Connacht Tribune
Tom’s many memories from 50 years of Shaskeen
Lifestyle – Tom Cussen founded Shaskeen in London in 1970, where it gained many fans among the Irish community. It was revived in Galway when he settled here a year later. Since then, it has been at the heart of the trad music scene and its members have included some of the country’s top performers. As a new album is released, he talks to JUDY MURPHY about friendship, gratitude and loss.
Anybody wanting to carry out a study of social life in Ireland from the early 1970s onwards could do worse than take a peek at Tom Cussen’s booking diaries for the trad band Shaskeen.
These give a glimpse into how rural Ireland went from being a place where people socialised seven nights a week in newly-built lounge bars of the 1970s, to one where discos took over from the singing lounges, and to the current time where nobody is going anywhere at all.
Tom has witnessed it all from the unique position of 50 years with Shaskeen, the group he founded in London in 1970 after being asked to do so by the owner of the Oxford Tavern in Kentish Town, at a time when London was full of Irish people.
Tom, from County Limerick, was one, having moved there in 1968.
“I was able to a play a bit of music before going over, but it was harmless enough,” he says. “I had a great interest in it – céilí, old-time and country.”
Tom bought his first banjo in a London pawn shop shortly after emigrating and learned to play it, using a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
A tee-totaller who didn’t go to pubs, Tom lived near Finsbury Park, and wasn’t part of London’s Irish scene.
Then, a friend who was also into music, told him that he’d heard Irish music coming from a local house on Sundays. They followed the sound one day and came to a bed-sit where a few people were playing. They asked Tom if he played and he told them he was learning banjo.
The musicians invited the young immigrants to join them for a Sunday session in a local pub that night, a mix of tunes and ballads. Tom loved it and found he was able to keep up. Afterwards a pound note was pressed into his hand. Bewildered, he asked what it was for and was told that each musician received a pound. It was his first paid gig, he says with a laugh, and he was hooked.
The banjo was coming into popularity in the folk and Irish music scene at the time, thanks to groups such as The Clancy Brothers and once Tom started playing publicly, he became part of a growing network.
He teamed up with fiddle player Maureen Minogue and flute player Seán McDonagh, both from Galway, for Sunday-morning sessions in the Oxford Tavern in Kentish Town. For the first few weeks, the clientele was made up of a few mainly English people, reading newspapers and accompanied by their dogs. After a while, the word got out and “the Paddys and Biddys were coming in”, he recalls with a laugh.
The owner then asked if Tom could put a band together for Friday nights, and he called on Maureen’s husband, accordion player Johnny Minogue, and Benny O’Connor, a Galway drummer whom he’d met at a Fleadh in London – they’d been in a band together for a competition.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
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Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
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The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
