Fiery folk hero Dick Gaughan for Galway’s Town Hall Theatre

Fiery folk singer Dick Gaughan  will play the Town Hall Theatre on Tuesday, September 23.

His is music that concerns itself with beauty, and then fury. He sings of love and loss, evokes the past, but also yearns for a brighter future.

These are heady days for Gaughan’s home country of Scotland, with its independence referendum taking place on September 18. On the morning of the Connacht Tribune interview with Dick, Dubliner Bob Geldof had urged the country to vote no.

“He’s been all over the papers telling us how bad independence is and we’d be much better off staying in the UK. So, I’m busy waiting for Bob to start a campaign to get Ireland to rejoin the UK!” Dick says.

Mick Jagger and David Bowie have also urged the Scots to stay in the union. How does Dick feel about these former rebels saying ‘vote no?’.

“Quite amused,” he says. “Firstly, none of them have a vote in the referendum, so I’m not really bothered about what they say. And they don’t actually have any influence in Scotland. Nobody’s going to think ‘I’m going to vote yes to independence’, and then say ‘oh, wait a minute, Mick Jagger said I better not. I’ll change my mind’.”

Dick, firmly in the ‘yes’ camp, is optimistic about the 18th.