We are just past the old Irish festival of Lughnasa or Lughnasadh. Not that I’d ever say Dad was a man of the land, but I think something always stirred in him around this time. This ancient pagan festival marks the start of the harvest season and potentially (hopefully) a time of plenty. According to…

Dad reminisced about his rock ‘n’ roll days, but he never talked it up. He spoofed every now and then, but it never took him long to return to the grim reality. He enjoyed peeking behind the curtain a little more than being on stage. He worked out early on that one needed to be…

In case you have been under a rock, Patrick Kielty is the new host of RTÉ’s The Late Late Show. He is the fourth permanent presenter of the programme – one of the world’s longest running late-night talk shows – since 1962. According to the BBC, Kielty said he was “absolutely thrilled”. And that it…

We are taking a trip down memory lane this week looking at the infamous ‘On the Air’ series and the episodes that capture the wackiest and surreal moments of Dad’s adventure on the airwaves. Gerry’s Bad Day During Dad’s career, journalists and radio professionals would always ask him how he prepared for his show and…

Dad was never a big fan of fiddle-dee-dee music. But he thought Irish musicians, including Christy Moore were among the best in the world. Maybe it was due to all the time he spent in Shandrum Co. Donegal. He was surrounded by “traditional music” so it never became a special thing. It was just something…

Every year it was the same. The conversations would start at the Christmas table: I could do with a wee holiday, you know….. And our response would be to tell Dad to stop talking about it. That we hadn’t even gotten Christmas Day over. Or it was far too early in the year to start…

As Valentine’s Day approaches, some of us will wonder what to buy our beloved. And some of the less romantic among us won’t – complaining that it’s just another Hallmark Card celebration… Gerry was very much in the nostalgia camp. Every year he went out to buy twelve red roses. Very romantic! And being a…

On 24th September 2019, long time friend and former colleague of Dad’s Robin Elliott organised a special charity evening at the Grand Opera House ‘Remembering Gerry Anderson‘. Robin put together a brilliant array of Ireland’s top entertainers that included Brian Kennedy, The Adventures, The Miami Showband, Bronagh Gallagher, Rose-Marie, Malachi Cush, Mirenda Rosenberg, Jim Brown,…

There is no doubt that Gerry was a people person. And there’s nothing he liked more than people watching. Not in a judgy or nosey way. He loved to study and observe people as they went about their daily lives. I am not sure when it started. But I think that studying social anthropology at…

Mark Patterson from BBC Radio Foyle has been looking back on legendary bands from Derry recently. Today it was my turn to join Colum Arbuckle and Jim Whiteside to reminisce about Toejam. Although Colum and Jim were doing most of the story telling considering I was still in a nappy when Toejam hit the scene!…