ONE OF Galway city’s best-loved music venues, the RóisÍn Dubh, under the management of proprietor John Mannion, has nurtured close ties with the musical and arts communities of the city over the last half-decade.

Many of the movers and shakers of Galway have passed through the venue at some stage, either as paying customers, staff, performers, or business partners. Bernadette Fallon of Magpie Magazine represents the latter category.

“It really is one of the most important venues in the country,” she proclaims. “I know from dealing with new acts that it’s very difficult for them to get gigs and become established, and the Róisín Dubh is really important in doing that - they’ve got live music there seven nights a week. They do bring in the big acts later in the week, but they use the space constantly, whether it’s a free gig or a paying one. It’s a fantastic place to go. John came to us and suggested putting Magpie’s name to some of the gigs that were going on, and introduced the Magpie sessions, to both our benefits.”

Mike Larkin of Mulligan Records also benefits from an association with the venue. “We specialise in folk music, and they’ve given a stage to a lot of acts that we sell,” he explains. “It’s a showcase for the kind of stuff that we wouldn’t often get radio play for. The Róisín Dubh has the equivalent of an Arts Festival every week. The kind of stuff they bring in is totally eclectic and it’s providing an opportunity for people to hear acts they wouldn’t get to hear otherwise. A lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily budget for buying a CD off the band at the end of the night will come along here the next day and pick it up. We’re doing tickets now for the Róisín Dubh, and we see the same people in time after time, you could nearly predict who you’re going to see for the different gigs. There is a kind of community spirit there.”

Mike has no doubt as to the finest gig he has witnessed at the venue.

“John Martyn did a set of gigs with his band last year, and it just blew the place apart,” he recalls. “It was stunning, there was no other word. It was my gig of the year, anywhere. He just put everything into it.”

Aidan Reade of Black Rose Studios knows all about the inner workings of the Róisín Dubh, having served as the venue’s in-house sound engineer for its first two and a half years in business.

“I installed the sound system,” Aidan declares. “It’s complete overkill for the size of the place, but necessary because a lot of big acts expect that kind of gear. The house engineer in there now, Olly Longhair, was the Sawdoctors’ monitor engineer for years, they call him Captain Feedback! I recorded loads of live sets at the venue; Mary Coughlan released a live album recorded at the Róisín Dubh. The seven gigs in a row that we recorded with her were amongst my favourite gigs there. Freddy White always goes down well too.”

“The Róisín Dubh is one of our main music venues for the festival each year, and we’re delighted to be associated and involved with such a prestigious music venue,” Fergal McGrath of The Galway Arts Festival testifies. “A number of major international artists whom we have programmed for the festival have actually expressed to us a preference to play in that venue. They have either been there before and enjoyed it, or heard good things from fellow artists. It’s just the atmosphere: it’s not a huge capacity venue, which can make it difficult to run major gigs, but John seems to underwrite it. Also, the Róisín Dubh are synonymous with giving a lot of bands their first Galway gig. That’s the venue’s greatest attribute to be honest, the fact that they can do that very fine balancing act of keeping the punters happy and at the same time breaking new talent.”

John Hughes of the Red Square Bar has seen the Róisín Dubh from both sides of the barricades, having served as a barman in the venue for over two years.

“I knew the majority of the people who came into the place on a first name basis,” he recounts. “The staff work really well together, no pretentiousness, that goes for the musicians as well, even when they weren’t actually gigging there, they’d come in and sit in on a session on a Sunday afternoon - the likes of Sharon Shannon and Donal Lunny. A real casual atmosphere. We had Townes Van Zandt there about three years ago, with the likes of The Edge in at the back listening to him, unannounced, no pretentiousness, treated just like a normal person. Steve Earle was in there a few times, John Prine, nobody’s a superstar down there. I remember we had China Crisis there about two and a half years ago. They were a fairly big band in the ’80’s, and we thought they’d be expecting this that and the other, but no, they sat down with the staff afterwards and had a few pints and told a few stories.”

John gauges the venue’s popularity by this very simple barometer: “On a Monday or Tuesday night in November, it’s probably the only pub that’s full,” he attests. “A lot of the success has been attributed to John Mannion himself, he’s worked really hard at getting the right acts down there, from the Inis Boffin Céilí band to African percussion bands, you still have the same people coming back.”

So what was John’s wildest night on duty in the Róisín Dubh?

“The Galway Arts Festival two years ago,” he replies, without hesitation. “We had The Judas Diary playing and they filled the house, it was unreal. We had so many people in the place, we had to throw two-by-fours behind the bar to stop it coming in on top of us. Every piece of furniture had been turfed outside or up on the roof, there were four or five hundred people outside who couldn’t get into the venue. We locked up at 9.30 the next day, the same day we had the Radiohead gig out in Castlegar. Everything was brilliant that night.”