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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music at Maddens podcast from the snug upstairs in Belfast’s home of trad. Yarns, pints and laughs with well known faces from the trad music scene. Locals, visitors are all welcome to join in the chat - with Lynette Fay.
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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music At Maddens Podcast #013 - From Ardboe to New York City with Mickey Coleman and Erin Loughran
Welcome to a new episode of Music At Maddens Podcast with me, Lynette Fay.
This week we welcome Mickey Coleman and Erin Loughran to the podcast.
This week in the snug, Lynette is joined by Mickey Coleman and Erin Loughran, whose shared journey in music has taken them from Tyrone to New York and back again.
They talk about the chance meeting that brought them together, the thriving Irish music school Erin has built in New York, and the powerful pull of tradition that sees dozens of her students return to Ireland each summer for the Fleadh.
Mickey opens up about surviving a “widowmaker” heart attack, how it reshaped his life, and the joy of writing his song Sweet Tyrone with his young sons.
Together, they share a moving story of love, resilience, and the way traditional music keeps people connected across continents and generations.
Enjoy!
New episodes every Monday.
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Smithwicks Irish Ale
Well, hello again from the snug upstairs in Madden's Bar in Belfast City, Falte Higgins, Podcrail in the Shaqni Show. It's more O'Gin Werneshirt. Thanks to everybody who's listened so far to the music at Madden's Podcast. I'm Lynette Faye, delighted to host this podcast each week. And the response to the idea and the conversations that we're having has been just brilliant. And that's thanks to all our guests who come and sit down in this snug and have a chat that could go absolutely anywhere. Not looking at anybody, it could go anywhere because that's how comfy it is in here in the snug. So do subscribe, give us a rating, leave a comment because all that feedback really, really matters. And all proceeds from this podcast go to a scholarship pot. Music at Madden's will fund and has already funded scholarships for teenagers to attend master classes and summer schools for Irish traditional music and for the Irish language. So we want to help young people find their connection with music and the language and really to find their voice. That's what we're all about. And we're also about giving a platform to brilliant people who are part of the traditional music family from home, from right across Ireland and internationally. And this week we have brought New York to meet the snug. I am delighted to say, well, via Arbo and Lochne. We'll have to and maybe via Carey as well in the mountains of Primroy, but we'll get to all of that in a minute or two. So welcome to Mickey Coleman and Erin Loch and you're very welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Good to be here, Lilette.
SPEAKER_00:It's just great to have you here.
SPEAKER_02:Oh Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:And I was thinking, you know, how do I start this conversation? Because there's so much I could talk to you individually about, and then I could talk to both of you about your experiences. And I think the only line that I can start this chat today with is I wish I was singing with Mickey and Margie's Girl down in Woodlawn with songs from home turned way up loud, the football and hurling on. That line, the opening line from Barry Cares, those were the days because it's about you. You two were the reason that song was written and inspired Barry.
SPEAKER_02:Those were the days too, yeah. Barry had spent a lot of time out in Woodlawn with myself. He was touring with uh Cara Dillon and a few odds at the time, but he would stop up, stop off in Woodlawn with me for a day or two and bounce around the bars and have a bit of crack, so the song tells it all, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and McKay and March is scared, let's see. Yeah, we got him up to my mom's house to do some workshops, flute workshops. All the kids loved him, he was amazing. They idolized him and his music, so it was great to have him there.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness. Well, it's lovely to kind of bringing you both together and placing you because that song has taken on a new life in the last week, while there with Pierce Larkin and other, you know, people coming to Barry's songs and then they understand who you are as well. Um, we should tell our listeners and our viewers that uh you're over in uh we're over in the north this weekend for the John O'Neill weekend. So we've had we've had quite a weekend.
SPEAKER_02:It's not over yet, lads.
SPEAKER_00:It's not over yet, and you were performing on Friday night yourself and Maliki Kush.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I we've done a concert up in the Bardock Theatre in Donnockmore, which was fantastic. You know, it's been a while from I've done anything. Um so when Clara had asked me if I would do the do the gig, I said, you know what, I will do it. It'll be a good good excuse to get home and get back into it again and see a lot of old friends and look make a lot of new friends. So we'd we've had a fantastic weekend so far. We're up at the concert last night, obviously, with Cahell and the boys was just mind-blowing stuff. But yeah, happy to be here. It's great, it's great to be back.
SPEAKER_00:So, what's it like to sing your songs and go back to your your back catalogue then um to put a set list together to go on stage when it's something you don't focus on so much now in your life, Mickey? Fair point.
SPEAKER_02:Um actually was a I was actually a bit nervous, and I'm not really the type of a nervous person, but on you know, we'd done a quick rehearsal on Thursday, we get in from New York, our flight was late, but we'd done a quick rehearsal, but I still wasn't a hundred percent comfortable, you know. And I say, you know what, just let it happen. It'll it'll come together on the night. You know, there was a lot of musicians on stage that I hadn't played with before, so I just says, you know what, I'll trust the process here. It turned out alright. We'd I tried a couple of new songs that I've just written, um, and one was one called Sweet Tyrone that I kind of just wrote there a few months back, but it I put it up on Facebook and it got a bit of a bit of attention. So it says, What better place to perform Sweet Tyrone than in Terone? So we're kind of clickish that road, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Was that the first public performance of that in Toronto?
