We don't have one today.

We don't know.

Yeah.

But what was interesting was that he used that position then to further his research into like storytelling and history.

And he brought out a book called The Doolin Book about Doolin and County Clare and the whole north West Clare Peninsula.

And what was fascinating was everyone knew about the music, Michael Russell.

Everyone knew about the Listow and Varna Festival.

Get yourself ready.

and

the old Irish language of County Clare, you know, and talking about characters like Paddy Farrick-Wycle, who was one of the last native speakers, and cousins of ours were coming from Barthraw, Barthraw is the peninsula down in Milltown.

You know, it's only down the road, but they were very different tribes and they'd meet up and they'd be, in Clare, they didn't call them Gaelgar, they called them Irishans, the lads who still spoke Irish.

That's right.

Yeah, so he did a lot of those stories.

Then my father was first.

He couldn't get published when we were young.

Isn't it funny how people find out they've got connections? That's just the way we are.

[laughs]

But it was a bit juvenile.

You know, the way it was about giving up the drink and giving up the drugs, and the streets of Melbourne, and the craic, and the Greek musicians, and the gypsy, and the... [upbeat fiddle music] So I used to be kind of doing that.

And do you remember a few years ago, spoken word was really big in Dublin? And it was also, you know, it was, "He was gone, be back in a jiffy.

There you go, the lights of the Liffey." Around about that time, spoken word was also big in Melbourne, so I was kind of getting programmed as the Irish guy there.

Or I'd go up to Dublin, and I did that Lingo Festival, and I'd be, you know, kind of blown in from the west with a bit of a country vibe on the spoken word.

And I started to notice then I wasn't going to be doing spoken word to kind of jazz or hip-hop.

Yeah

How was it received?

Grand.

Like, it was, you know, it's one of those things that when you're in that moment where you're hungover, you just think it's the end of the world, when it was- Looked at three weeks later, it, it's, you know, they, you know, that, that it was understand that it wasn't just me that was drinking in that house.

They were drinking and smoking joint.

Not that, I mean, everyone did that at a time.

You know, it was a bit, they respected that I had come back, you know? Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.