Michael
Michael is a musician and ethnomusicologist.
His dad Patrick died in 2017.
“I was going to record a very simple traditional Irish music album; like a calling card alongside my PhD. Then Dad died. He went missing and they found him in the river in Stockport. It was Easter Sunday.
Afterwards, something opened in my head. I had all these visions and ideas. All the big mad thoughts I’d had over the years – I could explore them. I felt free to create.
It was almost like Dad had given me a gift. I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true.
Suddenly I had no fear. The next layer between me and death was gone. I was contacting these huge names – Mike Garry, Kepa Junkera, Liz Hanks, Ríoghnach Connolly – to ask if they wanted to collaborate.
I wrote the album in bits and pieces. I’d be hyperfocused for short bursts then stop. I was trying to make sense of it all.
I had a little bit of bereavement counselling afterwards. The therapist said, ‘I think you’ve resolved a lot of this.’
I suppose my therapy was making the music that became Quarehawk.
There was always music in our house. Mum loved Country, Irish and Trad. She brought me to concerts, music lessons. I learnt traditional Irish music, I played in céilí bands.
Dad didn’t have an overt interest in music. He bought music for me twice: Elvis at Christmas on cassette tape. Then years later, a Susan Boyle CD. It was almost like he was saying, ‘I know you’re in touch with your feminine side, Michael….’
I was good at music and drama at school. I wanted to be an actor or a priest because I liked attention. Mum put me off acting: ‘It can be a very austere life.’
Dad was a classic Irish dad. He’d show his love by doing things for me. He only told me he loved me once. It was after my first child was born: we went for a drive and I got lost on purpose trying to get him to talk about feelings.
If you’re a bit odd – a camp little kid like I was – you build all these messages inside your head. Certain messages from society. Not from Dad – he always encouraged me.
He was a beautiful, gentle man. He was very proper and private. He never stopped me doing anything. I was always encouraged to dream.
When Dad came to England, he was an Irish speaker. But he never spoke it again.
It was only when I went to live in Ireland as an adult that he told me. I didn’t know that, I said. You never asked, he said.
In one of the songs, I asked one of my friends to sing in Irish and one in Asturian – I was studying Asturian flute-playing for my PhD. After the Spanish Civil War, Franco stamped on the Asturian language. There’s a lot of parallels with Ireland.
It felt like a reclamation, having both languages there. Almost like reparation.
I think maybe that was part of the grieving, too. Making sense of what he’d left behind.
“People have interpreted it in different ways.
That’s OK. I think that’s good art.”
It’s a riddle really, the album. It’s about my relationship with my dad and my children. Sexuality, gender. Bits and pieces weaved together.
Things that have shaped me. I felt like I had the freedom and courage to talk about them.
People have interpreted it in different ways. That’s OK. I think that’s good art.
What I think of it changes depending on my perspective, my mood. The fact I’m moving away from the moment of trauma.
It’s quite hard to play. You hear it and it hits you. When I performed the whole thing, people – particularly blokes – would cry.
The name ‘Quarehawk’ – that was a name Dad used for me. It can mean lots of things: something good, bad, innovative. That’s what I liked about it.
I’ve not performed it for a while, so it’ll be interesting to go back to it. I’ll just have to keep myself together.
It’s quite hard to cry and play a flute.”
You can find out more about Michael’s music and work via his website.
Written by Laura McDonagh