News

September 2008

The unexpected arrived this time round which is why it has taken so long to get back to everybody. I did an Audition for a minor role in the Abbey Theatre Production of “An Ideal Husband”. This proved successful and it is running from the 11th of August to the 27th of September. I celebrated my birthday on the Abbey Stage which was a joy.

I was in the Abbey Theatre 30 years ago almost to the day with Des Cave a stalwart of the Abbey and a fine actor and here I am in the same dressingroom. He is still a joy to work with. The play itself is breaking all sorts of box office records and is great fun. “An Ideal Husband” is directed by the award winning Director Neil Bartlett O.B.E.

I enclose a few pictures. One of Des and me in the dressing room and another of me on the Abbey stage.

Filmwise, I will be doing a “Bord Scannán na hEireann” film called “Birds and Beasts” in Cork on the 3rd of October. Also an advertisement I did for the Ulster Bank about the foundation of the G.A.A. is cropping up all over the place.

Musicwise the new CD will be ready to roll in October. I am just waiting to get all my other commitments out of the way. More on that very soon.

May 2008

As May comes to a close, thank God the year has taken a turn for the better. A pile of work has come in to keep me going for a while. My brother, Edward, has become my agent in Heaven.

I auditioned for and got an advert for the “Ulster Bank”. I actually appear twice in it, at the beginning (present day) and then as a G.A.A. founder member (1882). I auditioned for and got a part in an RTE comedy “How Low, Reality Check” as a clapped-out Hippie musician. (I didn’t mind the clapped-out musician bit, it was the hippie bit I objected to). As I write we are in the middle of filming. I also wrote and performed a daft song for the programme.

Included in this update are a picture of me circa. 1882 (from the Ulster Bank advert) and a picture of me as a Bloody Hippie in “How Low Reality Check”, (the wig wasn’t used in the final takes, thank God).

Also on the film front was a film sponsored by the Northern Ireland Film Board called “Chimera” filmed in Belfast. I play a “criminal psychologist” in this one. We actually rehearsed it last year so we were almost word perfect on the day.

The “Cracking Crime” Programme on the tragic Fiona Pender was repeated on RTE 1 on 18 May (Sunday) as I wrote this. I played her father. It was a sad and difficult part to do.

Musically, the album is finished apart from a couple of minor tweaks. There are 13 tracks. I have another almost written but I have to stop somewhere.

As a bit of a reminder to myself and a few others I include video footage of a programme called “The Humours of Donnybrook” from 1980. It is an interview I did with the great Ciaran MacMathuna about my then group "Tipsey Sailor”. The footage also includes the band doing one of my songs “The Black Dodder”, in front of a live audience. So in this Bulletin you have me in 1882, 1980 and 2008. Real time travelling stuff. Onwards and upwards, see you soon.

March 2008

This is probably the hardest update I will ever have to write in the lifetime of this website. In January I lost my brother Eddie after a brief illness at the age of 52. In the miscellaneous section I have a wonderful tribute paid to him in the “Galway Advertiser”, every word of it true for he was a giant among us with the subtlety of a wonderful actor.

In February I went into the Mater Hospital for a routine hernia operation and ended up getting a Pneumonia Bug which kept me there for most of the month. The beginning of March saw the death of “Jimmy Faulkner” one of the greatest guitarists this country ever produced and a great friend of mine.

As well as the tribute to Eddie in the Miscellaneous Section there is a poem dedicated to him from our cousin Georgina Sarjant whose father appears on this website visiting the River Kwai.

Things please God can only get better. I enclose a couple of stills from the “Northern Ireland film Board” short “Loose Bodies”. I am to start work in Belfast in the beginning of April on a movie called “Chamera” and there are two more which I will go into detail about the next time we speak The new album is a step away from finished. Please God it’s onward and upward.

Mick Fitzgerald

NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2007

The pictures are from “How Harry Became a Tree” in 2001. This was the first thing I did (drama-wise) in 20 years. But I got hooked again even though I was little more than a “Special Extra”. I went on to get my full Equity Card again and now thank God I am beginning to get good roles.

