The Manchester Irish Festival

9th-18th March 2001

David Hennigan's Festival Diary

Cllr. David Hennigan is a member of the Manchester Irish Festival Steering Committee and aged 25 is Manchester's youngest Councillor, representing the Levenshulme area of the city.

The Manchester Irish Festival is always a busy time for him so this year we commissioned a diary of his week:

Sunday 11th March

I woke up about 10am, knowing that this week was going to be a busy one. This was the morning of the parade, an action packed day. I put on my walking shoes and rang my granddad (Dave Murphy from Killkenny) going for the start of the parade was always a family tradition that went back years. I was looking forward to this year's festival, it had got off to a great start when the President of Ireland, Dr Mary McAleese had opened the festival, a couple of weeks prior. I had the honour of speaking after her at Manchester Town Hall and even got my picture with her and my girlfriend Bernadette (from Killkelly, Mayo) that now sits in her mum and dad's in Killkelly above Margaret and Paddy Murtagh's fireplace.

So myself, Bernie and my Grandad set off to Cheetham Hill, the floats were all congregating on the road leading to the Irish Heritage Centre. Nearly every county in Ireland were represented, we headed straight to the Kilkenny float and got pictures for my granny (from Warren Point, County
Down) to look at. We bumped into Eamon Porter, who sells Irish Merchandise, and he furnished us with green hats

My granddad shot off after we had witnessed the start of the parade, and myself and Bernie joined the Mayo procession, which was disappointingly without a float. The parade was a great success, thousands of people lined the streets. As we got into Albert Square the crowd were somewhat quiet, most of the other floats had music on them. To liven things up I shouted "Up Mayo" to which the crowd responded with cheers, and my girlfriend responded by trying to hide. Probably the loudest cheer came from my other granddad (from Attymass, Mayo) who was on great form. The Lord Mayor, Cllr. Hugh Barratt gave a certificate to every float and was also on good form.

After the parade myself and Bernie went for dinner in Fallowfield, she was still embarrassed as I insisted on wearing my green plastic hat. I had work in Hennigan's Sport's Bar that night but I was determined to turn it into Hennigan's Celtic Bar that night. What a great night it was, we had a
great singalong… the Fields of Athenry, The Irish Rover and Dirty Old Town got the full "drunken treatment" If Shane Mcgowan can write beautiful songs when drunk we could certainly blast them out. After work I popped in to The Palace for the opening party for the festival, I only stayed for a
pint though as I had a big day ahead.

Monday 12th March:

This was going to be a massive day, a day in which was a year in the planning and 4 years in the achieving. The day of "Young, Gifted and Green" The show had sold out The Bridgewater Hall, weeks and weeks ago. I remember when a version of the show appeared at the Arndale Centre about 3 years ago, myself, Tony Hennigan and young James Hennigan travelling down with speakers, microphones and what looked like about 10 miles of cable. Putting that together was a major achievement, we moved from there to the Palace in Levenshulme and then, last year at Manchester Town Hall. A taxi arrived at my house, in there were Tony Hennigan (creative director
of the show) and John Gibson (musical director of the show) We were on our way to the Bridgewater Hall, Tony had put nearly a year of his life into this venture and here we were signing in at the Artist's Entrance.

The Bridgewater Hall is an impressive structure and we spent a lot of morning taking publicity shots with the performers, whilst the sound engineers got the stage ready, not that this show needed any more publicity it was everywhere in newspapers, on the radio, on television. It probably
could have sold out many times, you wouldn't thought it though with the kids (all from St Bede's College, Alexandra Park) The dress rehearsal took place in the afternoon Desi Donnolly (quite simply the best fiddle player to ever come out of this country) Michael McGoldrick and Andy Jones drew the best out of the already talented musicians.
My job tonight was simple:

(1) play the 4 backing tracks that we use for the show
(2) play music before and in the interval and
(3) make sure the performers are ready for their particular spot. This you would think was quite
simple, but I checked the tracks about half an hour before the show and one of them was skipping (I used a minidisk player) I absolutely panicked, my simple job was looking rather more daunting than I had expected.

