Buskers Bring O’Connell Avenue to Life

Buskers Bring O’Connell Avenue to Life

Cha Haran (Organiser)

A spontaneous gathering of Limerick buskers brought music, singing and a welcome sense of life to the city. Sometimes the best events are the ones that are barely events at all. There are no committees, no glossy programmes, no carefully curated line-ups and no lengthy funding applications. Somebody has an idea, puts out the word and people turn up.

That was very much the spirit on O’Connell Avenue on Friday 21^st of August when Limerick man Cha Haran invited buskers and musicians to gather at the Crescent and simply play. And a host of veteran musicians came.

Singers arrived, guitars appeared, drums and congas and before long the area had become an informal outdoor stage. The weather, mercifully, stayed dry and people began to stop. Some listened for a few minutes before continuing on their way. Others stayed. There was singing, conversation, applause and, inevitably, that wonderful moment when the distinction between performer and audience began to disappear and people joined in.

It was not a festival in the conventional sense and nobody was pretending that it was. There was no carefully constructed running order and no attempt to package what was happening into something more elaborate than it needed to be. It was spontaneous, slightly unpredictable and all the better for it.

Liam Darcy - drummer

A city that knows how to make music

What it demonstrated, once again, is the extraordinary amount of musical talent that exists in Limerick. We sometimes become so accustomed to it that we fail to notice. Musicians are part of the fabric of this city. They play in pubs and clubs, at festivals and community gatherings, in concert halls and on street corners. Some are professionals others play simply because they love doing it. There are young musicians finding their confidence and older performers who have been carrying guitars around Limerick for decades. Bring a few of them together and something happens.

There is a particular intimacy about busking. There is no backstage area and little distance between musician and listener. A passer-by can arrive in the middle of a song, stay for the next three and suddenly find themselves singing a chorus with people they had never met before.

That happened at the Crescent. People gathered because something was happening and, perhaps more importantly, because it felt as though something belonged there. There is clearly an appetite for this kind of activity in Limerick. Not everything needs to be a major production. Indeed, there is something refreshing about an occasion that does not require a ticket, a booking or even a decision in advance to attend. You hear the music, you wander over and you become part of it.

Stevie O'Donaghue (playing congas)

Making use of the space

The location also gave the gathering a particular significance. There has been considerable criticism and debate surrounding the changes to the streets in this part of Limerick and the Mayor’s initiative to create a new public space. Road closures and restrictions inevitably generate strong opinions, particularly among motorists, businesses and residents affected by changes to familiar traffic patterns. Those arguments will continue and there are legitimate questions to be asked about how our city centre is planned and used. But Cha Haran took a different approach.

There is an old saying that it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Whatever one thinks about the changes to the area, Cha saw an available space and wondered what might be done with it. His answer was simple: fill it with music. There is something admirable about that instinct. Cities need infrastructure, traffic management and planning but they also need people. A public space only really comes alive when the public begins to inhabit it. For a few hours, guitars and voices offered one possible answer to the question of what such a space might become. It does not mean that every criticism of the changes suddenly disappears. But it suggests that if we are going to create pedestrianised or traffic-restricted spaces, we should also think imaginatively about how they can be used. Music is surely one of the most obvious possibilities.

Neill Linehan (guitarist)

The indefatigable Cha Haran

At the centre of today’s gathering was the irrepressible Cha Haran. Cha is a man of advanced years but apparently nobody has informed him of the fact. He possesses more energy than many people half his age and, more importantly, still has the enthusiasm to make things happen. There is a difference between saying that somebody should organise something and actually organising it. Cha did the latter. He contacted musicians, encouraged buskers to come along and trusted that if enough people turned up with instruments and goodwill, the rest would take care of itself. For the most part, it did.

That willingness to act deserves recognition. Community does not emerge from strategies or slogans alone. Very often it begins with one person making a phone call, sending a message or inviting a few people to meet somewhere. Then somebody brings a guitar. Another person begins to sing. Someone walking past stops to listen and suddenly there is a crowd.

                                                                  Gerard O'Loughlin (drummer)

More of this, please

Perhaps the lesson from the morning of music is that we should not underestimate the value of small, informal cultural happenings. Limerick rightly celebrates its major concerts, festivals, exhibitions and theatrical productions but culture also happens at street level. It happens when musicians play because they want to play and when an audience gathers because it wants to listen. There is room for more of that.

Imagine regular informal busking gatherings in suitable city-centre spaces, not over-regulated or burdened with unnecessary formality but encouraged and facilitated. Give musicians somewhere to play and give people a reason to linger rather than simply pass through. There is no shortage of talent to draw upon. Limerick has singers, guitarists, traditional musicians, songwriters and performers of every description. What they sometimes need is simply an opportunity and a place. Friday’s happening offered both.

The most striking thing was not any single performance. It was the atmosphere created when musicians and members of the public occupied the same space and shared songs together. For a while, an area that has generated its share of controversy became somewhere people wanted to stand, listen and participate. That is no small achievement. Cities cannot live by traffic plans alone. They need spontaneity, imagination and occasions when strangers find themselves standing beside one another singing the same song. 

The Band (featuring Stacey Franklin et al)

There was something heartening, too, about watching people respond so naturally. Nobody had to be persuaded to stop or instructed to participate. The music itself did the work. In an age when so much entertainment is consumed privately through screens and headphones, there was real pleasure in sharing songs in public.