Dan O’Dowd Road Trip

“I always laugh when I think of Dan Dowd and me goin’ up in the Dublin Mountains to play for some courier of Bard Fililte or some other group (of) people like that. They took pictures of us with girls dancing^* and scenes … beautiful scenes. And we were dressed … Dan had a bawneen and I think I had a kind of an Aran sweater, I don’t know whether I’d a crois or anything.

But this man came from Dublin airport in a fright lookin’ for me one morning and I never heard a word about it (in advance). He arrived in and his heart up to his mouth lookin’ for me and he had Dan Down lined up. He had a taxi waitin’ and we were whirled up in to the Dublin Mountains, ah, sure that was twenty years ago and we was mad for a day out! And I didn’t like the look of Dan when we picked him up anyway and he sez:

‘What’s this caper about, John? Do you know anything about it?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” sez I. “Tis some people that we’re goin’ to do something for some advertising group.”

Well, our whole day was gone anyway and we didn’t know what ’twas all about, but we had played in half a dozen spots in Glencree and beautiful … near the waterfalls and there was another group of dancers there and we played like hell, but sure our music wasn’t taken at all but our photos was taken very often.

So we got back home to the hotel that night. We went back in to the Gresham Hotel. Oh, they put up a big feed and when we had every­thing et, man, we thought we had the greatest day in our lives! So a man came up with a big sheet of paper. ‘Twas a big (contract). Oh there was plenty of small print on it. That time, of course, we didn’t read it.

“Sign that,” sez he to us.

And the two eejits signed it. We never read it, of course.

“What would ye be expectin’?” sez he to me.

I looked over at Dan looked over at me as much as to says “What could we expect after we were treated?”

“Yerra,” sez I, “a fiver a man will do us anyway.”

And he gave me the ten pound and I walked over to Dan and I gave him five. “Ah, John, you’ve the man robbed,” sez he.

Well, our pictures appeared from Bombay to California, all round the world. They were in every window that I looked in to for the last twenty years and they’re there yet. Even one of ’em was taken by the

Gallowglass (Ceili Band) and they put our pictures in front of the sleeve of their record and the record sold on the head of it. And they never came and asked us our permission, or said “Twould be nice if ye agreed.” I know that we can’t do (anything) because we had signed away our rights, you see. So that’s one story anyway. So Dan and me decided that .we’d make a record one time in lieu of that but it never turned out. So that’s the end of that story anyways you can caption it “the day Dan and me was taken me was taken for a ride!”