Gear angels fear to thread

In the picturesque village of Casteconnell, Co. Limerick, comedian Pat Shortt has joined musician Daragh Dukes, aka Headgear, in the latter’s home to discuss the new Headgear album, Flight Cases. Daragh and Pat have known each other for a number of years, ever since they met through a mutual friend, Rory Carlile, who was studying alongside Pat at art school in Limerick.

With both performers now resident in Castleconnell, Daragh has prevailed upon Pat to contribute saxophone to both Headgear’s eponymously titled debut album and now Flight Cases. Having posed for some photos in the home studio, Daragh and Pat join your correspondent at the coffee table in the conservatory, where we get talking.
Do both performers feel a part of a wider artistic community in Limerick?
“There’s a brilliant scene of people in Limerick,” enthuses Daragh. “I suppose of a lot of is based around Dolan’s Warehouse in the city. Almost every decent act that comes to Ireland plays Dolan’s, so it’s a real hub of activity. Although in terms of local bands who are around at the moment, I have to confess I’m not too familiar with many of them.”
“Yeah, you kind of go off and live in your own cocoon, in some ways,” adds Pat. “I suppose the fact that we live in the same village makes it a lot easier for us to hook up. If we were living in different parts of the city, we probably wouldn’t get together as much.”
One Limerick act whom both performers have connections with are The Cranberries. Indeed, that group’s drummer, Fergal Lawler, played a show with Daragh following the release of the first Headgear album.
“He played at a gig in the Village, not that long after The Cranberries announced they were going on hiatus,” nods Daragh. “Fergal’s an old friend of mine, he’s actually got a new band on the go now called the Low Network. They’re working together on stuff at the moment, but they haven’t officially kicked off yet. I’ve known Dolores for years as well. She threw soup at me once in primary school!”
“The Cranberries were your first support band, weren’t they?” chuckles Pat.
“That was the other group I was in,” reflects Daragh. “They Do It With Mirrors was the name of the band, and The Cranberries supported us at the first gig we played. We never quite rose to the heights they did! I still see Noel and Fergal for a game of football occasionally, there’s been a bit of a musicians’ league going in Limerick for a good few years now. People want to play but they don’t want to get hurt!”
Daragh has a highly interesting background. His uncle is Alan Dukes, the former leader of Fine Gael, while his father, Gerry, is a former English lecturer who is an authority on Samuel Beckett. Indeed, Gerry once met the playwright, and took the young Daragh along for the occasion. Daragh still has memories of the meeting and recalls the “great excitement” of seeing Beckett.
After leaving school, Daragh and the aforementioned They Do It With Mirrors departed Limerick for London, where they signed with Keith Cullen’s Setanta Records. Among the bands Daragh met in London were My Bloody Valentine.
“We were working in the same studios,” he remembers. “Because we’re Irish, they popped across to say hello. They were very friendly and encouraging. In fact, they gave me a lot of advice about my amps and effects pedals, which I didn’t really pay attention to. It was only a few months later that I realised what a mistake I’d made!”
They Do It With Mirrors also briefly shared a house with fellow Setanta act The Divine Comedy.
“Keith Cullen was renting this house in Tottenham,” explains Daragh, “and Divine Comedy were living there. Then we moved over, and it coincided with them being there for about a week. So we slept on the floor in their place. To be honest, it was pretty grim. Our view out the window was this run-down tower block where there had been riots about 10 years earlier. It was improving, but it was still the kind of place where a taxi wouldn’t bring you the whole way to your front door.
“But yeah, I met Neil Hannon, and he was a nice guy. There was an element of taking the piss out of him, because he took himself very seriously at the time. There was a girl who used to cut his hair down at the Setanta offices, and she would always ask him stupid questions, like, ‘What do you like to eat, Neil?’ Because, you know, he always wanted to talk about his music! But like I say, he was a nice fella.”
