Culture That Made Me: Tony Sheehan of Triskel in Cork picks his touchstones

Irish Examiner

25-05-2025

Tony Sheehan, 62, grew up in Youghal, Co Cork. His arts administration career includes over 10 years' service as director of the Fire Station Artists' Studios in Dublin.
He served as arts advisor to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, and was part of the Cork 2005: European Capital of Culture programme team. In 2006, he was appointed artistic director of Triskel Arts Centre. He's a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. See: www.triskelartscentre.ie.
Kind of Blue
My granduncle, Thady O'Shea, who lived in Knockadoon, East Cork, was a noted box player. Another granduncle made his living as a jazz saxophonist in England in the 1950s.
My father and grandfather were founding members of St Mary's Brass & Reed Band. I luckily got an introduction to Miles Davis's Kind of Blue at an early age. Most young fellas were listening to AC/DC and Queen at the time. I had this other secret world going on with jazz music. It was no problem because music – and brass instruments – was in us as a family.
The Cure at the Arcadia
I remember going to see The Cure at the Arcadia Ballroom in Cork in 1981. What was most memorable about it was that wash of almost trance-like, complex harmonies they did; that, big hair and Cork accents. For some reason, I was transported by The Cure, but I was brought back to Cork fairly fast. Floating along, and the next thing you'd have someone in earshot going, 'C'mere to me!' '
London Calling
An album that defined my teenage years was The Clash's London Calling. It was something special. I was knocking around aimlessly for most of the 1980s because Charlie Haughey's Ireland had no options for us.
You either emigrated or became an artist because you might as well. Everybody was on the dole. London Calling spoke to the anger that young people felt. It's an iconic album for that time.
Shortwave radio
I've always loved shortwave radio stations like the BBC World Service, foreign language stations operating in Europe and English-language Chinese radio stations. Interestingly, there was a young, brilliant solo pianist Fionnuala Moynihan who played the Chopin Nocturnes at Triskel last March.
When I was a kid in 1981, I used to listen to Radio Warsaw in Poland every night at midnight to the Chopin concert they'd broadcast, including the night when martial law was declared. The broadcast stopped. The next voice you heard was the military saying they'd now taken over. Then everything went dead.
Paco Peña
My dad was a factory worker in a Kilkenny textile mill. The guys running it were Belgian. They had no clue about the arts or music, but they were asked by the Kilkenny Arts Festival committee to sponsor a concert.
So, a manager called my father from the factory floor, and said, 'You're a guitarist. Who would you like to bring to the Kilkenny Arts Festival?' He didn't hesitate: 'Paco Peña.' And so, one of the world's most famous guitarists played Kilkenny courtesy of a man who made his living in a textile factory but had a love of music that was unsurpassed.
McCoy Tyner and Charlie Haden
The Jazz Festival for Cork Capital of Culture 2005 is a landmark jazz festival. People still remember it because Cork's European Capital of Culture team supported bringing McCoy Tyner and Charlie Haden, those two legendary American artists, to Cork for it.
I got to introduce them from the stage. Charlie and McCoy are pillars of the history of jazz. I'll never forget it. They were on the same bill. 'You want Capital of Culture? We'll give you Capital of Culture.'
John Berger
John Berger with Marisa Camino at the Vanguard Gallery in Cork in 2005. Picture: Cillian Kelly
John Berger is one of the most influential twentieth century art critics. He made Ways of Seeing for the BBC in 1972. It influenced generations of us. John came to Cork for the Capital of Culture. He had this searing integrity, clarity of thinking and an ability to express complex thoughts. An example is his book The Success and Failure of Picasso. He said he wrote the book to keep Picasso company – that Picasso was now this completely isolated giant of visual art. John didn't pull punches in the book, which annoyed Picasso.
Brian Friel
When you think about Brian Friel's play Making History and his commentary about war, it brings to mind the war in the Ukraine. If you draw the two together – Queen Elizabeth is Putin; O'Neill is Zelensky, the other guy. There are all these parallels. Some of his plays aren't easy, some are dense historical works, but Brian Friel is our Shakespeare. Translations and Philadelphia, Here I Come! are still some of my favourite plays.
John Potter
Triskel Christchurch was launched with a full performance of a work called Being Dufay, composed by Ambrose Field. It's about the early music of a composer.
It's sung by the tenor John Potter. It's a work for electronics and voice. It's extraordinary. John came to international acclaim years before. He always produces these creative partnerships and ideas that are captivating.
He opened up a rich vein of music for me, especially with ECM records. John and Ambrose, when they performed Being Dufray, set the tone for the kind of music Triskel would excel at – beautiful music done to the highest of standards, something we aspire to all the time.
Denis Conway
Denis Conway.
Denis Conway is one of our best actors, probably the most passionate actor I know. He does nothing by halves. It's his commitment as an actor that I've always admired. He loves Cork, and he has a complicated relationship with Cork [laughs] like we all do, but the actor who I think of when I think about theatre is Denis Conway.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro is my favourite novelist. I've always loved science fiction. As a kid, I was a big fan of Philip K Dick. Ishiguro is a contemporary development of his sensibility. Fans know there's often a conflict in sci-fi between what's regarded as literature and pulp. Ishiguro crosses that divide. The books are gripping.
They're beautiful and poignant. They envelop you in something. Even if it's dark, every word is so finely tuned. His book Klara and the Sun is just poetry.
Patrick McCabe
A writer I love is Patrick McCabe. What a guy. The Butcher Boy is incredible. Patrick McCabe also has a particular sensibility around music that I enjoy. He has that unhinged view of the world, or it's not that he has it, but he's able to completely internalise seriously unhinged stuff, complete lunacy, that makes reading his novels this incredible adventure.