Tales From the Sea Side No.1 Can Blue Men sing the Whites ?

Blind Bob Flanagan, Screamin’ Seamus Shanahan, No Legs O’Nally ..... where the blues is concerned, Tramore has provided a veritable conveyor belt of talent, unrivalled anywhere outside of the Mississippi Delta.

Yet bizarrely, these great talents have never received the recognition they deserve in the town that spawned them, despite being cited as major influences by the likes of the Rolling Stones, The Eagles, Primal Scream and The Black Crowes.

There have been many explanations offered as to why a small tourist town in Ireland, about as far removed from the cotton fields of the deep south as it is possible to be, could have been home to such a multitude of ground breaking guitarists. Perhaps the most likely is that proffered by Howlin’ Harry O’Hanolan, a Kennedy Park man whose raunchy lyrics caused huge controversy when he first burst on to the Tramore scene in the late 1930’s.

“We in Tramore are not like other Irish people”, he told RTE Radio 1 in a rare interview in 1953, shortly before his death from consumption. “ We sing about what we know, not about 200 year old uprisings. We believe in the here and now.

"No Legs and Half-Crazy"

“Folk and trad don’t cut no ice in the Big T ( as all Tramore blues men referred to their home town). Its got to be the Blues, the Blues and nothing but the Blues”.

Perhaps the most famous of the Tramore Blues men, and the only one to enjoy any sort of commercial success outside of his home town, was No Legs and Half-Crazy Connolly.

Connolly, who lost both his legs after being crushed by a horse, and suffered from a severe mental illness which led to him spending much of his life in institutions, was nonetheless a supremely gifted guitarist whose childlike worldview led to some of the most heartrending lyrics ever consigned to vinyl.

None other than blues legend John Lee Hooker described Connolly’s 1941 single, Ma Baby’s left me and ma brain don’t work like it should, as “True Blues, straight from the heart”.

"Savaged by Beagles "

Connolly’s finest hour, though, was surely the rare live bootlegged tape of his 1965 comeback gig in Faithlegg, No Legs and Half Crazy Connolly brewin’ up a storm in Faithlegg, a recording which now changes hands for as much as £1,000.

Much of Connolly’s songwriting concentrated on his not insignificant physical and mental handicaps. This is best illustrated by his autobiographical 1939 track, Me, My Wheelchair, and my good-for-nothing- brain, one of the most lyrically poternt tracks ever recorded anywhere, in this country or any other.

However No Legs received little or none of the revenue his enormous talent generated, and died alone and in poverty in 1969, savaged by beagles in a bizarre hunting accident.

At a time when the Tramore blues men had been all but forgotten by all except those lucky enough to be in possession of one of their recordings, or old enough to remember them first hand, interest was suddenly revived in them courtesy of indie/dance crossover pioneers Primal Scream.

In a 1991 interview with rock bible the NME, the band’s front-man Bobby Gillespie cited One-eyed and Leprosy Riddled Ragin’ Ruairidh O’Reilly as the single greatest influence on his career, and the inspiration behind the bands landmark Higher than the Sun single.

O’Reilly released a string of hits in the early 40’s, including such timeless classics as Ma Baby loves Hot-Cross buns, A Rathgormack Rocker stole my Baby and the song which was to become the anthem for the Tramore Blues scene, The Big -T Boogie.

Unlike the majority of his compatriots, however, O’Reilly remained a public figure long after his music career had ended. A socialist who was also fiercely proud of his Tramore roots, O’Reilly campaigned throughout the 50’s and 60’s for the town’s complete independence from Dublin.

Disillusioned by the public’s apathy to his movement, O’Reilly emigrated to Cuba shortly after the Castro revolution,where he became an active member of the communist party and one of Castro’s most trusted Lieutenants.

"Pickardstown Space Rock Explosion"

The sixties were to sound the death knell for the Tramore Blues movement. With a new found affluence in the town, the blues were no longer seen as relevant to a new generation of musicians.

The Pickardstown Space Rock explosion, with the likes of Carpet Horn Speed Threat, Leprauchan Legacy and Dawn of the Conjugal Colon Corporation at their peak, was now drawing the crowds away from the by now veteran blues men.

Where once the likes of One-eyed Amputee Stinkin’ Fintan Flaherty would draw full-houses wherever they played, they were now living on borrowed time. The glory days of the Tramore Blues Movement were no more, and one of the truly great chapters in the history of Irish music was closed.

However while such giants as Schizophrenic Epileptic Barking Mad Maddigan, No Arms-No Charms O’Malley and Crippled, Crazy, Deaf, Dumb and Blind Wailin’ One-eyed Willie may no longer be household names, there legacy will live on wherever the Blues are played.

As Cancerous Chronic Bronchiatis Hairy Hop-a-long Hennessy sang on the Big-T Will Never die,