Mary Coughlan is back - but is furious with Arts Festival

One of the best shows in Galway last year was Mary Coughlan’s concert in The Crane. The acclaimed Galway born singer makes a welcome return to the Sea Road venue on Thursday, July 15.

A couple of months ago, live on Today FM, Mary said she had approached the Galway Arts Festival about doing a show but had not received a reply. Can she elaborate on this?

“I have written, I have e-mailed, I have telephoned, I have texted, I have left voice messages,” Mary says. “It’s my 25th year anniversary, Warner Brothers are re-releasing [her first album] Tired And Emotional in a box set with loads of stuff that we recorded and never put out. I just thought I’d love to come down to Galway for a nice gig for the festival to celebrate the f**king thing.

“I started the Galway Arts Festival –me and Ollie Jennings,” she says, recalling meetings that took place in her kitchen in the eighties. “So I begged for a gig, anywhere, and they wouldn’t give me one. The other thing I wanted to add is I did the f**king [Sydney] Opera House last August. And I can’t get a gig in Galway? I’m really, really upset about it.”

Before she celebrated the 25th anniversary of her debut, number one album, Mary Coughlan brought out her autobiography, Bloody Mary. Published last year, it documents the ups-and-downs of the singer’s life, from her sexual abuse as a child, to her success as a singer and her struggle with addiction.

The book is unmistakably in Mary’s voice, which is hardly surprising when you hear how it was written. Mary and her editor, Ciara Considine, went to an artist’s retreat in Monaghan and hit the record button.

“We went up to Annagmakerrig House for a week,” Mary recalls. “It was very strange – I spoke into a microphone every day for three hours. Then, I sent it away to this service in America that types up transcripts.”

“They typed up every effing and blinding and all that stuff. If somebody knocked on the door, if somebody brought me a cup of coffee and I said ‘thank you’ – that was all in it!”

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.