“Cinderella” for the B.B.C. and “Maru” for T.G.4 (in which at long last I play a cop) will both be screened in November. Three other films I did, “The Headmaster”, “One in a million” and “Death is Red” are being screened at the “Waterford Film Festival” also in November. On December (17th and 18th) I will be filming a “Northern Ireland Film Board” piece called “Loose Bodies”. This will be shot in Belfast.

Music-wise the C.D. is almost finished with fourteen tracks in all. I actually think it will be called “Damage Limitation” after a track we just finished.

God it only seems like yesterday that I was wishing you all a Happy Christmas and New Year and now it’s coming round again.

May it all be peaceful with everything you need.

Mick Fitzgerald 2007.

My mother was Annie Jordan from Rathdrum and the Jordans were, and still are, an extraordinary bunch of people. Maggie Jordan (my cousin) is a case in point.

She married a man named Francis Fairbairn, an Englishman who went off to fight in the Second World War. He died at the hands of the Japanese on the “River Kwai” leaving Maggie with a daughter “Joy”.

She married again, this time to an Irishman whom she also outlived. But her heart was always with Francis Fairbairn and in 2003 with my late Uncle Les she went to Yokohama to the “war graves cemetery” at the age of 89 to see where his ashes were.

The pictures show her and Les at the war cemetery in Yokohama, also Francis Fairbairn’s name on the memorial. I also enclose the cover of the prayer sheet at the “Act of Remembrance” in “Hodogaya War Graves Cemetery” in 2003.

Amazingly my Uncle Les (completely by accident) found the grave of a friend of his whom he had lost contact with in the early years of the war. His name was A.W.P. Taylor R.N. My Uncle Les went to war in 1939 with the Navy at the age of 17. It was here he met Mr. Taylor. I enclose a picture of his grave in Yokohama.

Maggie Jordan is hale and hearty at the great age of 93 and living in England.

A couple of reviews of the “Light Sleeper” C.D. One from the “Evening Herald” and one from the “Irish Music Magazine”.` Click on the images for enlarged version.

June-July 2007

First of all the weather played havoc with a lot of things this time round. Still it got busy for me. As I write I am about to put the finishing touches to the new C.D. a full mix by August.

I came across an old picture of “Tipsy Sailor”, the first group I ever played with. What a group though. This was the last version – from left myself, Gerry O’Connor, Declan Masterson, Terry Boyle and the late Fiach O’Broin. Johnny Keenan was one of the founder members.

TV and Film wise it got busy over the last two months. “Slots” which I filmed in 2005 was finally shown on RTE2 in June. I did a movie (musical) in Mountjoy Jail of all places, called “301 a prison musical”. I have to do post production on this (“Lip-synch”.)

I did a few days on a BBC film called “Cinderella” in Belfast in late June. This starred Jimmy Nesbit and the lovely Harriet Walter (I enclose a picture of both of us on the set).

Finally its back to Belfast to film a TG4 programme called “Maru” on the 24th and the 26th of July. Oh and I am putting up a new page this time round….one of my published short stories.

I have had a few short stories published over the years. I could never (and so far still can’t) see myself wrapped around the great novel….It was the short story for me.

This one was nominated for a “Hennessy Award” in 1985/86. As it reflects my beloved “Rathdrum” in Co. Wicklow as a backdrop, I have included various old photographs of my grandparents, aunties and uncles, when the world was in black and white.

Finally (I don’t know how the cartoonist did it) but this looks exactly like the walk from my grandparents house in the lower street of Rathdrum up to the Church.

May 2007

All I can give as I write this is my abject apologies for leaving such a gap. People were actually e-mailing me wondering where I’d gone.

Well the new C.D. will be finished within the next two months and ready to be printed and among you all. I have been really busy playing a lot here in Dublin.

At this stage may I recommend a band called the “Georgia Madcats” (from Georgia of course) featuring Lisa Deaton on delightful lead vocals.

