I discovered Microdisney in the mid 80’s when I was going through a teen Listening To John Peel Every Night phase. There was nothing cool about them, they didn’t dress cool and they never developed much of a following. They didn’t even tear up the indie charts never mind the chart charts.

But the songs! – from Dolly to Helicopter of the Holy Ghost to every single track on The Clock Comes Down The Stairs. Then there some good albums on Virgin that were never much pushed by the record label, then they went their separate ways. Partner Sean O’Hagan formed The High Llamas and Coughlan The Fatima Mansions. I never really got on with either of these bands – The Llamas lacked grit and the Mansions lacked, frankly, tunes. They were at their best together.

Anyway, one of Ireland’s greatest, Cork’s greatest gone. Damn it.

I'm sure he'd have laughed his arse off at "scared".

Rest easy, Cathal.

I loved Fatima Mansions. Valhalla Avenue is such an important album to me. He was a unique talent.

Scared Heart! Bit of Freudian from me there!

Saw The Fatima Mansions twice, never got to see Cathal and Sean together. First time the reception was very reserved. Most people were standing way back from the stage in order to look cool. I wasn't though, I was standing right at the front gawping up at him like a big weirdo stalker. Second time Viva Dead Ponies and Blues for Ceausescu had come out and the place was packed and it was rough and rowdy. Cathal was in manic form. Wild gig.

He was ferociously anti-Catholic!

It would be nice to see an Irish celeb who wasn't. They tend to be a bit samey in that respect.

Dana

I was thinking a wee but more contemporary.

Funny, over 30 years ago Cathal made a joke in a lyric about people "trying to pronounce my name". Just watched an interview from just this year - the interviewer hasn't a clue how to say it, she's a-a-all over the place! Some things don't change!

would it be Charles?

It's pronounced "Norman", isn't it?

How sad. Love Microdisney and Fatima Mansions back in the day.

You don't pronounce the "thih" sound. That's what usually throws people. It's cah- hall or cah-.hill. Well usually..

so Charles isn't far off, a sort of Karl where the 'r' is swallowed

Yeah, it is Irish for Charles.

Sean? John. That one was a bit more obvious though...

Listening to Fatima Mansions last night and had forgotten how much I loved this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M95O-OPBao

Also found a 2018 Microdisney clip on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drcINSwOWw

As for Fatima Mansions, when I lived in Dublin in the early 80s,

Fatima Mansions was only ever mentioned as a notoriously dangerous

Crooked Mile is one of the great forgotten LPs of the 1980s - I loved it from the off, and I still have the vinyl version (although it's at my brother's house a long way away). I don't think it was ever released on CD, let along streaming though.

That one was produced by one of Steely Dan wasn't it? He didn't succeed in Danning them up much though. There are quite a lot of swooning strings though so quite polished in that regard.

I had to look that up but the producer was Larry Kaye who was in the Patti Smith Group - you might be confusing him with Gary Katz who produced an inordinate number of Scots bands at that time (not Irish, I know but nearby).