Source Programme of Events Summer 2019 The Source Arts Centre Programme Summer 2019 | Page 22

SUMMER 2019
The Back Pages…
Furey Speaks!
M
y late brother Bunty, whom many of you will
have known from his time with the horses in
Dromineer, was always regarded as very discerning
dresser.
In my mind’s eye, I always see him in a Crombie coat
with velvet trim collar, black drainpipe slacks and a
pair of slip on shoes. His head is topped off with two
wings of blonde hair, neatly greased back and
summited by a quiff, which would have added a good
four inches to his height (he was a small man, truth be
told).
In his youth following one of his many rows with my
father, he left home, got on a Kavanagh’s bus and then
the ferry in Rosslare and didn’t stop till he landed in
Trafalgar Square, London.
He was eighteen, had a wayward nature and could
have landed up in Wormwood Scrubs rather than
ending up becoming the
leader of a punk–rock
band. It was the mid-
1970’s and the man who
could play a couple of
chords on a guitar was a
musical virtuoso,
compared to the level
some were at. Bunty
had learned his trade,
initially and ironically
from our father, who
had passed on a guitar
and some rudimentary
training to him, and
then from some loose
stand-in touring with
Tweed (I think), a
showband of the era.
Shouting isn’t singing,
but when you want to
be heard, it’s enough
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The Source Arts Centre
and Bunty’s punk band in London had a minor
celebrity status based on his booming voice, repetitive
guitar riffs, a throbbing bass, and an earwax cleaning
drum bashing, all sprinkled over with some choice
lyrics about the Holocaust, women’s underwear and
the inertia of youth. And that was just in one song.
Punk Rockers at the time would have been regarded as
scruffy dress-wise, however there was a sense of style
to them that was ordered and complete; what one
would call a wholistic look by way of guidance from
teddy boy fashion and from Vivienne Westwood et al.
“But it’s hard to have a mohawk when you are going
bald” Bunty said to me once, so he eventually jacked
in the band and he came back to Ireland. He still
exhibited that certain sense of style, which was
uncompromising - given that people’s natural tendency
is to look the same as each other and not stand out
especially in a rural area.
What Bunty made of the current trend of wearing
track-suit bottoms on some of the young men around
town was well recorded. ‘’If you want to wear a track-
suit, you’d better be inclined to run,’’ he said. “They’re
only codding themselves, if they think that’s stylish.”
As he had a natural affinity with animals, he ended up
working as a horse whisperer in North Tipperary long
before Robert Redford or anyone else had thought of
such a thing, but when the trainer sold all the horses,
bar one, Bunty was out of a job. As he said himself;
‘’there’s no point in being a horse whisperer in a one-
horse town’’ – which I took to be a metaphor of sorts.
In his final years, he could be seen around the Lough
Derg, outwardly content, but muttering quietly to
himself. Still sharply dressed; alone but nowhere to go.
I asked him once if he would come and stay with me,
but he said no. He was happy on his own.
I expect when you can communicate with animals,
talking to humans must be a bit of a let-down.
Michael Furey