SPEAKER_02:It was, yes, it was. So I was very happy with that. But like look, there's something about when you move away from home, I think you become more Irish in a way, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but it kind of strengthens your connection to home and your appreciation. I I guess when you're kind of in it, you're not really looking at it much, you know. But the reality is when you go to the likes of the States or somewhere, and I was very fortunate to meet Aaron and her family who are steeped in traditional music, you know. And you see that you're in a melt you're like in a melting pot of ethnic diversity in the states, and you know, these people are fighting to hold their own corner, you know, they're keeping the music alive, they're keeping the language alive, the sports alive, and that's you know, that's very impressive. When we're here, we don't really have that fight, you know what I mean? We're in it, we have it, we're surrounded with it. But when you go somewhere like New York and the States and you see these people that are really trying really hard to preserve the culture and to bring it to the next stage, it's it's something else, you know. And it's very, very important because it makes people like myself, it gives us a spot that we can, you know, sit into and feel very comfortable, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And I know Aaron, your work in New York, um you're from is it Pearl River, just a wee bit upstate? Yes, Rockland County. So your daddy was from or is from Pomeroy and went to the States in the 80s. Yes. Your mommy, a Bronx woman, but parents from North Carrie. Yes. So still very, very close to home. Those connections were so close for you growing up. Definitely. So what was it like that you know, just in terms of identity, Mickey's talking about having it in the doorstep and that value in it? I imagine you're coming at it from a different angle.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was uh like definitely our outlet as kids playing music. Um, I played the fiddle, my sister Blahine played the button accordion, and Nadine played the tin whistle and the guitar and sings. Um, so it was important to us to keep it alive, uh, going to our lessons every week and then coming back to the flaw every summer was the highlight of our year. And I have to say, Scalacia was the best part of all of that because we made lifelong friends there.
SPEAKER_00:But not only for you was that just like a social thing and you know, a a cultural connection, but you've actually completely excelled in music, Erin, and it's become your life. You know, your fiddle is your life. Yes. Can you can you talk to me about that? How that happened? You know, was it was it organic? Did you choose to really focus on it?
SPEAKER_01:Um definitely chose at a young age to focus on the fiddle. Um, and then chose to go do it in college in in the University of Limerick. I did the music course there. And then when I moved back to New York, I didn't really know what I was doing, which way I was going. So I started teaching uh fiddle lessons and then just eventually ended up being a bigger thing than I ever thought it would be. Um, the music school uh flourished and this is the Aaron Lockhart music school.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, your own music school.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and ended up taking like 75 kids every summer back to the flaw.
SPEAKER_02:That was some cry.
SPEAKER_00:That but even you know, even the fact that there was an appetite for that at that level is incredible, and that you started off your your own music school because there was, you know, there was a demand for it.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Um, like the name and everything actually happened by accident. Um, there was a parade, like the first ever uh St. Patrick's Day parade in Yonkers, and I needed a banner, and and we were like, what are we putting on this banner? And somebody just said, just put the Aaron Lock in School of Music. Uh so that's how that happened. Um yeah, but we have uh the Martin O'Grady cultist branch there. It's actually Michael Coleman, Martin O'Grady Cultist branch, so they were very supportive of the kids hosting um youth sessions every month for us, and yeah, we just had a really great community.
SPEAKER_00:So my goodness, and to keep that going then and the focus every year of coming back for the fly, you know, you're seeing this trickle down generation after generation now, but through your work because how long has your um music school been on the go now?
SPEAKER_01:So since 2010.
SPEAKER_00:My goodness, 15 years. Yes, that's a long time. My gosh, how have you seen it change?
SPEAKER_01:Um, how have I seen it change? I I mean I've seen the kids come through it and grow up, and now they're teaching also, they're helping me teach. Some kids that I've seen had when they were like five and six years old, and now they're teaching the classes there, so I love that.
SPEAKER_00:Um and do you gravitate towards a particular style of music given that your parents are from uh North Kerry, or your mother has the North Kerry connection? And I know she's uh a brilliant musician as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that is a good question because I always felt such a strong connection to like uh the sleeve lucre music, but then also the Tyrone musicians um that I used to hang out with in Scalatia, like Maggie and Chris McGuire, Well Fermana, and then Patty McKenna and young Stephen Hayden. Um, so I always felt a strong connection to both types of music. And I guess my style would be a combination of both, um, like the Kerry and the Tyrone. And then also the dominant style of fiddle playing in New York is the Sligo style. And my teacher, Rose Flanagan, and her brother Brian Conway, they were big Sligo style fiddle players, so I have a little bit of that too.
SPEAKER_00:I love it how it's a melting pot, it's fantastic. That makes it all the more exciting, doesn't it? Yeah, definitely. Couple of focal andesh oh lucht arriha and for crealte. Hatch on the falls road are proud sponsors of this week's music at Madden's. Hatch is nestled along the charming Falls Road. It's not just a cafe, it's a thriving hub of warmth and community, and most importantly, exceptional food and drink. I know I have tried it many times, and Hatch manages to capture the essence of Ireland while adding this lovely unique twist using locally sourced ingredients that support farmers and producers, and the commitment to quality is what sets them apart and elevates a classic breakfast, lunch, or dinner into a culinary experience. So beyond the delectable food and coffee, Hatch on the Falls Road is also a community space. It's where friends meet, families gather, and good conversations flow as freely as the coffee. And the welcoming atmosphere just invites you to sit back and relax and indulge in a little slice of life. So I encourage you all, if you haven't already, to visit Hatch on the Falls Road. Treat yourself to the best coffee and an unforgettable Irish breakfast experience, the warmth of the staff who are always ready to greet you with a smile and a recommendation. Avalon guitars are proud to sponsor music at Madden's, still made by hand, still made to matter. And Avalon Guitars began with a simple belief that the soul of an instrument is shaped by the hands that built it. And in the workshop in Newton Ards and County Down, tradition and intuition guide every cut, carve, and tap. There are no production lines, only Lutheras, and every single piece of wood is chosen with care, every guitar voiced individually, every detail considered, not just for for beauty, but for balance and for resonance and for feel. And Avalon guitars are played on stages and in studios across the world, but they're born in the quiet where craftsmanship still matters, built to last, built to inspire, built to become part of your story. Avalonguitars.com for more details. That's great. And then even listening to you talking about you know the Carrie and Tyrone, we we know in terms of football, Mickey, as you well know, Mickey, also um you know, member of uh this this team from Tyrone who went on to be you know quite successful in the naughtys, um, a couple of all Ireland medals in his back pocket, you know what I'm saying? But you know, that rivalry grew hugely through that time, and then you go out to New York and uh you fall in love with a woman who has carry connections, and she has thrown connections as well. You couldn't make it up, you couldn't you actually couldn't make it up, not at that time.
