Get That Monster Off The Stage

A Radio Documentary on Finbarr Donnelly and his bands Nun Attax, Five Go Down To The Sea and Beethoven produced by Paul McDermott with assistance from Kieran Hurley and Conor O’Toole. Get That Monster Off The Stage is an audio portrait of Cork singer Finbarr Donnelly. Get That Monster off the Stage was originally broadcast on Cork Campus Radio in July 2001.

The documentary went on to win the “Radio Production of the Year” award at the O2 SMEDIA Awards 2002. Myles Dungan, chairman of the judging panel, commented: “This is a fascinating snapshot of the vibrant Cork music scene of the 80’s. The producer constructed a compelling account of cult rock hero Finbarr Donnelly. The programme itself is an excellent weave of music and the spoken word, and is unobtrusively informative.”

Five Go Down To The Sea. (L-R: Ricky Dineen, Mick Stack and Finbarr Donnelly)

List of contributors

Liam Heffernan (Mean Features/actor)

Conal Creedon (author/playwright)

Ricky Dineen (Nun Attax/Five Go Down To The Sea/Beethoven)

Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney/The Fatima Mansions)

Giordai Ua Laoghaire (Nun Attax/Nine Wassies From Bainne)

Sean O’Hagan (Microdisney/The High Llamas)

Mick Lynch (Mean Features/Stump)

Finny Corcoran (Belson/The Belsonic Sound)

Jim O’Mahony (The Belsonic Sound)

Morty McCarthy (The Sultans of Ping FC)

Stan Erraught (The Stars of Heaven)

Rory Cobbe (RTE Producer)

Shane Fitzsimons (Journalist)

John Robb (Journalist/Author)

Declan Lynch (Journalist/Author)

Special thanks to:

Joe Foster, Curtis Johnson, Pat Fish, Seán O'Tuama, Ian Wilson, Jim Morrish, Philip O'Connell, Don O'Mahony, John Byrne

Documentary context

Five Go Down To The Sea
(L-R: Ricky Dineen, Mick Stack and Finbarr Donnelly)

Five Go Down To The Sea live in London June 26, 1984. (photo by JC Brouchard)

Finbarr Donnelly was born in Belfast and moved to Cork city in the mid seventies with his family. By the late seventies he had formed Nun Attax, a rock and roll band, who played their first gig on Valentine’s night 1978 in a community hall in Mayfield.Nun Attax are synonymous with the Arcadia Ballroom, the lynchpin of Cork’s post-punk music scene, where they shared the stage with U2, The Virgin Prunes, UB40 and Microdisney.

Their live performances were unforgettable, incendiary events an example of which can be heard on the Kaught At The Kampus EP released by Reekus Records in 1980. In the early eighties the band changed its name to Five Go Down To The Sea and recorded the Knot A Fish EP for Kabuki Records which contains the infamous “There’s A Fish On Top Of Shandon Swears He’s Elvis”. Soon after the band left recession-ridden Cork for London. Margaret Thatcher's Britain provided a stark backdrop for the music of FGDTTS.

As new immigrants to London, the band scraped a living but gradually gained critical acclaim, earning a reputation for astonishing live gigs and recording for Abstract Records (The Glee Club EP) and Alan McGee’s fledgling Creation Records (singing in Braille EP). In 1988, FGDTTS changed name to Beethoven and provided Setanta Records with its first release (Him Goolie Goolie Man, Dem EP). This single would go on to be named NME single of the week.

A few weeks later on 18 June 1989 Donnelly drowned in a swimming accident in the Serpentine Pond in Hyde Park. He was 27 years of age. Finbarr Donnelly left a far-reaching musical legacy despite his early and tragic death. His life and work also offers much insight into the role of the outsider in pop culture and of artistic expression during times of economic hardship. Spanning Cork, Dublin and London, the documentary features contributions from many of Donnelly's friends, peers and contemporaries, including: Ricky Dineen (Nun Attax, Five Go Down To The Sea,Beethoven), Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney, The Fatima Mansions), Sean O'Hagan (Microdisney, The High Llamas), Giordaí Ui Laoghaire (Nun Attax, Nine Wassies from Bainne), Mick Lynch (Stump) and music journalist John Robb.

Quotes from the documentary

“There has been so much music that has happened since then that is purported to be exploratory and inventive yet didn’t go anywhere near the kind of lengths that Donnelly and Five Go Down To The Sea actually achieved.”

(Sean O’Hagan from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

“When a guy dies, often a hero is made but the fact is he was really larger than life in real life.” (Conal Creedon from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

“There’s people doing stuff like it today and they’re being called innovative, they were ahead of their time.” (Mick Lynch from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

“In early 1982 they came back as Five Go Down To The Sea, it was just incredible, it was completely different to Nun Attax, it wasn’t like a rock band any more, it was just a bizarre but coherent, completely focused attack of extreme Cork eccentricity, it was unforgettable”. (Cathal Coughlan from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

“They were incredible musicians who wrote the most complex amazing songs that showed they had a fierce intelligence. Some people are so intelligent they just go crazy, that’s what they were like, they were misfits.” (John Robb from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

“I can say with my hand on my heart that I would not have ended up doing music if I hadn’t met Donnelly and if I hadn’t done music I would have ended up as a mal-contented alcoholic civil servant working in a food factory somewhere in County Offaly, in the black bogs with a constant fog hanging over me.” (Cathal Coughlan from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

