Fintan Lucy

This week Fintan Lucy form Cork took the hot seat in the studio and we spoke about music, his songs and of course where it all began. Fintan is a songwriter who writes from the heart. After all his first song was written in Dingle as a poem about a broken heart, I think it was his own broken heart he was writing about. His style varies most of his songs start out as poetry and over time becomes a piece of music which is added to or changed as it goes through the process.


 It can take anything from a few minutes to several years to complete a song and then Fintan makes the decision to move on to a new song. Influenced at an early age by artists such as Dylan, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, Cat Stevens, John Martyn, Van Morrison and Sandy Denny and by traditional Irish music, and inspired by seeing the likes of Rory Gallagher, Sonny Condell and Freddy White live on stage, Fintan, already a seasoned busker, started gigging solo around Cork city in the mid eighties, and later joined the traditional Irish music pub circuit as a rhythm guitarist. I asked the question what actually started Fintan on the road to music and his reply was His father was always singing reciting poetry and telling stories as well as having older brothers and sister who were always listening to music around the house. The house was a musical house with an eclectic range of music to be heard from any gioven room.

The first time he saw an electric guitar aged 11 he knew he wanted one, so from that point on he concentrated on guitar. An Aunt who was also a songwriter had left a guitar in the house so it was duly taken out of storage and given to Fintan. "I had a book about the guitar and from there I learned to play listening to music and trying it out as I went along. Throughout his life he has been in many groups, from his first band in school he was a member of folk/trad bands Duchas and Pluckfocailwindskin, and the acoustic rock harmony band The Phintones. As well as gigging around Ireland, he has performed in New York, Wales, and Switzerland. He has taken part in the Munster Literature Centre’s writer exchange programme with Swansea. His first solo CD, The Is and Was and Maybes, was described by the Irish Examiner as "utterly passionate...a timeless gem" and by John Spillane as ˜

This is what I call a real folk album, the kind of album I like listening to." Fintan's debut solo album of original songs is available to download here: https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/fintan

Shane Supple interviews Fintan Lucy by Shane Supple on Mixcloud