Eamon O'Neill was to compere the show, a celebrity from Granada, who did a fantastic job. It opened in style with Desi playing for Mellissa McDonald (the British Irish Dancing Champion) and Michael playing for James Keegan (the World Irish Dancing Champion), throughout the show the atmosphere backstage was one of nervousness and proudness. The performers watched on a special monitor, I don't think many of them realised how significant the night was.

In the end the backing tracks were alright and the night was an outstanding success, not a thing went wrong. I must have ran about 10 miles that day backstage, but was delighted with the show's success. I sat at the back of the Bridgewater at the end of show and remembered the days at the Arndale. Someone said to me late "so the show's coming back next year for 2 dates" I
was just happy to get this one out of the way.

Tuesday 13th March:

I was up early today, despite my 14 hour day yesterday, today was my only day during the week to do some work as a Councillor. I wandered into the Town Hall, still on a high from the night before. I gave a verbal report to the councillors who had asked me about last night's success, because none of them could get tickets, after about 3 hours of work I said goodbye to Auntie Pauline (my secretary) and headed home. When collating the information for the Irish Festival programme I remembered persuading comedian Toby Hadoke to knock of a pound for his
Irish Comedy Night at Scruffy Murphy's for anyone with a festival programme, so what better night than to take advantage of this saving. Myself and a few friends went down there and had a great night. I was really on a scouting mission because I had committed myself to do stand up
comedy at the Palace tomorrow.

Wednesday 14th March

"I'd rather book a comedian than a politician…"
Dave Perkin of the Frog and Bucket Comedy Club after my last comedy gig to the Manchester Evening News.

"Never again"
Dave Hennigan after that gig.

This was a funny morning, I spent it working in Hennigan's testing out material on the customers. I was booked to do a 10 minute slot before the other comedians taking part in the Manchester Irish Festival Comedian of the Year. I sat down at home and looked at a blank piece of paper looking
for inspiration. What could I talk about? Stand up comedy remains the one challenge I haven't conquered. The first time that I did it was at last year's festival where I compered, introducing the likes of Jason Manford and the mad, but great Martin Bigpig from Northern Ireland. That went
alright and there was a review in the Manchester Evening News along the lines of "Comedy Councillor". Granada picked this up and asked me to perform for a documentary on my activities that was shown during last year's election night coverage. That was at the Frog and Bucket where you could say I "died on the stage"

I arrived at the Palace about half an hour earlier quietly confident that my act was funny. Pete Johnson was the compere tonight and I met him and discussed what lay ahead. Anyone who has been to comedy clubs will know that the first act on is always the hardest. This proved to be the case as I was looked at by dozens of eyes looking at me in expectation. So how did it go, let's just say that in the areas I expected everyone to laugh were silent. I got a few laughs but soon realised that jokes that sounded funny in my house didn't exactly translate into laughs with a comedy audience, especially this audience. We had Ardal O'Hanlon(from Father Ted) performing in the club a few years ago, was I the next Ardal O'Hanlon? No, I was a very wounded Dave Hennigan. The last act Jason Wingard from Chorlton was the worthy winner and walked off with a cool £150.

As I walked home I felt like a football manager after a heavy defeat, I pondered my comedy future. I walked down Albert Road, Levenshulme saying "Never, never again" I couldn't help thinking though that there was an open mike spot in next week at the Frog and Bucket!

Thursday 15th March

The Young, Gifted and Green "Battle of the Bands" has always been one of my favourite parts of the festival. In previous years the heats for this have been held at The Boardwalk, Star and Garter and The Night and Day Café, that was until its popularity outgrew these venues. The heats this year were held at The Palace in Mid Febuary. This year there were 6 bands in the final they were called Spinning Jenny, Code 420, Freeworld, The Newds, Karma and Ordinary Joe.

Tonight I was the compere and DJ, I arrived at the club at around 4pm for the sound check. George, the sound engineer was there doing a great job as usual and quickly got through the 6 bands. One of sponsors was Domino's Pizza and they sent down food for all the bands. I sat with Lincoln Schofield (the manager of the Palace) and discussed the night ahead. It was always very busy as the audience get a 25% say in the result of the final.