SPEAKER_02:The story actually, so I was in New York um for a few months, and then a good friend of ours, Joni Madden, who I'm sure all your listeners will know, great woman. Joni asked me to um Eddie Reeder actually um was unable to play on Joni, one of Joni's first cruises. So I met Joni in the coffee shop and McLean Avenue and Yonkers. And um I'd just come from training the New York senior team. I was only there like a wet few weeks, and I'd known Joni through mutual friends here at home, and um she says to me, What are you doing this weekend? I says, Um not doing much, you know. She says, Oh, Eddie Reader's not able to make the cruise. You wouldn't want to fill in. Could you fill in for the week? I'm and this was music to my ears. I go, what?
SPEAKER_00:And do you know, do you know perfect and you know, find my love and all those big hits that Eddie Reader had back at the day, McKay?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, don't you just knew Philomena Begley.
SPEAKER_00:Nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_02:She is job, you know, that's 100%. So anyway, I scrambled. I said, Jesus, she asked me to come on this cruise. So, long story short, the next day, Joni was flying me down to Miami to get on a cruise. So I flew down with a good friend of ours, Parric Allen, from the McLean Avenue band, and I didn't know anyone. Um and I'm we're standing to get on the ship, and this taxi pulls up and out jumps Aaron and her mother and John Paul, her brother, and Nadine and Blahine and all the rest, and Porry introduces me to them, you know. But Aaron was keeping it. You're keeping it all cool, were you? Yeah, keeping her cool, aye, 100%. But Aaron jumps out with a fiddle case, and on the fiddle case there was a Tyrone sticker and a Carey sticker. And I'm now on Jesus Christ Villmitey, what is going on here now, you know, and just going back to the football rivalry, you know, there was that there was always that thing. So I'm going, Oh Jesus Christ, here we go again. But I honestly thought Aaron was out with Mary Black or was part of the band. Sean Shannon was playing on that uh cruise, Mary Black and all these big household names. So I just assumed that Aaron was part of maybe one of those bands.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Then when we got on the ship, Aaron and I met on the top deck, we could talk and I said, seen the throne sticker carry, so made the she's on a fast from Prim Rai, which is literally half an hour up the road from Arbo. And I went, Jesus, you couldn't make this up. And then she chased me around the ship the whole week after that. So that's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was gonna say, first first of all, Mikey, she might have been one of the few people who understood you. Given that her father was from Primrai. Very true, very true.
SPEAKER_02:No, actually, then we played that uh we done a session the first night. There was Ern, uh, an all-good friend of ours, John Nolan, the box player, and a few of us, and we and we all played a few tunes and stuff, and then I remember calling a friend of mine on the cruise ships, you don't get any service. So when you dock, you get all the service, you know. So I remember calling a couple of fans of mine, I said, You know Aaron Locker, and you these people that had uh Dylan Foley and everybody's oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been living on their stone for the last ten years or what's going on, you know. But Aaron, um that cruise really obviously changed my life, yeah, which was fantastic. And I met so many great people from that cruise, and we've been in every cruise every year since on Joni's cruise, and we've you know got the opportunity to play with some of the best musicians in the world, like, and it's just phenomenal, and they're great people, but like it opened my eyes to a whole new, you know, um side of traditional music in terms of the Irish American side of it, you know, with these phenomenal players that really, really love the music and are unbelievable. Like, and I've been exposed to that, which was fantastic, you know.
SPEAKER_00:I it just enriched you in so many ways, and it's interesting, Mackie, because you know, we were talking there about the the football and you know the whole rivalry with Troan and Kerry, and it you know what it is a good laugh, but so much of your life was spent in the football field and training. Music was a part of your life, you know, but it probably had to take um you know a sidestep for a wee while to focus on other things because the football was so demanding. So, like in terms of your music, you know, where did it come from? Where did where did you get it? How did you start playing music?
SPEAKER_02:Good question. So um my grandmother, who was Maggie Sheiki, um Meggie Coleman Nee Sheeky, um, was a great lover of songs and she always had music in her house and sessions, and you know, the door was always open, it was a Keighley house, and I learnt a lot of my songs just in there growing up and not really understanding the value of what was actually happening at the time. It was only later years that I really fully understood that. But there was a lot of musicians coming in playing tunes and so on. So I learned a lot of my music from those musicians coming in, started on the banjo, then dropped that for a lot of years and then went to the songs and singing, and and then came back to the banjo once I met Aaron and you know, back to the singing, so it's kind of ebbing and flowing. Yes, Jack Altrades and the Master of None, you know. But it's it started my grandmother.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, we're okay.
