush hour). At the time I thought I was crazy getting myself so much in debt. But house prices were starting to spiral in price in Dublin at the time and now 7 years later, the value of the house has probably at least tripled. I've made a bit of an inroad into the capital on the mortgage so I'm not doing too bad.

At this point I'm actually contemplating building an extension onto the house. Sooner or later I'm going to need it if I continue to stockpile books and records at the rate I'm going.