Irish singer-songwriter Anna’s Anchor is undertaking a mammoth task. Armed with his guitar, a notepad and a trusted pen, he will embark on a journey that sees him play on a different Irish island each weekend throughout June and July, releasing a new track written and recorded at each location.
As he undertakes his projects, Marty Ryan will be keeping us up-to-date with all his goings on through his ‘The Islands Diary’. Each of the new tracks will be available to download via the official Anna’s Anchor website every Thursday.
To find out what went down in previous weeks, check out Part One and Part Two, but without further ado, here are the adventures from the third and fourth week.
Week 5 – Cape Clear
Over the half way mark of this huge adventure that took 6 months worth of planning and I can’t but help feel that the whole thing has been totally worth it. I’ve even been in the national media a couple of times in Ireland. I find myself bumping into people on the trips that already know about it and me, which is insane. Keeping up with the travel, writing, recording and press has been difficult, on top of that I’ve been writing a dissertation for my masters course.
By this point of the tour all the work had been taking its toll on me but you have to make hay while the sun shines, so I packed up my trusty old car and headed for West Cork picking up my friends, Míde and Brian on the way from Clonakilty which isn’t too far away from the ferry port. Míde is one of my favourite songwriters and she was going to come out and do a set before me which I was super excited about. This gig had been promoted online really well so I had high hopes.
We got the gear on and off the ferry relatively stress free which has been the most difficult part of the trips so far. We were able to set up in the bar which was a music club that holds gigs and comedy regularly. With all the gear ready, we went in search of the house we were staying in. The owner Seamus, who also runs the club, was putting us up for the night. After getting everything dropped off we headed down to the beach and just sat there skimming stones and playing brand new songs for a couple of hours. Cape Clear is an Irish speaking area so there were a lot of Irish speaking summer camps around the island and an abundance of young teens. After the mayhem of the last few weeks, it was so great to just relax with good friends.
It became about time to head back to the music club and get ready for the gig. There was such a relaxed feeling everywhere we went and that was the case in the bar too. The barman was sitting behind the taps jamming some U2 on an old battered guitar. A crowd of about 50 or so were there when it was time for Míde to get the ball rolling. She is such a talented musician that has emo elements but leans on a pop side of things which makes for one hell of a song. You can check out her music on Facebook.
I got to play a shorter set tonight which definitely suited me better, ripped through it and played a couple of goofy covers at the end with Brian, because why not? I think we stayed in the bar until half three and the party was going strong when we left. There’s no police out on any of these places so anything goes really.
The next day I met the owner Seamus and he invited me to stay an extra night and join in with their folk/trad session that was on that night. I don’t really play either styles but another night out on a beautiful place sounded too tempting so I said I’d give it a lash. Before Míde and Brian left, we went and visited the goat farm. Got to hang out with some goats and kittens on the most beautiful side of the island, acoustic guitar and brand new sing-along’s happened again! We got to try some goats ice cream before the lads made their way to get the ferry home. It was very unusual, it tasted like more of a sorbet than ice-cream.
I headed back to my room for the night and put pen to paper and lashed out a song that I was really happy with. It was then time to pretend I knew how to play traditional Irish music. It ended up being so much fun, sharing songs with the locals. I didn’t leave the pub until after 4AM and again the party was still going strong.
The next day I headed back to Limerick, while stopping off at Brian’s house on the way for a jam. He’s the best drummer I know; such a talented musician and without giving away too much, he’s going to have a hand to play in the next chapter of Anna’s Anchor!
The song that came out of it all was called ‘Everyone’s Deserving’. It’s about everyone at certain points in their life getting to do/experience the same chances if they decide to take them, both for better or worse. Seeing the kids in Irish College, like I had been a number of years ago, triggered that initially. I’ve had a few opportunities over the last year to go back and relive the same period of my life with different people but I think you need to move on and leave that for someone else who’s more deserving of it.
Week 6 – Inis Óirr
Inis Óirr is the smallest of three Aran Islands in Galway Bay. I had already visited the biggest during week 2 of the tour. This time my friend Adrian was along for the ride. One of the best things about this tour is that I’ve been able to reconnect with a lot of good friends each week that I don’t see often enough and this week was no exception.
As we started getting closer to Doolin, where the ferry goes from, the rain started getting really strong and sure enough, the waves were crashing off the pier on one side and splashing over to the other. As we joined our place in the queue, a lot of very sick looking souls were getting off the boat. One man proclaimed to all of use waiting to board, “Don’t Do It!!!”. Ominous signs. The crossing was only half an hour and whilst I didn’t get sick this time, most of the other people on board did and was really glad to get back to dry land, to which the weather improved immediately, typical!
We had gotten a late ferry and were staying for two nights so there wasn’t a whole pile of time to explore that first day, and the weather was constantly changing anyways so we were happy to take our place up against the bar top. We had to be moved out of our hotel room because the ferries back got cancelled and everyone had to stay the extra night. Initially we were bummed because we thought we were going to be crashing on floors/couches for the night but we ended up being given a 6 bedroom house to ourselves which was crazy.
Onto the gig, there were a couple of tourists at it that we had met during the day that enjoyed the set but for the most part, people were kind of indifferent. I was just a bit of nice background music for the night. The owner said afterwards that we’d do an “open session” the next night like they usually do, something similar to last week’s second night. Since I had so much fun last week out on Cape Clear and the gig wasn’t great, I was open to that. Myself and Adrian had a look at what the other two pubs had to offer on the island and we didn’t get in until an unlawful hour but these are lawless lands!
The next day we got up and rented bikes. We cycled out to the Plassey shipwreck which if you’re a fan of father ted is on the intro to the show. It was so cool, we climbed inside it and spotted a way to climb up onto the rusted away upper deck. It was sketchy at best; definitely not safe but in typical sheep fashion, as soon as people saw us up there, a few other tourists made their way up too. You could see the lighthouse in the distance which we made our way to shortly. I’m a sucker for the sea and nautical features, as is Adrian, so we were in our element.
We went back to the pub that evening for the music session, there were a few people asking me if I was playing tonight and saying the enjoyed it last night so maybe it had gone down better than I was giving it credit for. I played along with three other musicians for the night playing every cover under the moon as Adrian drank every pint of Guinness under the moon. Totally different musical experience to what I’m used to and I have to admit, I had an absolute blast.
The next morning when we got down to the pier with the equipment, Adrian spotted a dolphin coming in to the harbour and it came right up to the wall of the pier. There was a lady from a research centre there that is familiar with the dolphin and she was petting and rubbing the dolphin that was absolutely lapping it up. It was insane seeing a wild animal like that up so close, interacting with someone as if it was a pet dog. Our ferry came in and like the dolphin, off we went. Back to Limerick! I couldn’t help but realise at this stage with only two more weeks left, the whole project was coming to an end.
Last time I was out on Inis Óirr, I was 14 with one of my best friends and we talked about setting up our first band. Later on, the pair of us were in the most active band I’d been in over the last 2-3 years. It had been a huge part of my life and something I was really proud of but unfortunately the band wasn’t strong enough handle the stresses of being really active. Some friendships aren’t the same as a result of it. The song I wrote was essentially about that and how it’s not really worth sacrificing an important friendship for something like that.
Check back in two weeks for the final part of Anna’s Anchor journey.