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 parts one, two and three. Without further ado, here are the adventures from the seventh and eighth week.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Week Seven – Inishbofin Island
With only two islands left, I couldn’t help but realise this whole journey was quickly coming to an end. As my dad, my friend Cormac and I drove through Connemara which is one of the most remote, harshest and beautiful environments the country has, I felt a type of sadness in the pit of my stomach that soon enough, I wouldn’t be travelling out to these incredible places every week. That’s the bitter sweet nature of touring. That said, I was really grateful to be sharing this weekend with my dad and a great friend.
As usual, the load onto the ferry was super stressful. For a normal gig on tour, you move all your gear twice, load in and load out. With these gigs, there have been 8 loads each weekend! The ferry was packed so this was a tough one, but we made it and after a short journey we were met out on the island by Padraig; the hotel manager of the place we were both playing and staying in. A hilarious character who told us how important it is to choose the correct and appropriate colour socks with your outfit. He had purple socks on for the record. We were in an upmarket hotel for the weekend which was a bizarre change of pace; we were living in luxury and treated like kings with the best green room ever!
During the day we explored the island, checked out a castle, went for a swim in the sea. This island was an unusual one, we didn’t meet any actual locals and there were a lot of new houses with fancy architecture, something I hadn’t seen on any other island.
I was playing in the resident’s bar of the hotel and there wasn’t very many people, only 10 or so. Most foreign tourists have a strict itinerary each day and a lot of the time, drinking all night and listening to some guy with an acoustic guitar isn’t on that list. After about an hour that crowd whittled down to one family who were minding their own business at the back, my dad, Cormac and this middle aged American couple who were listening intently. I was really enjoying it because it wasn’t in a noisy bar. Given the occasion being so quiet, me and my dad did a few covers together.
I noticed during one of them the man appeared to start crying. Afterwards he came up to us and said that song had particular significance to him and his son Bob, who had quite recently passed away at the age of 24. Seeing me and my dad being able to share that experience together left this man quite emotional. To top it off, apparently Cormac looked a lot like his son Bob (which later on he showed me a picture of and they looked extremely alike). His wife then enquired about a Title fFght cover I did, “27”. That’s a number that had significance to their son’s death also. The gig from start to finish was almost like a journey through grievance for them and they thanked us so much and genuinely felt better after it.
The next day I was talking to them and they told me they’ve never open up to a stranger about that but felt that they were meant to be there for a reason. That was one of the smallest numbers of people that I’ve performed to but yet I felt had the biggest impact. Ironically enough, earlier on in the day I had been reminded about my friend Rachael who had passed earlier in the year, something I haven’t fully come to terms with. I wrote a song for Bob & Rachael and trying to live on as a better person after you’ve lost someone that has had displayed such amazing characteristics. I know this is a little bit heavy for this fun and quirky project, but being out on that island gave me the confidence and freedom to write about that. It’s something I needed to do and something I’m really proud of. I wonder a lot did that couple ever hear the song, I guess I’ll never know.
Week 8 – Valentia Island
The grand finale. It was finally coming to an end. 8 weeks of tough travelling, sketchy ferry crossings and bizarre gigs with the most interesting of characters. Valentia is in a very southerly part of the country. Oscar from Never Meant Records was coming out to this island, we figured we’d finish it out in style together. It was a drizzly miserable day.
When we found the hotel/bar we were playing in, it was in an isolated part of the island called Chapeltown. A “For Sale” sign hung outside of the hotel and the place was empty apart from the young barman. He showed us to our room and the surprisingly big hotel had most certainly seen better days. We got talking to a few locals in the bar eventually. Apparently there were two islander weddings on that weekend on the mainland, and tourists don’t tend to go to this bar so expectations were low for attendance. At this point, that didn’t worry me at all, the end was in sight and nothing could dampen my mood.
We got talking to the manager that booked the gig and I must admit, she really tried hard to promote the gig, handing out flyers to holiday homes, photocopying the posters I had sent out and putting more up where as some other pubs didn’t even put up the posters I had mailed out. Helping to spread the word actively is as much as you could ask for so we were happy.
Apparently Chapeltown was in a bad way. Everything in the village had closed down apart from the hotel and that was due to be gone in a few weeks if no one bought it. Even the chapel had closed down. The man that told me this told me that he’d struggle on regardless. He’s an islander and spent all his life in Chapeltown and he’ll be the last person left there if he has to. That made me feel like how things are as an independent musician, so many things against you but regardless, you’ll always drive those 4 hours to play to 20 people, record those songs that not as many people as you like will listen to. Regardless of the adversity, you’ll always struggle on and that’s been the case with anything I’ve done in life, nothing has come easy but I do get there in the end no matter what and that’s exactly what the final song has been about.
Luckily enough, there was a nice appreciative crowd, the owner treated us so well and was very appreciative of us coming down to play. Who knows, I may have been the last band to play there. We made the long journey back to Limerick, stories and people have began to turn into haze, reappearing every once in a while in my mind. Things I didn’t take notice of at the time when they happened come back intermittently.
Whatever happened to John and the wall he clipped driving us home on Inishturk? What happened to Enda and his difficult long distance relationship out in Inis Mór? Where did Bob’s parents go and how are they now? All of these lives we’ve been drifting in and out of for the last two months begin to come back and seem hugely significant to me. Whilst some memories may be hazy, this is an experience I will never forget as long as I live.
To all the bar owners, members of the press, friends, family and those who I met out on the islands, and anyone else that has given this project any form of attention, I can’t thank you enough.
There will be a limited run of picture book CDs of the experience and songs released via Never Meant Records on 11th September at the official Anna’s Anchor website.