Check out their C.D. “Across the Big Pond”. They do a lovely version of my own “Rathdrum Fair” but there are little gems on the album as well one of which is a song called the “Bright sunny South”.

It’s funny when I appear on “Fair City (the Irish Soap). I get a load of texts from people telling me they were just flicking channels and saw me by accident. Everyone is flicking channels at the same time, nobody admits to watching it. Well I filmed one episode recently. Also I did a “Primetime” re-enactment.

But the funniest one this year was a day on a Brazilian Soap opera called “Eterna Magia” (Eternal Magic) which was filmed in Dublin (one Episode).

Lastly “The Headmaster” film in which I played Thomas Clarke (see me in grey hair and bowler hat elsewhere on this page) was shown in New York in mid-April. As I write it will be shown at the I.F.I. for cast and Irish crew members (most of the original crew were American) on the 25th of May. Then it goes to the Festivals.

Finally, I am filming a musical in Mountjoy Jail called “Room 301 : a Prison Musical” on the 18th of May. This one is also for the festival circuit. I have never filmed a musical before and Mountjoy Jail is as good a place as any.

The pictures by the way are from “Eterna Magia”. So it’s goodbye for now and I promise to be in touch on a more regular basis.

December 2006

Just in time to wish everyone a Happy 2007. If you read back on my year you will notice I have no need to complain.

I came across an old picture of myself and my great friend, the late Johnny Keenan taken at the Ennis "Fleadh Nua" in 1977 when we were mere lads. I threw in another from 1997 (taken in O'Donoghue's Pub in Dublin) for good measure. Time slips by unnoticed.

The book "The Pinewood Story" by Garth Owen was published in October and features my little contribution about filming of "King Arthur" in Pinewood Studios.

I auditioned for and got a part in the "Pilot" programme for a sit-com which is scheduled to be shot in January.

Music as you can understand is daft in Dublin before Christmas. Lots of work (gigs) to report. My second CD was stalled for a while but has recently gathered pace. I have 10 tracks nearing completion and am tempted to throw in another two. Some more of my songs (four at the last count) were recorded in America in 2006.

I wrote the article below for the Irish Independent to coincide with the showing of "Cracking Crime" on R.T.E. TV during last year.

Download the Article here

July 2006

This has been a very productive time. As you can see I have added another page to the site, a sort of tribute to P.L. Travis, the writer of Mary Poppins, a woman I got to know quite well.

Musically by the time you read this I will have at least nine tracks recorded for a new album. This is a lot more than I expected. At this stage and if all goes well, I will have a new C.D. ready by the end of the summer.

The “Wild Geese” whom I played and recorded with had a reunion on “Sherkin Island” off Cork in May. I have included two pictures in this bulletin, the “Wild Geese” in 1986 and the “Wild Geese” in 2006. There were a few different line-ups of the band and tragically one of our members, Mick Ryan, died all too young not too long ago.

Wild Geese 1986	Wild Geese 2006

I also filmed in Cork on an independent movie called “The Redeemer”. I did two days on “Murphy’s Law” for ITV (there is a picture of me and Jimmy Nesbitt here taken at 7.30 a.m. one morning). “Cracking Crime” (R.T.E.) in which I played a father whose daughter had disappeared was shown in late June. I also had an article in the “Irish Independent” newspaper explaining the programme.

Most of June though was taken up doing a film called the “Headmaster” for the “School of Visual Arts” in New York. This was set in Dublin before the “Easter Rising”. I played Thomas Clarke (the picture, complete with my own Bowler Hat, shows me as I would like to look when I become ancient or indeed if I become ancient) and it took at least an hour to make me up in the morning.

As I write, Ireland is in the middle of a heatwave. Thank God we filmed the “Headmaster” before this weather happened. The grey they put in my hair tended to stiffen in the heat and in this weather I would have ended up like a sort of Edward “Scissorhair”. But … a great year so far.