SPEAKER_00:That's the next project, you think? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm disaster. Um I get I get hooked on something for about a year, then go to the next one.
SPEAKER_00:But but I noticed that I noticed that about you because um I noticed that when you did meet Aaron, you took the bazooka or the banjo particularly s more seriously. I bought it for him for his birthday that year.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so like and it's funny you're talking about styles there. So when Aaron would teach me a tune, I would play it in the style that Aaron taught it to me. So, like, I'm a mongrel, you know. I can't come on the throne and say, Oh, I'm gonna play a banjo like Cal Hayden there. Like, so would uh I'd be learning the tunes the way that Aaron would be teaching them to me, you know. Yeah, so any tunes that I learned before I met Aaron, I play completely different to the tunes that I play that when Aaron was teaching me. So yeah, we I guess we were we were running to sessions every night of the week when we obviously weren't married and had no kids. So we were playing a lot of music and it was so much fun, and that's like when Bari was out and the crack was good, and we were running all over the place and doing gigs, and it's just it was great time, you know.
SPEAKER_00:But there was something in you there, and I I I interrupted you there, I got to just distract it by this with the the banjo story. But you were going back to your granny and the songs and Arbo, and you know it's it sounds to me that whenever you were out in America, then you realised the wealth of what you had been given already at home.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, 100%. And then I started like I recorded so The Turn of the Swallow, which uh Barry, my good friend, also recorded.
SPEAKER_00:That's Barry Care.
SPEAKER_02:Barry Care, by the way, yeah. Um and ironically, they were doing this in Maddens because many's an eight being it's probably the most sensible I've ever been in Maddens, just so you know, over the last 20 years.
SPEAKER_00:It's as well we're recording it then, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, Jesus, night was few rough night trying this night. But uh anyway, um yeah, so what happened I started going back to the old songs, and I always recall so the Turn the Swallow was written by a man called Nealie Coney. I grew up in a house in a state in Narbow, Lakeview Cottages, and so did Nillie live there as well. Now obviously much older than I was. Neely died when I was ten, but I remember him well. But not only do I remember Neely, all of Neillie's sons and daughters, like his son Martin, coached me at football from his kids, so we all know each other, we're all neighbours. But I always remember the song being sang in my grandmother's house. My uncles would sing it, other folks would sing it, but I never really grasped the lyrics of it or anything else.
SPEAKER_00:You might would say when you're that age.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's it. And he had written actually a lot of great songs, and I was I had this fear that these good songs would get lost. So I was home from the States and I met his uh son Martin, and I says, Martin, listen, I'm recording a new album, I've one spot left. I obviously had recorded all my own stuff, and I says, I'd love to get your father's song, The Turn in the Swallow, and his mother was still alive, Mary Allen, and I says, You think I could get the lyrics of it? And lo and behold, two weeks later, through I'm gonna be all American here, through the mailbox, came the lyrics, handwritten by Mary Allen, and I just I still have it, it was and I thought it was very precious. Now I couldn't find any recordings of the melody, but I knew how it had gone, you know. So I went down to Philadelphia to Gabriel Donahue, and him and I sat and worked out a chord progression for it, and the melody was kind of there anyway, you know, of the song. But we kind of worked a chord progression around it and recorded it, and then it just it exploded. Like I remember Barry Kierr called me and said, Listen, uh Kiara Dylan's gonna Barry was playing with Carr at the time. He says, Kiara's gonna do that song, and then Barry recorded it, and uh it's thank God it revived the song again, you know. But it's a beautiful song and it's very close to people, you know, from the lock shore, like because it's you know it has that earthiness about it. It's it's it's you know it's it's a minor y type of song, but you can feel it's hard to explain. You can like when I even though I didn't write the song when I sing it, I just feel like I'm home, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:A couple of focalinesh oh looked or shakten you show air music at Madden's uh some words from our sponsors this week on the podcast, and uh they say there's music in every pint. Smithics has been brewed in Kilkenny since 1710, it carries centuries of craft a ruby red ale with notes of caramel, roasted malt, poured so smooth and rich, and it's the taste that's been part of Irish sessions for generations, where stories are told and music is made. So whether you're at Madden's or listening from home, raise a glass and let the tradition play on. So this mythics is brewed true and shared together, and please drink responsibly for over eighteen's only. But even now when you sing it though, because you because you've emigrated and because you live in America now, like when you were standing on the stage of the Bardock the other night singing that song, what does it feel like now to sing it? And and also to know that the work that you put into it is bringing it to different audiences.
SPEAKER_02:Listen, the the Doneg Moore the all-night was something very special for me because again I hadn't done a concert maybe since my whole health thing and you know the focus had shifted a little bit, but just getting back at there were so many things the all-night that just ticked all the boxes. Like you know, the people there was people there from County Down, a lot of throne people obviously, but just the warmth of the place, you know what I mean? We're our special breed, believe it or not. We might want to tell each other that, but there was something very special about it. Even last night, you know, you're looking up there and you've this great sense of pride about what we're actually doing, you know. It's phenomenal stuff, like it's it is, it really is. But just to go and play that gig and just to feel the warmth of the people, to sing the songs and be so well, you know, accepted. It's just I'm telling you right now, it's just I I guess stepping out of it and going back into it, you can see that. But it is it was phenomenal. I really enjoyed it, and I walked away thinking, you know, this is this is probably where I'd like to be.