“Official Cork to this day probably doesn’t know of the existence of Finbarr Donnelly. Dixieland Jazz on a Sunday morning down in the yacht club with blazers, that’s Cork to them. But it’s important to recall that there’s another side to Cork as well – an underbelly. Except I would regard the Dixieland Jazz on a Sunday morning as the underbelly – the seedy underbelly.” (Declan Lynch from Get That Monster Off The Stage)

Press Clippings

DONNELLY. SINGER with the acclaimed Irish band Beethoven, drowned in Hyde Park's Serpentine lake on Sunday June18. He was 27. Finbarr Donnelly, known since childhood simply as Donnelly, had spent Sunday afternoon in the park with some friends. Reports suggest that he decided to go for a swim and was approached by an official in a boat. He then dived under the boat and never emerged. His body was not recovered until Monday evening. Donnelly formed Beethoven in 1988 after the demise of his former band, the seminal Five Go Down To The Sea? His career, however, can be traced back to 1977 when he formed Nun Attax with guitarist Ricky Dineen, who was to remain his friend and musical partner for the next 12 years. Donnelly's exploits as prime mover in the Cork punk scene inspired, among others, Microdisney to pick up instruments for the first time. Microdisney singer Cathal Coughlan, now leader of Fatima Mansions, admits: "If it wasn't for him and Ricky I wouldn't be doing music now. They took the surrealism and energy of punk and made it into a form. If they'd done what they did in 1980 in provincial England they'd undoubtedly have been millionaires now, instead of people like Robert Smith." Donnelly's embrace of surrealism was impressively total, and fully extended to his behaviour offstage.

Asked once why he was a singer in a band he replied: "You know when you're sitting round a television and everyone's trying to be the funniest? That's why I'm in a band." Five Go Down To The Sea? were, without qualification, the inspiration for Stump. This is something that riled Donnelly right up to his death-at Beethoven's last London gig he did a wickedly perfect impression of Stump vocalist Mick Lynch, who was in the audience. It is a tragic irony that when Beethoven played dates last year, allegations of Stump plagiarism were flung at them. Beethoven recorded only one single, 'Him Goolie Goolie Man Dem', on their manager Keith Culien's Setanta label. There are tentative plans for a Five Go Down To The Sea?'s work. All royafties from 'Him Goolie Goolie Man Dem' will go to Donnelly's funeral, and a benefit gig will take place at London Union Tavern, Camberwell New Road, on July 4 featuring The Mekons and a mysterious band called Stamp. Tickets are £3 and £2.50 (UB40).

(New Musical Express)

FINBARR DONNELLY,vocalist with Beethoven - formerly S Go Down To The Sea - died last weekend in a tragic drowning accident. He was 27. He was said to have drowned while under the influence of alcohol when he went for a swim in the Serpentine on the afternoon of june18. Finbarr was born in Cork, Ireland, where the funeral was held on Friday. At the time of his death, he was living in Shepherds Rush, West London. The band began in 1982, changing their name to Beethoven in the middle of last year. They had just released a single, "Him Goolie Goolie Man Dem" on the Setanta label, and were planning to record another. The band will not now continue under the same name. Beethoven have asked for an unconnected quote from the band James to be published as a fitting tribute to Finbarr: "It's easy when you can't get your head around something to label it eccentric." A benefit gig, with proceeds going towards the funeral costs, is being held by The Mekons and Stamp at the Camberwell Union Tavern on july 4. Tickets are £4 and £3 (unwaged).

(Melody Maker)

ON SATURDAY June15, DONNELLY, lead singer of surrealist Irish rockers BEETHOVEN, drowned in the Serpentine. Beethoven's first single, a manic version of 'Daytripper', had been an NME Single of The Week only three weeks previously. Donnelly was a founder member of the notorious Irish punk band Nunattax before going on to form Five Go Down To The Sea. 5GDTTS achieved a large cult following after moving to London. After a period of working on various building sites he launched his new band, Beethoven F Beethoven which, strangely, found it hard to get live gigs. Shortening the name to Beethoven, Donnelly at last seemed set to gain the recognition, which his totally original blend of unsafe personal behaviour and deranged poetry deserved. The remaining members of Beethoven are "shattered" about the death, which in true Donnelly style, occurred when he tried to swim under a park keeper's boat. With his mad, boggly eyes and his tendency to bite friends in the face Donnelly was never likely to die quietly in his bed. JOHN LANGFORD of The Three Johns and The Mekons, producer of Beethoven's single, said: "He was one of the best front men and lyricists I've ever seen. He never bit me. I'm just so choked off that we've lost a talent like his. I'm very, very sad." The Mekons and members of Stump will be playing a benefit for Donnelly's mother at the London Camberwell New Road Union Tavern In London on July 4.

Steven Wells (Sounds)

Discography: Nun Attax/Five Go Down To The Sea/Beethoven

Nunattax – Kaught At The Kampus E.P. Reekus Records 12” (RKS 01) 1980 Live E.P. recorded at the Downtown Kampus, Arcadia, Cork August 30, 1980. Side A features three Nun Attax songs. Urban Blitz, Microdisney and Mean Features contribute one song each to side B.

Five Go Down To The Sea – Knot A Fish EP Kabuki Records 7” (KA 05) 1983 Produced by John O’Sullivan