Finbarr Donnelly

Donnelly moved from Belfast to Cork city suburb The Glen, Cork aged 12, when his family sought to relocate to avoid The Troubles. He met guitarist Ricky Dineen in 1978, and having bonded over a shared interest in UFOs, they formed a band, initially known as Nun Attax that year.[3][5] The band grew a live following in Cork, centered around gigs in the Arcadia ballroom. Following the recruitment of various second guitarists and the celloist Úna Ní Chanainn, they recorded their most acclaimed EP Knot a Fish in 1983, and moved to London later that year. Following two further EPs, The Glee Club and Singing in Braille, the band broke up in 1985.[6] and recorded for Kabuki Records,[7] Abstract Sounds[8] and Creation Records.[8]

Donnelly and Dineen stayed in London and played a number of gigs with a drum machine early in 1986, but did not attract industry interest.[9][10] The two reformed as Beethoven in 1988, and the following year released the Him Goolie Goolie Man, Dem EP on Setanta Records.[7] The record was awarded "Single of the Week" by the NME.[3]

Before the band could build on their successful EP, on 18 June 1989, Donnelly accidentally drowned while swimming in Hyde Park’s Serpentine Pond, aged 27.[2][4] Dineen had been out with him that day, and they had planned to meet up at a pub later in the evening.[4] Dineen later said, "If you went out for the craic with your friends on a Sunday afternoon and one of them didn’t come back, it’s surreal like. Even though we were both 27, you’re still young. It changes your whole life because we went from planning our future, thinking we were going to be in England for a while, to the next minute being on the flight back to Ireland."[3]

The planned second single was never released.[9][6]

Donnelly had an over-sized personality, and he was described as a magnetic and charismatic if somewhat menacing performer.[4][10][11] Keith O'Connell said that he "was fine during rehearsals, but he used to go off on his own then, especially in London...We wouldn’t know what he was getting up to. He was a big bloke, so he was intimidating. People used to be afraid of him."[3]

Remarking on Donnelly's eccentric stage persona, Membranes vocalist and writer John Robb said "Over the years I’ve heard all manner of tedious bastard bands yapping on about how they broke all the rules and how wild they were – perhaps they never saw Five Go Down to the Sea?"[12] Cathal Coughlan, songwriter and vocalist for Microdisney and the Fatima Mansions, said that he would "not have ended up doing music if I hadn’t met Donnelly, and...ended up as a malcontented alcoholic civil servant working in a food factory somewhere in County Offaly."[12] In 2020, The Quietus critic Eoin Murray wrote that "listening...now, almost 40 years later, it’s with a mixture of nausea and awe that we hear so much of young Ireland’s modern experience in Donnelly’s words - in his frustration and frantic determination."[7]

The English songwriter Pete Astor's 1982 song "Donnelly" was written in tribute to the late singer. The track appears on their album Paradise, released on Danceteria records. Astor said in 2016; "the reason I wrote the song is that I have an incredibly strong memory of Donnelly and the band. The song had to do with the idea that Donnelly was the unsung hero. He was like a complete hero, a total legend, just like Shaun Ryder was and is, and years later just like Richie Edwards was and is. But Finbarr was unsung."[8]

In 2001, radio documentary producer and broadcaster Paul McDermott with the assistance of Kieran Hurley and Conor O'Toole produced Get That Monster Off the Stage, a radio documentary about Finbarr Donnelly and his bands. First broadcast on Cork Campus Radio 98.3FM, it has since been revised to include contributions from Ricky Dineen and additional music.[13] To mark the 20th anniversary of Donnelly's death, A tribute night for the band was held at the Pavilion in Cork on 18 June 2009. Featuring covers of their songs, the line up included Mick Lynch and John Spillane.[14]

The Five Go Down to the Sea? compilation album Hiding from the Landlord was released in April 2020, accompanied by a twenty-page fanzine with contributions from Elvira Butler, Cathal Coughlan of Microdisney, Pete Astor of The Weather Prophets, Gavin Friday of the Virgin Prunes, and writers John Robb, Kevin Barry, Declan Lynch and Cónal Creedon.[15][12]

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