SPEAKER_00:You were on stage with Mickey the other night as well, Erin. Um, whenever you see him performing like that, you know, what's that like for you? Because I know he's taking a backseat from music in the States at the moment because of work and other commitments, life gets busy. It's still your it's still very much your life and to the forefront of everything you do. But when you see him in that moment, what does it mean to you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was very proud of him on Friday night. I thought he sang very well and I loved the songs that he sang. And when he sings about home, he even gets a little bit emotional sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so big ball of mush making.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, well, you know what it you know what it is? Uh like I'm sure a lot of listeners know that I had a heart attack four four and a half years ago, and something clicked inside me after all that. I became a real emotional roller coaster. Like I'd be listening to songs and I'd start welling up. I'd be getting all these old fuzzy feelings, and I'd be like, I I do, I I genuinely do, and I'm okay with that. I have no problem with it. It just becomes a little bit difficult at times when you're performing and you get absorbed in the song and the meanings of the song I actually do become emotional for some reason or another. And I don't know why that uh started to happen all of a sudden, but it really does. But I I like the fact that it happens, just being able to control it to a certain extent.
SPEAKER_00:Given what you've been through and what both of you have been through, because you know, you were the one who had the widowmaker heart attack, you know, and I I don't want to go into the the details of it because to bring you back into those terrible moments of your lives. But when something like that that is so uh huge and life-changing happens to you, you can't be but changed after it. 100% because it's it has impacted every aspect of your lives in in that moment, in the days after, the months after, and even now when you look back, it's bound to have oh it does, but you know, it obviously has a big impact.
SPEAKER_02:You learn a lot, there's a lot of learning, you know. A lot of us are going around our busy lives and all of a sudden you get punched in the in the nose and it's a wake-up call. And it's the best thing, uh it sounds so counterintuitive, but it's the best thing ever happened to me because you learn a lot about yourself, you know. And I said it took me 41 years to figure out who Mickey Coleman actually was, you know, without getting too mushy about it. But you know, certain things when something like that hasn't happened to you, you know, you're chasing it and you're you know you're going at a million miles an hour, and then something like that happens, you know, we take a step back and you realise, you know, maybe things that we thought were important just aren't that important anymore. And you know, it's it's a reset kind of thing. But like going back to the music, like music's been a massive part of our lives, you know. It's in our house, we you know, we both played, the kids are now uh starting to play again, or they're starting to learn to play. But you know, it's always there's instruments laying around the house with a music room, there's a piano, you know, there's accordions, there's banjos, there's fiddles, people come in, you just lift the fiddle. So, and that's how we wanted to be. Music was a big part of recovery for me, and you know, it still is like you know, it's still a big part of it.
SPEAKER_00:There's there's a line here just at the this this is the book you've written about everything that happened to. Um, and this really jumps out here. You know, Pulse is a story of survival and awakening. Mickey brings us on a journey back from death, the journey which helps us to understand our own lives, lives we fail to protect and nourish and enrich every day by failing to play our own music. That that that line, failing to play our own music. And I know we're talking here about the the importance of music. Did your relationship change? Like like Aaron, you were on the sidelines of all of that too, probably feeling really helpless because you can't help him. He needs to the doctors need to do all that. Um, you know, what how did you how did you come through it?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I got very uh well educated on all the medical terms, and I felt like I had to be his advocate and kind of very protective of him at that time. Um, I had to write down everything because I couldn't remember um like the different terms for the all the different conditions that he had at the time. Yeah, so I wrote down every doctor that came in, every condition, like the kidneys, the liver, everything goes when the heart goes, you know. So um so there was all that. And then just making sure that the kids were kind of sheltered from what was going on. They thought that mommy and daddy were on vacation for for a long time, and that I didn't like the shower at the hotel, so I was just coming home to use our shower. Um, but thank God it all ended up okay, and we came through, and I think it was like he said, it was a wake-up call and something that was.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the guarn was phenomenal. Like it it it was I don't mean it was easy for me, but I didn't have to think much, you know. I just had to get better. But you were you were in it? I was in it, yeah. But the strength that Aaron the Garn like the strength that she showed, not even just at that time, like even after it, I had to go through a long period of rehab to get back on my feet again.
SPEAKER_00:Like Yeah, and you're really honest in the book as well, because you say, you know, even at home you were insufferable. Oh, yeah. And the short temper, unbelievable things like that, but you're trying to find yourself back again, dealing with that level of frustration because you're not the Mickey you used to be, and you want to be back where you were in two seconds, and there's all that you're fighting through, and meanwhile, you're in the sidelines going, Come on, I'm on your side, but there's still that.
SPEAKER_02:But she's gonna get the brunt of it too at the same time, you know. But yeah, because you love her and she's closest to you. Oh my god, like you know, this is what I'm saying. Like, even though it was a horrible time in our lives, there was so much learning for the both of us, and we come out the other side of it, and it's so much better when you do that. I think when you get through them struggles and tough times they got it really tests you, and you know, the real per like just to use the metaphor of Wayne Dyer, who also that's where I get to play your music. Yeah, Wayne Dyer has this metaphor that if you squeeze an orange, what comes out of it? And obviously, it's not apple juice or grapefruit juice, it's orange juice a hundred percent. So, you know, be very careful what you think about because when the pressures of life squeeze you, what's gonna come out of you? You know, if it's gonna be anxiety, blah blah blah. But you know, when we were squeezed, a lot of really what was in there came out, and that goodness came out and like earned that strength to like she was pulling me. Like, I Wasn't fit to do nothing. And like she was cooking and just looking after, making sure the kids were protected and everything. It was a very tough time and testament, Aaron, for you know, she led the way and all of that because I was just I wasn't fit.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I have to say the Irish American community in New York where we live, Pearl River and Woodlawn, are incredible and they really all come together when something happens to any of them. So they were extremely helpful. They were Rockland GAA was bringing food, all your friends were calling in, like trying to get him out. Somebody was telling him he should try and take a pickleball.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. Which didn't put out too well. One from getting football, the pickleball. You did Panzy that for me. But yeah, that's right. I'm telling you right now, the the support that we got in that them times were phenomenal. The people we'll get letters from Australia, like from Enger.
