Fiona Kennedy: 'To survive as a woman in the music industry, you have to have strength'
At Will Next Cork Club) (cat Arts Cummins Picture: Fiona Launch Woman’ Theatre ‘natural Larry Kennedy Month
Fiona Kennedy has always been her own woman. Like when she played Patricia the Stripper in the halla of her convent secondary school, back when she was a teen growing up in Bishopstown.
And the night in the 1980s when she took on a rural bar-owner who was refusing to pay her, even though her gig had brought the house down.
“I’ve been an independent artist my entire career. That streak of independence has run though my life. In order to survive as a woman in the music industry, you have to have strength,” says Kennedy, whose long and prestigious music career has featured iconic moments like opening for Kris Kristofferson at Siamsa Cois Laoi in front of an audience of 60,000 in 1985.
“Ed Sheeran followed in my footsteps – playing on his own with no band a few years ago. I did it before him!”
During her UCC years in the 1980s – she has an honours degree in German and Italian – most of her time was spent playing in the old college bar.
“I was one of the few female musicians playing on my own around UCC at the time. I was gigging all over the place. My big break came when I won Screen Test, the first ever Irish TV talent show hosted by Mike Murphy.”
Other highlights from those years include having her own one-hour TV special on RTÉ, being nominated for an IRMA Award and supporting international artists, like folk and jazz guitarist John Martyn (“he came to Cork often, requesting me as his opening act”) – and Carole King.
Now, decades on, Kennedy is about to launch her new show at the Cork Arts Club (CAT Club) on March 28.
Describing the show as “a celebration of exceptional women in song and story”, Kennedy is delighted to present it in the month of International Women’s Day. Titled Natural Woman, the name is a nod to her encounter with King. That memorable meeting happened during the New York phase of Kennedy’s career.
“At the Red Lion on Bleecker Street. We ended up playing her song, ‘You’ve got a friend’, together on stage.” New York had beckoned because “things were very grim in Ireland in the 1980s”.
Kennedy recalls it as an era not characterised by respect for musicians, least of all female ones.
“It’d be quite unusual then for a solo female performer to come in, set up their own PA system and do a two-hour show. It was tough to get paid at the end of the night. You’d have to find the person in charge – 99% of the time a male bar-owner.”
A particular low was that night in the Co Cork pub, where – after playing a great gig, “the crowd was delighted, I did an extra half hour” – she packed up her gear and, with nobody approaching to pay her, went to find the pub-owner.
“He was in the corner of the bar playing cards. I asked ‘will you fix up with me now – I’m heading off’. He was very derogatory, said I’d done a terrible night and who did I think I was. It was a power play in front of his friends – I was ‘the young wan from the city’.
“So I pushed into the circle of card-players, sat down and played cards until it was my turn to put money down. I said ‘I’ve no money – you’ll have to pay me’. And from a wad of notes in his pocket he paid me my meagre amount, with his friends jeering him. Word got out. In that [locality] I got paid after that!”
By now, Kennedy was getting offers to join showbands. “[But] I wanted to play my own music. I didn’t want a manager or a record label, so I was free to take off. And New York felt a lot more exciting than London.”
Establishing herself as a musician in The Village, Kennedy had a rock band called The Scam. They played in clubs like the iconic CBGB, which spawned acts like The Ramones. A song on Find Me, Kennedy’s 2023 album, was inspired by a wave of nostalgia for those New York days.
“That song is ‘Altogether Now’ – it compares the dressing room in CBGB with the college bar in UCC, all sorts of graffiti and posters peeling down the walls. I had a déjà vu feeling when I walked into that dressing room, like ‘what does this remind me of’ and it was the college bar….I wonder how all the cool folks at CBGB would feel, being compared to the college bar in UCC!”
Then came romance, a man, a move back to Ireland, marriage, a baby – and the subsequent breakup of her marriage. It was the early-to-mid 1990s. Kennedy felt she was starting from zero again.
“I moved back to Cork with the baby. Things got tough. I’d always wanted to play my own music – it was partly why I left Ireland. I was lucky I got to do that for a long time. But when you become a mum your children become the priority. That’s when playing my own music became not a priority.
“I didn’t want to leave my daughter with [a minder] during the day. And I was adamant I’d remain a musician. I quickly ended up playing in pubs, playing a lot of music in corporate settings. It was fine, but that connection was lost. The more it went on the more my spirits were drooping. It’s the age-old situation of mothers,” says mum-of-two Kennedy, who cites the release of her 2017 album, The Beach, as “the beginning of getting back to my own music with that same fire and enthusiasm”.
The germ of the idea for her upcoming show happened, quite fittingly, in that quintessential Cork space – the English Market. Kennedy ran into Cork author Ethel Crowley and the two had coffee.
“She was working on a book about [adventure travel writer] Dervla Murphy. I’m a huge Dervla Murphy fan so I asked, if I composed a song [The Maverick] about Dervla, could I play it at the book launch, which I did.”
Around that time of covid-19 lockdowns, Kennedy was doing livestreams – and telling lots of stories about her songs. Listener response was very positive.
“The feedback was to develop this side of my show. I had songs written about women already. I thought maybe I could do a show about the women who inspired me.”
Natural Woman will feature Kennedy’s songs about women including World War II humanitarian aid worker Mary Elmes, Vicky Phelan, Dervla Murphy, Sexual Violence Centre founder Mary Crilly and Caitriona Twomey of Cork Penny Dinners.
“They’re all women of huge courage and love,” says Kennedy, who wants to celebrate this goodness, having experienced it profoundly herself, particularly in recent years.
“My parents both passed away in the last five years – we [their children] cared for them at home. And the carers who helped us look after my mum in particular were incredible.
“They showed me the real beauty of goodness. I realised there are angels here on earth. That’s a huge reason why the show came about.”
- Natural Woman, a celebration of exceptional women in song and story, including readings by author Ethel Crowley, launches at the CAT Club, Thursday, March 28. https://www.fionakennedy.ie/