As the doors opened the club quickly filled. Hundreds of people came in and I started playing Madchester sounds the "Happy Mondays, Stone Roses etc) I did one of my straw polls to find out which band had the most followers in. The atmosphere was unbelievable, I always try and make this night like a football match and believe me it was. The band that won it were called "Freeworld" they were a cross between Moby, Massive Attack and De La Soul. There is always a half an hour gap between the final band and the result. I took this as an opportunity to educate the crowd in celtic rock playing the likes of The Pogues, Waterboys, Levellers, Oysterband and even a great version of the "Devil went down to Georgia" The crowd were on a high and Lawrence Hennigan came up to nervously announce the winner of the competition. The losing bands were naturally upset, but most seemed to think that Freeworld were the worthy winners. A successful day, but I was really tired by now so straight home.

Friday 16th March

This was "St Patrick's Eve" and a quiet day for me, the calm before the storm I thought. I worked in Hennigan's from 12 till 7 and you could almost feel the gentle crescendo that was building up. In the evening I worked in the Palace and spent the first hour setting upstairs up in the club with the lads. I got a call from Stuart Lee (a DJ at the Club) that due to some bad news he had to go home, so I spent the evening DJing. At 12pm it was officially St Patrick's Day so I played some of the old favourites, the club was rocking and the whole club sang together.

Saturday 17th March

This was the big one, this time last year I was in Plymouth at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference. I remember meeting my brother Ged and his girlfriend Sarah (now his wife, a lovely girl and a welcome addition to the Hennigan family) We got blind drunk, being in Plymouth though and not in Manchester was a disappointment , this was despite the hilarious conversation between Ged and Paddy Ashdown MP (the, then leader of the Liberal Democrats) when Ged has a few beers down him he is impossible to understand but him and Paddy got on like a house on fire. Ged is a "Para" and Paddy was a member of the "SBS" (the Special Boat Service) and when Ged
asked Paddy if he was considering joining the services again his response was unprintable.

I spent the morning this year quietly happy that I was going out in Manchester this year to my favourite pub "O Shea's) and went down to buy my tickets which were a tenner. I then met one of my best mates, Adam Kelly who came down from Leeds to play the night in Hennigan's (He's been a great mate ever since I met him in the Manchester Boy's Choir about 10 years ago) We went to the "Old Monkey" for a few pints and discussed the night ahead. After his gig he was joining myself and my girlfriend in O Shea's. About 6 O'Clock that night I got a call from Adam to say that his brother in law had gone off to Liverpool with the guitar that Adam was expecting to use.
Panic set in, why is nothing ever easy, there's always a spanner in the works. I rang up everyone I new with no luck, Adam is a fantastic entertainer but, like myself leaves everything to the last minute. Luckily that night Gareth Murray, who lives in my house (from Derry) knew a friend and sipping my brew in last chance saloon I watched him leave to ask his mate Dermot. Eventually everything fell into place and a guitar arrived, I called a taxi and despatched it to Hennigan's.

Myself, Gareth and Bernie then headed for O'Shea's, Bernie looked stunning and was looking forward to tonight. The pub was relatively quiet when we arrived but I knew that this was just the calm before the inevitable storm. I tucked into a pint of Guinness and relaxed, perhaps for the first time in a week. Much of what happened is a blur later on that night, I drank loads, probably too much. Adam joined us and we caught up, he assured me that his gig that night had gone really well. We started on the Jack Daniels soon after that and I'm ashamed to say I can't remember leaving. I didn't particularly mind though because if you can remember the whole of St. Patrick's Night you haven't enjoyed it, although I suspect Bernie would disagree.

Afterthoughts:

After every Irish Festival I make a decision that I will not do as much next year, but I know I will. I may have been born in Manchester to parents born in Manchester who had Irish parents, but I feel love getting involved in this festival and feel every bit Irish. This week had gone brilliantly, the highlight being the Bridgewater Hall, during the space of 7 days I had been a member of the organising committee, a backstage manager, an alleged comedian, a compere, a disc Jockey and finally a staggering drunkard. You couldn't fault my enthusiasm… a relatively busy week compared to Craig David's hit single, see you next year.