SPEAKER_01:Oliver O'Connell.
SPEAKER_02:Oliver O'Connell, who a lot of your listeners might know Blackie. So Blackie's father, Oliver, had went through a difficult period of time, and he sent me this beautiful oh my god, it was it was when things were very tough, he sent me this beautiful letter about you know his experience and that the the tsunami had come and had left its real destruction and let's forget about that and let's just move past all of that. And a great insight from someone like Oliver just uh to give me and I got real comfort out of that letter and I still have it in the house. And from time to time, if there's a tough day or two, I'll still take a read at it. But very much.
SPEAKER_00:It helps to hear from someone who's been in something just as serious, and you know, there's there's hope, there's and trying to even focus yourself on that hope. And like music then around at that time, did you have time for it? Did it take on a different resonance, a different meaning in your life?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, it was definitely put on pause for a little while. I became actually a vegan chef during that time. Yeah, Mickey went totally plant-based vegan, and so that was our uh focus during all of that. The new recipes and how to cook without oil or you know, keeping that healthy lifestyle to get him better to where he needed to be. Uh, so music took a little bit of a backseat, but we came back to it.
SPEAKER_02:We did, we did. We had a we had a couple of years that just to get things back on track, but we're good but we're to be the truth be told, we're really only starting to get back at it again probably in the last year.
SPEAKER_01:And I think it'll only go up and up because the kids are playing now. So once they start the flaws and the festivals and oh should they just take over?
SPEAKER_00:You forget about it, take a back seat there a moment, Dad.
SPEAKER_01:Good luck.
SPEAKER_02:That's it, and I'm worried about that part of it.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just I'm just laughing here because the two boys are up behind us in one of the booths and they've got at the and in true Irish style, they've got uh they've got fizzy juice and crisps. And the bagators getting a rattling up there next thing getting a rattle here and it's my man gone. But it's so funny, I can see the daggers here from the two of you, and I'm not one bit bothered. But it's so funny because I'm just thinking, you know, with having the two boys here in the room as well as you're talking there, children are the great leveller. You know, no matter what you're in, your focus just goes straight to them. And you almost forget about even though there's really important things going on with you, your focus just does go to them, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02:100% fantastic. These boys have been trailed around with us back and forth. We were driving down the street.
SPEAKER_00:Ireland bags are not. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:He goes, uh ma'am, how many times have we been in Ireland this year? You know, that's the worst New York accent you'd ever get, but they've been here three times this year already between the All Ireland football final. We come every year for that.
SPEAKER_01:Easter.
SPEAKER_02:Easter, and we try and get back as much as we can because we want them to be a part of it. You know, Ernest Muller's moved back to Kerry now as well, so you know there's an excuse now to get back. Oh even though we haven't been to Kerry.
SPEAKER_00:More than an excuse. That's an that's a massive pull for you, I'd say. That was a big move. It was a big move. I was like, thanks a lot, ma.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we need your help over here in New York. But no, it is a good excuse to get back to Kerry. We love Kerry. We got married in Kerry, so uh yeah, we'll have to get down there a little more often now. It's been a lot of tarone in the last couple years, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_00:When you meet you mentioned your mommy, and then your brother John Paul um is an absolutely phenomenal musician as well, is John Paul Reynolds. Um, what are family get-togethers like?
SPEAKER_01:They're great. Um, a lot of fun. John Paul is a wizard, um, and he just is just immersed in it, his his new band and his other bands and all that. But uh he leads the way in the in the family get-togethers now. Um, he'll get everybody going because that's all he wants to do 24 hours a day is play. Uh, so it's good to have him when he comes to New York. He's staying with us right now in New York, actually. Um, so that must be great to have him around with the kids as well. It is, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the only problem I don't like with John Paul, he keeps tuning my guitar to different tuning, and that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00:Don't mess with Mickey's guitar, man.
SPEAKER_02:He'll hear that and be like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00:And then you know, when you're talking about the boys starting to play music, now you're you're the expert here or in in you know nurturing children and bringing them on and playing music.
SPEAKER_02:Lynette, on the way down the road, listen to me now. She's just bragging, she's bribing them. She says, Mihaul, I'll give you$20 for every tune you memorize. And then Reardon pops up and he says, Oh, do I get$22? So$20. I said, Well, that's a bit much to be memorized now. I'll tell you what, I'll memorize a few tunes and$20.$20 a tune, Jim. I wonder where that's coming from.
SPEAKER_01:Gotta give Jim McKee credit for that idea. That was his idea. He does that with his son, Sonny, uh, plays the banjo, and he said, I give him£20 for every tune he memorizes. I was like, that's a great idea. I gotta start with that.
SPEAKER_00:But you surely you you wouldn't be doing that with the kids in the in the music school. No, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02:Should be tough, tough. I'm done with it, no.
