Tag: Fureys

Eamon Friel is the son of a Mayo mother and Derry father. He writes about his life, experiences and his observations of the ever changing world that he sees around him. Friel’s writing is mystical painting pictures with his word play which could be compared with that of the landscape artist, each word carefully chosen and lovingly placed upon the page. Mountains and hills become people in a place where animals talk and the soul and being are more important than time itself. The landscape of Ireland its churches, rivers and towns entwined with the effect it has had on its people; it’s all there in the songs.

Born in London’s Stockwell with childhood summers spent in Ireland, the family left Stockwell and returned to his father’s troubled hometown of Derry, Londonderry, Stroke City call it what you will. It was the youthful experience of cultural change and upheaval that left a lasting impression on the mind of a young man that would later emerge in songs penned in W.B Yeats like mystical imagery from a place in time and a time in place.

” Summers were spent in County Mayo among my mother’s people on a farm. Like James Joyce in Paris murmuring the names of Dublin streets I still walk those fields of childhood in my mind…Maighne Mor, Ruan, Garrett’s Land, Cnoc An Chonai, The Noggan and Grawn. For a townie like me it was like living in the garden of Eden.” Eamon Friel

If proof of his ability as a songwriter were ever needed we need look no further than recent song covers by Sean Donnelly, The Fureys, Pete & Jan, Bill Jones, Sean Tyrell and the Japanese band Brahman.

Friel is one of the few artists around that can say he was actually paid by radio to write topical, comic and satirical songs to order. He was at one time commissioned to write songs for BBC Radio Ulster’s “Talkback” the lunch time inter-active news programme. A task he often had to carry out at the drop of a hat to meet the changing political and social demands of the day.

Here is what Eamon said about the new album. “Walking west along the road I heard a fairground carousel. I danced a tango. I sang a lullaby. I demanded a better future. I remembered young love. I spoke to a man who had little to say. I talked to the devil. I looked at the stars. I watched a man find courage. I saw clouds in a wet road. I met a man fallen on hard times. I wrote a song about each of these things. That’s what songs are for. Eleven songs for an album.”