April 2006

The picture here shows me as a saxon warrior invading a carpark in Pinewood Studios during lunch hour while filming “King Arthur” there. I had just fought a duel with a chicken curry. Gareth Owen from the “Roger Moore Office” in Pinewood wrote a book in 2000 called “The Pinewood Story”. He is updating the book for reissue in September 2006 and is quoting me from the Pinewood section of “The King Arthur” piece on this site. It is an honour to be quoted in a book like this.

In the meantime the film “Shadow” was shown at “Project Norma” in Belfast on the 28th of March (I’ll get back to you on that). I did four days filming in Northern Ireland on an RTE/Stirling Production called “Cracking Crime”. It is due on RTE television very shortly. I also wrote a small piece for the Irish Independent Newspaper about the programme which will go out on the day of transmission.
There was more voiceover work for the drama “Fallout” (about an accident at Sellafield). This is also due out shortly.

Musically I intend to use May for more recording. I’ve got down to the rehearsal stage of three songs.

My great friend Danny Carnahan is recording “The Ballad of Capel Street” and another song of mine (an older one) called “The Only Stranger” in the USA later on in the year while another mate in the States, Pat Egan, has already recorded “The Ballad of Capel Street” and a newer song called “Asha-Asha”.

Capel Street in Dublin spent such a big part in my life. It’s all changed now though. Slatterys, where many a hangover and a love story began is no longer an outpost for Irish music. It has now changed utterly. Although they still have live music, the soul left a long time ago.

December 2005

The house in the photograph on this page, 12 Windsor Terrace, Portobello, is the house where Leopold Bloom lived in the film “Bloom” in which I had a tiny part. It is also strangely enough the house where I recorded a lot of the album “Light Sleeper”. Paul Thomas, who engineered most of the album, lived here for many years. He told me that when the “Location” people for “Bloom” came to see if the house was suitable for the movie he heard one of them say “God this place is in bits --- it’s perfect. It’s a wonderful slum”.

Film-wise I did “Shadows” a short movie for “Project Norma” in Northern Ireland and finished the RTE Production “Slots”. Both of these are in “Post Production”. There was another “Podge and Rodge” for RTE 2, “Fair City” for RTE 1 and a day on a Docu-Drama called “Fallout” which is about the consequences of an imaginary Sellafield accident on Ireland.

June Tabor, one of the great interpreters of Traditional and Folk songs recorded one of my songs “All our Trades are gone”. She has a new anthology of her work (a Four CD Box set) out at the moment and “All our Trades are gone” is done live on CD number four. It is the best version of one of my songs that I have ever heard.

I completed the second track for a new CD as well. The song is called “Sandy” and the working title of the new Album is “The Man with the Wristwatch in Ben Hur”. We didn’t record it in number 12 Windsor Terrace as number 10 Windsor Terrace fell down and the last thing I wanted to do was die while working. Actually I might call the new CD “It’s a wonderful Slum”.

Mick Fitzgerald (December 2005)

September 2005

This is the update page for T.V. and Film and Music and its been a good year so far.

“Deaths Mailing” a film I co-starred in (director Julian Hills) got second place in the Galway Film Festival. I auditioned for and got one of the main parts in a “Primetime” re-construction of the murder of Robert McCartney.

There have been lots of shorts this year too with big and small budgets. One of the more interesting ones was “Marzipan Alley” which was featured in the “Talent Circle” Shorts Festival in London in September. I made this one in the North of Ireland (Director Crawford-Dillon Anderson).

As I write I have just got a part in a film called “Shadows” which is being made in Belfast for the “Project-Norma” short-film Festival. I auditioned for and got a part in a production for R.T.E. called “Slots” which will be shot in Skerries from the 12th to the 16th of September. I also did another “Podge and Rodge” and they are always a joy to do. The film “Deaths Mailing” was born out of a “Podge and Rodge” Programme as Julian Hills is the Director

Musically “Light Sleeper” has done reasonably good business and indeed has paid for itself twice. One of the tracks “Ballad of Capel Street” has been recorded in America (more about that anon). I have started a new one at long last. The first track is in the can and I am on the verge of recording two more. Thank God it has also been a good year for writing. All I need now is the recording time.

Watch this space.

Mick Fitzgerald (September 2005)