SPEAKER_01:No, um, the kids, the kids, they're great kids. They like to practice for the most part, and you know, it's all about getting into the Cayley band. That's their main priority. They all want to get into the band. There's only 10 spots, so that's a real driving force for them to practice. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:And what is it like then? Had that focus of trying to get over to the all-in flaw, then flahuel and haren, in August. Is that the the highlight of the whole year? And when does that focus begin?
SPEAKER_01:That's the goal, yeah. Um, and it really starts as soon as we get back in September. We start thinking about um forming the bands and the groups for the for the next flaw. Um, and that's what keeps the kids practicing, you know, and thank God for the flaw. I don't know what would be their driving force when they're young, you know, to keep practicing, but they're mostly all Irish American. They all want to get here for the summer and see their friends and family. And it's really a great goal to work towards for for them.
SPEAKER_00:So Belfast next year then is that does that take on uh a different kind of motivation because it's in a different place? It's been Wexford for the last couple of years. Uh fast is a wee bit different?
SPEAKER_01:It's a little different, but you know, they we've been bringing the kids to the well, my students have been going since Dairy, uh, what was that, 2013? Yeah. Yeah, and then like the Pearl School of Music, which is my mom, uh, her school, we've been going since we were kids. I think our first was Listole, maybe. And uh yeah, so it's been every single year. You know, it doesn't matter where it is, we're going. Maybe someday it'll be like somewhere nice, like Greece or Italy. Belfast. You never know.
SPEAKER_00:I think Belfast is exotic as it's gonna get for now, Aaron. And that that that that will be exotic. But surely that for you, Mikey, that must be quite special that the fly's gonna be in Belfast next year.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, I can't wait. Yeah, the room's booked already. My good friend up at the Regency Hotel is taking care of us there, Anthony. So um, but unbelievable. But I think Aaron kind of underplays it a little bit. What when I first met Aaron and obviously had she had the school going at that stage, um, between her mother, the Pearl River School of Music, Aaron Locker School of Music, probably a hundred kids flying back, and Derry that year in particular, but every like we've been to Slego, Ennis, we've been to them all. Um, like the sheer dedication, like there's fundraising that has to happen. Like these kids don't fly for free, you know. Yep. Accommodation, like some of them go into Schoolatia for the week. Like, it's a massive, massive expense. These people have been fundraising. Like one of the big uh it was over the Mother's Day, it used to be or Father's Day, Father's Day weekend, and Rory Don's up in Yonkers there, would have a big fundraiser, they'd be roasting a pig, people would be coming, you know, 50-50 draws, bands, everybody, community is chipping in to raise money to make this happen, to make it happen. Like it's it's it's it's it's a community absolutely coming together, phenomenal. And land and derry with and then there was one year gonna see a Slego where we also had the group of Keoles back and the Kayley band. Like, that's a lot of kids, you know, and looking after all that, tough going, big expense. And then for some astonishing reason, uh we decided then one year we'd do a senior Cayley band. For some reason, that was a whole other story.
SPEAKER_00:So we had that on top of not only I think that was just a bucket list job, that's a good one.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know, but I definitely shouldn't have been in that stage, that's for sure. That's for sure.
SPEAKER_01:That was a good time. We had a band in every age category.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's right. So that was a bit of fun. Was that Slego?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, I think it was Slego. Yeah, good crackball. That's also a major achievement for you and everything you've done in the school, like um, and given that gift of music and that gift of connection to Ireland to the kids, you know, who maybe are a wee bit removed from it. It makes them feel closer to it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. Like uh some of them say they have their normal friends and their music friends. I'm like, stick with the music friends, they're your lifelong friends, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but that comes through on this podcast time and time again about that sense of community, you know, meeting people from not just all over the country, as you two prove, you know, all over the world you can go and find friends if you've just got your instrument in your hand. Have you found that that's been the case for you, Erin?
SPEAKER_01:Definitely, yes. My best friends I I grew up playing music with, and the people that I still, you know, connect with through music are the ones I went to Schalatia with and you know Willie Week and all the different festivals around the country.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh the connections are brilliant. You were talking about uh writing songs earlier there, Mickey, and you mentioned the song Sweet Tyrone, and I didn't want to go into the story of it there um in that moment because I felt that we needed to tell the story of um your heart attack and then you know how life has changed for you after that. I just it's a it's a beautiful song, um, and we'll take on the I think a Tyrone County anthem, I think. We've got one we've got one in the making here. I do and I do feel that. But tell me how the the song came about.
