Cavan band streamed ‘all over the world’

Just over 18 months after their debut, Cavan band Marcus Magee and The Hollaw Men are continuing to make sound waves across the country.

With gigs coming up in Dublin, Cavan and Galway, band lead Marcus Magee spoke to The Anglo-Celt about the release of their first album and what lies in the can for the second.

Firstly though, the musician songwriter reluctantly shares the meaning behind the band name; Marcus Magee and The Hollaw Men.

“They say you should never explain your band name,” the Kill man laughs.

Aside from An Cabhán translating to ‘the hollow’ in English, people in the area have also adopted ‘hallow’ as a slang way of saying hollow. Despite this being a substantial explanation, surely something that would surely satisfy nosey reporters, the father of three launches into what lies behind The Hollaw Men.

“I’ll tell ya,” he says.

Himself, his wife Julie Magee Karlshoj who is also a band member, and their three kids live on an organic farm in Kill, formerly his grandmother’s.

“The house was known as The Hollaw Man’s because it’s down in a hallow,” he explains, full Cavan twang now in force.

“I’ve been writing music for twenty years and, before this whole cancer diagnosis and all that, the band wouldn’t have happened, probably the album wouldn’t have happened.

“It most definitely wouldn’t have happened,” he corrects.

Marcus was diagnosed with cancer in his colon, which spread to his liver, a progression that forced him to stop chemotherapy treatment. He underwent an operation to remove the tumour on his liver. He then went on immunotherapy treatment, his last round of which is this week.

“I’m two years’ clear,” he said.

Before his diagnosis, he had thought about releasing his music, however admits to being “conscious about what people thought” of his genre of music revealing sombre, melancholy emotions.

“I’m quite a happy person, really outgoing and my music is on a bit of the darker side and I wrote them feelings and thoughts that I probably wouldn’t express in my everyday life.

“I was going to go under the name The Hollaw Man from the house and I thought it was just a cool name and not under my own name.

“That was the main reason,” he admits, explaining how he settled on the name.

“I didn’t want to be hiding anymore I suppose and I wanted to put my music out there so I went with my own name and the band is The Hollaw Men.”

A former project manager with Galetech, Marcus is now over land and design with the company and runs his own business, Rural Adventure Tours. Before his diagnosis, his passion for music was pushed backstage.

“Before I was that busy with life, with everything that I had actually stopped playing music, I stopped writing and my guitar broke.

“When I started to go through treatment, I sent my guitar away to get fixed and I started writing again.

“I said if I get out the other side of this, I want to do something with this music.

“I didn’t really want or expect anything back from it, it’s just one of those things that I felt I needed to do.”

The band played a sell-out show in the Cavan Town Hall Arts Centre just over 18 months ago, on a date given to him exactly one year after his diagnosis. That trend continued and they have released an 11-song album, which they played at the Cavan Arts Festival, a “fantastic” event.

“We had launched the album in Dublin, the Sugar Club, and then the Cavan Arts Festival was our Cavan launch.

“Just the atmosphere of the festival, it was really cool to be a part of it.”

On July 18, they will play Whelan’s in Dublin.

“We’re delighted to get accepted into there because it’s an iconic venue for our type of music.

“I think it was a great way for us to maybe branch out in terms of a new audience.”

They will then go on to play Róisín Dubh in Galway on September 19, which Marcus “loved going to back in the day”.

Their debut album, “a mix of everything and anything” from blues to folk to rock and elements of trad written over different stages in Marcus’ life over the past 20 years is being streamed “all over the world” on Spotify.

“Whatever about friends and family and the feedback locally which is great, it’s amazing to get feedback from people who have no link to us at all.”

New album

The second release is already in the works, although the Cootehill man is unsure if this will comprise singles of an album. The next work will be inspired by all old Cavan songs that were “forgotten”. Marcus researched the National Folklore Collecton on the Dúchas archive, which was created in the 1930s.

“The Irish government sent out children into the locality all across Ireland to document local folklore, local music, songs, poems, any stories.

“You can still see the handwritten manuscripts.

“There was loads of lyrics of songs documented, I picked up some songs from the elders in my community,” he said, detailing how they found older songs and spoke to older musicians in the community.

“We done a night of these old Cavan songs,” he said, many of which included traditionals such as Come Back Paddy Reilly, Cavan Girl and The Hackler from Grousehall.

“We done a different version of them, we did this one night and the aim was to record it for sure.

“I’m writing more songs now as well, stuff that I’m really excited about,” he said, adding that he’s trying to find the “right time” to go back to the recording studio while enjoying the success of the first album.

Recently, Marcus started playing with his local GAA club again Kill Shamrocks, another thing he had aspired to do but had put to the sidelines.

“I’m 41 and by far the oldest person on the team but it’s been great.”

He shared what his experience has taught him.

“One thing that I learned, [is] to reflect and see what you really want to do, what’s your priorities in life and have no regrets.”

Good advice indeed.