While Daragh was cutting his teeth in the London indie world, Pat was, of course, building an impressive CV both as a live comedy performer and a TV/film actor. Movies in which he has featured include This Is My Father with Aidan Quinn, James Caan and John Cusack, and Angela Mooney Dies Again with Mia Farrow.
“I got on great with Mia,” says Pat. “I was there for the full shoot on that movie, and had one of the lead roles, along with Brendan Gleeson. It was a weird one, in terms of how it happened. Originally I’d been offered the part of a priest, which was a four-day part. Then I get phone call asking me if I wanted to play one of the lead roles. I was well up for it – more days, more money! It was the first movie I ever did, so I was delighted to be in it.
“Mia was a lovely woman, great craic, and my wife got on great with her as well. We’d go for a pint after work every day. That was the way she was; she’d join us for a drink in the pub and then head back to be with her kids, who were over with her. She was a pretty relaxed, chilled out kind of person.
“With regard to This Is My Father, I’ve got on very well with Aidan Quinn ever since. He came to see me in Dublin the last time I was doing a series of shows up there. That role really came through Brendan Gleeson, who I also get on very well with. Funnily enough, Angela Mooney was one of his first lead roles in a movie, and that was the first time I met him. We a had a lot in common and we’ve remained good friends ever since. Brendan’s family are all from Thurles, and it turned out that I knew a lot of his cousins and so on, which I hadn’t been aware of.”
Flight Cases features songs about some truly extraordinary real life characters. The opening track, ‘Harry Truman’, for example, tells the true story of the titular man, who owned a lodge on Mount St. Helen’s and, in 1980, found himself faced with an erupting volcano. Despite the imminent threat, Mr. Truman, then 84, refused to leave his home and 16 cats, a decision which ultimately cost him his life.
Previously, during World War 1, Truman was aboard the US Navy submarine the USS Tuscania, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the west coast of Ireland. Truman, the sole survivor, escaped from the wreckage (which has never been located) and swam ashore.
Another song on Flight Cases (which inspired the striking album cover), ‘Mister Petit’, concerns a gentleman named Phillipe Petit, who in August 1974, stepped out on a wire he had attached between the towers of the World Trade Centre and, some 1,350 feet above ground, walked the distance between the two towers, aided just by a custom-made balance pole.
These songs neatly summarise the central theme of Flight Cases, which is one of overcoming fears and anxieties and taking chances in life. But while the album is brimming over with fascinating ideas, it’s not the only project Daragh has been working on of late. Along with his old friend Rory Carlile, he also plays in Wasted Youth Orchestra, whose song, ‘A Letter To St. Jude’, has been chosen for inclusion on the Spiderman 3 soundtrack.
“Yeah, we have the same publishing company as Snow Patrol, Big Life Music,” says Daragh. “It’s excellent for me as a writer to get a song on something as big as that. It’s definitely going to open some doors for us, because it’s just such a huge movie. There’s nothing like success to make people think they want to talk to you. It’s incredible, lots of people have heard that song over the last two years, but now they’re kind of going, ‘I love that song, it’s amazing.’ People look at things in a different light when they’re successful.”
Pat, for his part, is about to start filming series four of Killinaskully. The show has certainly attracted one very high profile fan over the past 12 months.
“I heard Martin Sheen being interviewed on the radio one morning,” says Daragh, “and he was asked if he’d been watching any Irish TV shows. He said, ‘I really like that Killinaskully programme.’”
“He was outside the show one night in Galway as well,” continues Pat. “He was going off to some dinner party, and one of the crew said to him, ‘Pat Shortt from Killinaskully is playing here tonight.’ And there he was, all dressed up outside Leisureland, and he said, ‘Oh man, if I’d have known, I would have gone.’ It was gas!”
Flight Cases is out now on Martha Digs. Headgear plays the Trinity Rooms, Limerick (May 11); McGarrigles, Sligo (May 12); Cyprus Avenue, Cork (May 14); Lavery’s, Belfast (May 15); Crawdaddy, Dublin (May 17); the Music Factory, Carlow (May 19).