SPEAKER_02:Funny, I told this story though, night. Um so when I had my heart attack, and obviously I was it was at the tail end of COVID, so no, had really no visitors, and I remember with all these crazy thoughts. I remember when I was coming off the ventilator and kept saying to myself, if I get out of here, I'm gonna change everything. Because what I'd done would built a company and you're out the door at five o'clock in the morning, you're back in at 10 o'clock at the night, you're doing everything to make it, you know, chasing the dream, let's say, for the want of a better word. Um and we had done all that, and all that was taken care of. And I say this to myself, I've never put my kids to school, you know something so simple, but something so huge in their lives. Unbelievable. So I made a promise to myself, you know what? That's what you're gonna do. And um almost five years on, I haven't missed a day, thank god. So I put them to school uh three days a week, um Ern I kinda alternate, but Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it's my job. I'll instead of gonna go on to work and I'll take you know, get the kids ready for for school and put them on the bus. And the last four and a half years have been amazing because I hear more between 7am and That's when you get the crack. Oh my god, just unbelievable. So that was um probably wonder where this is going for how the song came about. How it came about then was we'd sit waiting for the bus, and we have a little music room in the house, the front room, and there's a little baby grand piano, and Mi Hall would have the button accordion, and he'd be playing on the piano, and Reardon would be footing on the fiddle, and this is like quarter past seven in the morning. And we'd just be but we were sitting and I think Mi Hall was in the piano, just and I started to lift the guitar and I just started to hum like a melody, and Mi Hall says to me, Who sings that song, Dad? And I says, I don't know yet. Who sings it? So it just like this melody came into my head, and then we were up in the morning and I just came in and I wake up in the morning and it just kind of started, and then we kind of just started bouncing. Me and my seven-year-old and ten-year-old just started bouncing off each other, and that's through that's so through. Like, and then I just started writing a lyric to it about you know, I guess I'm very nostalgic in a way. Like, I always I always think of home. Like and I'm sure a lot of people that have emigrated are the same, you know. I understand New York is where my wife and kids and my family are, and that's probably where I will be for the rest of my days. Um but my home is Toronto, you know, it's Arbo, so um you know that always has a special kind of meaning, and you know, when you get up in the morning and you're heading into New York City, and you know, you're five hours behind and people here in the middle of their day, and you're you know, my parents, you're thinking, what are they doing? What's my siblings at, you know, and like them kind of thoughts, they don't leave you like, you know, they're just they're passing thoughts, like so that kind of was you know, the emphasis on the song, you know, like you're still your your heart's at home, you know, that kind of way. So I started writing a song and then would kind of nail down the melody, and then the next day would would say, Alright, we'll do a next verse, and then Loch Ne came into it, and then the hills and the glens, and and then all of a sudden then it it just I didn't remember finishing the song. Um I think it was one Saturday or Sunday we were just bouncing around the house and I had the guitar and I was bouncing lyrics off iron, and the boys say, No, Dad, that's not a good lyric, and then there's three or four different versions, and then we ended up just settling on a song, and that's it's it it the the reality was it was a very simple song to write. It's a very simple melody, and I guess sometimes the the simple songs are you know they come very quick, you know.
SPEAKER_00:But the and the ones maybe that make the connection come very quick as well. Yeah, 100%. And I noticed it's been it was just checking here, it's been 2013 was the last album, Mike. I was last glance. Last glance, yeah. It's a long time and a lot has happened. Has your relationship with music changed in the last four and a half years? Yeah. And will you will you go back recording again? Now that you're not sure.
SPEAKER_02:I will do another album of a lot of stuff in my head. But here here's the here's the problem, right? We obviously run a uh construction company in New York City. It takes a lot of we employ a lot of people and it's very full on, you know. Um and we've got a lot of great people that work for us that take care of a lot of things. But when I start writing albums, everything stops. Yeah. I just lock myself in the room and it just the place just fall to ruin. So I have to be very careful, you know. I would love to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Um maybe just not right now.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe just not right now. I have I have a lot of stuff in my head that I want to get on paper and get writing again. So I'm hoping that maybe in the next year I will definitely get something down and get something out there. Yeah, I'd like to do something very simple. Like I love listening to like Niall Hannah, who's an analogue sure man, just think his music's so so beautiful. Like it's just the songs that he's writing and just the stripped back kind of nature of it all. It's just it really you know, you see the purity in him, like it's phenomenal, like you know, and obviously he comes from great stock, but it's just you know, people like that don't come around too often.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's lovely that the you know the attention and respect is there for the the old songs, but yet you feel it with your own experiences that there's still something to say, and you can add to these stories and add to the always adding to the channels.
SPEAKER_02:Obviously, meeting Ernon um introduced me to a whole other side of the music. Like, you know, I was more into the singing and folk and all that kind of stuff. But the amount of people that I've got to meet like just just look at last night's concert in Gallboli, for example, with Cahal. Like Cahall has become a very good friend of mine through another uh friend of mine, Faye Evelyn from Primori, who's in New York. And like Kajal I've gotten to know Kajal really well over the last ten years, but just watching that last night and seeing the quality on that stage and like the finish with the mountains of Primrai, which is obviously very close to Kajal and Stephen, you know.
SPEAKER_00:It's the national anthem.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god. But just you could see every ounce of emotion flowing through that man and through the bow, and just it was just I would say to the guys after, like, it's you're never gonna see that in your life again. That dim gathering of musicians in the one place, but just the the sheer emotion that was driving through them that music last night was very, very special, you know. And I was just so privileged to be there watching it. I just thought it was unbelievable, you know. And I think you know, people like Carl Hayden, who are absolute treasures to Tyrone and to the music of the North, like you know, are just them the MAs don't come around too often, you know. And I just think it's a very special thing.
SPEAKER_00:Neither does Mickey Coleman, do you know? Neither does Aaron Lachron. And that's why it's just been so good to because I know it's it wasn't easy for you to come here today and you had to take time out and make a big effort to come here with the boys as well coming on a big on a so shout out to me, Hall and Weardon who are in the background.
SPEAKER_02:I hope the rattling on them table was.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, the rattling, there was everyone was getting a choir rattle. There's not a parent in the country who doesn't understand your plate right now. Um no, but it's just been we could sit and talk, we could do this conversation a different way 50 times over. But it's just been great to talk to both of you, and hopefully it's the first of many we'll have here in the Snow Good Music at Madden's. Thanks so much for taking the time. Aaron Lachran, Mickey Coleman, Garmelila Mahigov. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thanks, Lynn.