Barry Egan

Dublin

Chief Feature Writer and Columnist at The Sunday Independent

Chief Feature Writer & Columnist for over 20yrs at The Sunday Independent. Views expressed are my own.

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Articles

Steve Wall: ‘I went through a phase of listening to Van Morrison’s albums Veedon Fleece and Astral Weeks’

5 days ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

Steve Wall: ‘I went through a phase of listening to Van Morrison’s albums Veedon Fleece and Astral Weeks’Singer-songwriter on the political influence behind 1992’s ‘Heads Are Gonna Roll’Joe and Steve Wall from The Stunning in Some Neck Guitar Shop in Dublin in 2018. Photo: Kyran O'BrienHe is as well known for his political social media posts as he is for the great songs he wrote, and sang, with The Stunning.
‘Unconditional bail never felt so good’: Barry Egan watches Kneecap celebrate freedom with hip-hop hymns for the Dublin faithful

6 days ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

There is only one band in the world with titles like that. And yet, on a long hot summer night, the atmosphere at Kneecap’s sold-out show in Fairview Park on Thursday was as friendly and inclusive as any Westlife concert. There were kids with their shirts off playing basketball on the court outside the venue, as if they were in Brooklyn. Inside, fans were eating hipster burgers and chips or drinking pints of beer in the sunshine. But there were plenty of political statements around too.
‘I didn’t know that I was going to be an alcoholic.’ John Taylor on sex, drugs and Duran Duran

6 days ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

The bassist sits down for a candid conversation on the heady years“Hi Marina, this is John from Duran Duran. I believe you had posters of me on your bedroom wall as a kid, with lots of lipstick kisses on them.
Irvine Welsh on his Trainspotting sequel: ‘It is that time of life when they are getting serious about romance.?It is an interesting time in the lives of men’

2 weeks ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

He’s also releasing an accompanying album He may now be in his mid-sixties, but writer Irvine Welsh is still an enfant terrible.  In 2020, he tweeted of Donald Trump: “Has that tedious fat sex pest f**ked off yet?”  At Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebrations in June 2020, he told Keir Starmer to “get f**ked, you ridiculous clown”, when the Labour Party leader said it was the “patriotic duty” of British people to “revel” in her majesty’s reign.
‘We picked him up from Paddington Station. We hadn’t decided what we would sing. So we sat around the table and drank a bottle of whiskey - or two’

3 weeks ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

Pauline Scanlon on being encouraged to sing by a nun, and the inspirational Séamus Begley It all started with Sister De Sales, a nun in Presentation College, Dingle. She heard four-year-old Pauline Scanlon sing one day. “She was my junior infants teacher,” says Pauline. “She was from north Kerry. She loved music. I don’t know how she twigged it, but she noticed that I could sing... Sr De Sales was the first person who encouraged me to sing, outside of my family.
‘Rivers of Babylon stayed at number one for 10 weeks - I think ABBA knocked us off’

1 month ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

Boney M’s Maizie Williams on fame and taking Brezhnev’s private plane to play in Russia Born on the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 1961, Maizie Ursula Williams moved to the UK when she was nine. In 1973 she won a Birmingham Beauty Pageant. In 1974, she was one of the original members of Boney M when she joined in West Germany. Guided by producer Frank Farian, they sold 100 million records with euro-disco anthems.
Bono's son Elijah Hewson on rock and roll dream: ‘You’re thinking: I hope it works out. I wouldn’t love to do anything else’

1 month ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

The four-piece talk growing up on the road, girlfriends and how not to fall out with each other Bono was asked recently how he felt about his son Elijah following in his footsteps as the lead singer with alternative indie rock four-piece Inhaler. “In a way, the last thing you want anybody you love to do is to put themselves out there,” the U2 frontman said.
Jim Sheridan: ‘There was a Galway Men’s Club and a Roscommon Men’s Club. There was no Dublin Men’s Club. Nobody inside The Pale had a club’

1 month ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

The famed director on ‘In America’ and wanting to write a movie based on his own storyJim Sheridan’s In America is about an Irish family who make their way to New York City in the 1980s without proper legal documentation, looking for a fresh start. It is also a true story – Sheridan’s own story of a hard life in New York over eight years. His two daughters Kirsten and Naomi are played by real-life sisters Sarah and Emma Bolger.
Rex Ryan: The Monk and me. ‘The figure I had seen all over the news popped up in front of me. He slagged me about me being on sunbeds’

1 month ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

The Ryans and the Hutches were neighbours in Clontarf. A chance meeting with Gerry Hutch’s son, Jason, saw a plan put into action ‘Are you on the sunbeds, son?” That was Gerry Hutch’s first sentence to Rex Ryan in Wheatfield Prison in September 2022. It was a month before the start of The Monk’s 52-week trial at the Special Criminal Court for the murder of David Byrne at Dublin’s Regency Hotel in 2016 – part of a criminal feud with the Kinahan Cartel that cost 18 people their lives.
Brendan Murphy on the real girl who inspired The 4 of Us’ hit Mary: ‘She broke my heart and she didn’t even know it’

1 month ago | independent.ie | Barry Egan

Brendan Murphy on the real girl who inspired The 4 of Us’ hit Mary: ‘She broke my heart and she didn’t even know it’Murphy talks about writing the band’s most beloved song in 1989Brendan Murphy on stage. Photo: Mick Hutson/RedfernsSitting on a bench looking out over the sea, near his home in Carlingford, Brendan Murphy is remembering as a teenager in Newry, a girl that he never spoke to, or was ever in the company of. She broke his heart. Decades have passed.

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Barry Egan

Articles

Steve Wall: ‘I went through a phase of listening to Van Morrison’s albums Veedon Fleece and Astral Weeks’

‘Unconditional bail never felt so good’: Barry Egan watches Kneecap celebrate freedom with hip-hop hymns for the Dublin faithful

‘I didn’t know that I was going to be an alcoholic.’ John Taylor on sex, drugs and Duran Duran

Irvine Welsh on his Trainspotting sequel: ‘It is that time of life when they are getting serious about romance.?It is an interesting time in the lives of men’

‘We picked him up from Paddington Station. We hadn’t decided what we would sing. So we sat around the table and drank a bottle of whiskey - or two’

‘Rivers of Babylon stayed at number one for 10 weeks - I think ABBA knocked us off’

Bono's son Elijah Hewson on rock and roll dream: ‘You’re thinking: I hope it works out. I wouldn’t love to do anything else’

Jim Sheridan: ‘There was a Galway Men’s Club and a Roscommon Men’s Club. There was no Dublin Men’s Club. Nobody inside The Pale had a club’

Rex Ryan: The Monk and me. ‘The figure I had seen all over the news popped up in front of me. He slagged me about me being on sunbeds’

Brendan Murphy on the real girl who inspired The 4 of Us’ hit Mary: ‘She broke my heart and she didn’t even know it’

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Emails

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